India's Forgotten Stepwells.
India's Forgotten Stepwells.
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Ganga Vav, Vadhaven.
Depleted water-tables from unregulated pumping have caused many of the wells to dry up, and when water is present, it’s generally afloat with garbage or grown over with plant-life from lack of attention, even in currently-active temple wells.
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Gandhaki Ki Baoli, Delhi.
Source:- http://www.victorialautman.com/india.html
By Victoria S. Lautman.
India's Forgotten Stepwells.
India's Disappearing Stepwells.
http://youtu.be/9xDUa30jn0s
India's disappearing Stepwells.
Short Video 6:00
Rani Ni Vav, Patan Gujarat, India. Queens Stepwell.
http://youtu.be/MJGO3ySQ13o
Rani Ni Vav, Patan Gujarat, India.
Recent UNESCO's World Heritage Site. Queens Stepwell.
Short video 2:31.
Frances.
Nahargarh Fort Step Well : Jaipur, Rajasthan.
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Nahargarh Fort Step Well. Jaipur, Rajasthan.
Source:- https://www.quora.com/Where-are-some...itecture-works
By Abhilash Padhi.
Welcome to the neglected step-wells of India:
Rudimentary step-wells first appeared in India between the 2nd and 4th centuries A.D, born of necessity in a capricious climate zone. It was essential to guarantee a year-round water-supply for drinking, bathing, irrigation and washing, particularly in the arid states of Gujarat (where they’re called vavs) and Rajasthan (where they’re baoli, baori, or bawdi), where the water table could be inconveniently buried ten-stories or more underground. Over the centuries, step-well construction evolved so that by the 11th century they were astoundingly complex feats of engineering, architecture, and art, which encompassed the religion too, making those wells sacred, and signified an inverted Hindu temple. Overall, a beautiful example of fractals in architecture.
Frances.
Pana Meena, Amber, Rajasthan.
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(Image: Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Flowers, London)
Source:- https://www.newscientist.com/article...t-indian-well/
Pana Meena, Amber, Rajasthan.
ESCHER might have gawped. But this labyrinthine nest of stairs is no impossible construction. Between AD 600 and 1850, more than 3000 step wells were dug, by hand, in the Indian provinces of Gujarat and Rajasthan. Many of them had intricate staircase designs, peppered with shrines and balconies on which to linger in the afternoon heat.
They reach deep underground and provided insurance against the region’s fluctuating water supply. The stairs guided local people – women, mostly – down to the water that seeps in from nearby aquifers. During the rainy season, the wells fill up, but in the dry season, you would have to lug containers up and down the entire well. This particular well, Panna Meena ka Kund near Amber Fort in Rajasthan, has eight storeys. According to local tradition, you must use different sets of stairs to climb down and climb out.
The photograph was taken by Edward Burtynsky for his latest exhibition, Water, which opens at Flowers Gallery in London on 16 October. “I wanted to find ways to make compelling photographs about the human systems employed to redirect and control water,” he writes in the accompanying book. His research took him around the globe, from the fish farms and giant dams of China to Iceland’s glaciers and the salt flats of Mexico.
Burtynsky found it a challenge to gain enough height to capture the enormous scale of water resources and the structures we build to tap them, and had to resort to drones, aerial lifts and helicopters. He took this picture using a 15-metre pneumatic mast, with his remotely controlled camera mounted on the top.
Frances.
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