Varanasi Morphological Evolution in Layers

Drawing

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Victoria and Albert Museum

London, United Kingdom

It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.

Checked: 13 days ago
In this state since: Sep 25, 2026
Source: The museum

On the map Museum page

About the work

This diagram by Anthony Acciavatti displays the evolution of the city of Varanasi around the left bank of the river bend. Acciavatti’s Ganges Water Machine project is the first research project to comprehensively map India’s Ganges River Basin, one of the most fertile, populous and infrastructure-heavy river valleys on the planet, home to more than 600 million people. From 2005 to 2015, he travelled by foot, boat and car documenting the Ganges from its source in the Himalayas to the historic city of Patna nearly 1,000km downstream.

Read on

As Assistant Professor at Yale University, Acciavatti conducts research in the fields of architecture, geography, and technology. In his book, Ganges Water Machine: Designing New India’s Ancient River, his fieldwork and research provide a comprehensive visual recording of the territory through layering data on population density, monsoon patterns, infrastructure and agriculture.

The diagram is included in Acciavatti’s book. He displays the evolution of Varanasi by splitting up the development into 5 categories across the page: railways, settlement, streets, tanks and lakes, tubewells, and a combination of them on the right. Down the page, he depicts these features in chronological stages ranging between 1822 and 1985.

Based off previous mapping by scholars James Prinsep and R. L. Singh, the culmination shows the rapid growth of the city westward as it is bounded by the Assi River south, the Varuna River north, and the Ganges River south. This diagram of the development of Varanasi is part of Acciavatti’s research to show how human activity affects the river and the landscape.

Victoria and Albert Museum