Agrasen Ki Baoli, Delhi.
Source:- http://www.victorialautman.com/india.html
India's Forgotten Stepwells.
By Victoria S. Lautman.
It’s hard to imagine an entire category of architecture slipping off history’s grid, and yet that seems to be the case with India’s incomparable stepwells. Never heard of ‘em? Don’t fret, you’re not alone: millions of tourists – and any number of locals - lured to the subcontinent’s palaces, forts, tombs, and temples are oblivious to these centuries-old water-structures that can even be found hiding-in-plain-sight close to thronged destinations like Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi or Agra’s Taj Mahal.
But now, India’s burgeoning water crisis might lead to redemption for at least some of these subterranean edifices, which are being re-evaluated for their ability to collect and store water. With any luck, tourist itineraries will also start incorporating what are otherwise an “endangered species” of the architecture world.
Frances.
Mertani Baoli, Jhunjhunu.
Source:- http://www.victorialautman.com/india.html
By Victoria S. lautman.
Rudimentary stepwells first appeared in India between the 2nd and 4th centuries A.D., born of necessity in a capricious climate zone bone-dry for much of the year followed by torrential monsoon rains for many weeks. 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, stepwell construction evolved so that by the 11th century they were astoundingly complex feats of engineering, architecture, and art.
Frances.
More images to follow....
Rani Ki Vav, Patan.
Source:- http://www.victorialautman.com/india.html
By Victoria S. lautman.
Construction of stepwells involved not just the sinking of a typical deep cylinder from which water could be hauled, but the careful placement of an adjacent, stone-lined “trench” that, once a long staircase and side ledges were embedded, allowed access to the ever-fluctuating water level which flowed through an opening in the well cylinder. In dry seasons, every step – which could number over a hundred - had to be negotiated to reach the bottom story. But during rainy seasons, a parallel function kicked in and the trench transformed into a large cistern, filling to capacity and submerging the steps sometimes to the surface. This ingenious system for water preservation continued for a millennium.
Frances.
More images to follow....
Madha Vav, Vadhaven.
Source:- http://www.victorialautman.com/india.html
By Victoria S. Lautman.
In many wells – particularly those in Gujarat – covered “pavilions” punctuated each successive level, accessed by narrow ledges as the water level rose, and providing vital shade while also buttressing walls against the intense pressure. For this same reason, most stepwells gradually narrow from the surface to the lowest tier underground, where the temperature is refreshingly cool. By building down into the earth rather than the expected “up”, a sort of reverse architecture was created and, since many stepwells have little presence above the surface other than a low masonry wall, a sudden encounter with one of these vertiginous, man-made chasms generates both a sense of utter surprise and total dislocation. Once inside, the telescoping views, towering pavilions, and the powerful play of light and shadow are equally disorienting, while also making them devilishly difficult to photograph.
Frances.
More images to follow....
Neemrana Baoli, Neemrana, Rajasthan.
Source:- http://www.victorialautman.com/india.html
By Victoria S. Lautman.
More images to follow....
Neemrana Baoli, Neemrana, Rajasthan.
Source:- http://www.victorialautman.com/india.html
By Victoria S. Lautman.
By the 19th-century, several thousand stepwells in varying degrees of grandeur are estimated to have been built throughout India, in cities, villages, and eventually also in private gardens where they’re known as “retreat wells”. But stepwells also proliferated along crucial, remote trade routes where travelers and pilgrims could park their animals and take shelter in covered arcades. They were the ultimate public monuments, available to both genders, every religion, seemingly anyone at all but for the lowest-caste Hindu. It was considered extremely meritorious to commission a stepwell, an earthbound bastion against Eternity, and it’s believed that a quarter of these wealthy or powerful philanthropists were female. Considering that fetching water was (and is still) assigned to women, the stepwells would have provided a reprieve in otherwise regimented lives, and gathering down in the village vav was surely an important social activity.
Frances.
More images to follow....
Mukundpura Baoli, Narnaul.
Source:- http://www.victorialautman.com/india.html
By Victoria S. Lautman.
Stepwells fall into similar categories based on their scale, layout, materials, and shape: they can be rectangular, circular, or even L-shaped, can be built from masonry, rubble or brick, and have as many as four separate entrances. But no two are identical and - whether simple and utilitarian, or complex and ornamented - each has a unique character. Much depends on where, when, and by whom they were commissioned, with Hindu structures functioning as bona-fide subterranean temples, replete with carved images of the male and female deities to whom the stepwells were dedicated. These sculptures formed a spiritual backdrop for ritual bathing, prayers and offerings that played an important role in many Hindu stepwells and despite a lack of accessible ground water, a number continue today as active temples, for instance the 11th-century Mata Bhavani vav in Ahmedabad.
Frances.
Rani Ki Vav, Patan.
Source:-http://www.victorialautman.com/india.html
By Victoria S. Lautman.
Nowhere was there a more elaborate backdrop for worship planned than at India’s best-known stepwell, the Rani ki vav (Queen’s Well) two hours away in Patan. Commissioned by Queen Udayamati around 1060 A.D. to commemorate her deceased spouse, the enormous scale – 210 feet long by 65 wide – probably contributed to disastrous flooding that buried the vav for nearly a thousand years under sand and mud close to its completion. The builders realized they were attempting something risky, adding extra buttressing and massive support walls, but to no avail. In the 1980’s, the excavation and restoration of Rani ki vav (which is hoped to achieve UNESCO World Heritage status soon) were completed but by then, long-exposed columns on the first tier had been hauled off to build the nearby 18th-century Bahadur Singh ki vav, now completely encroached by homes.
Frances.
More images to follow....
Rani Ki Vav, Patan.
Source:-http://www.victorialautman.com/india.html
By Victoria S. Lautman.
Nowhere was there a more elaborate backdrop for worship planned than at India’s best-known stepwell, the Rani ki vav (Queen’s Well) two hours away in Patan. Commissioned by Queen Udayamati around 1060 A.D. to commemorate her deceased spouse, the enormous scale – 210 feet long by 65 wide – probably contributed to disastrous flooding that buried the vav for nearly a thousand years under sand and mud close to its completion. The builders realized they were attempting something risky, adding extra buttressing and massive support walls, but to no avail. In the 1980’s, the excavation and restoration of Rani ki vav (which is hoped to achieve UNESCO World Heritage status soon) were completed but by then, long-exposed columns on the first tier had been hauled off to build the nearby 18th-century Bahadur Singh ki vav, now completely encroached by homes.
Frances.
More images to follow....
I like my mind and the places it takes me.
Bahadur Singh Ki Vav, Patan.
Source:- http://www.victorialautman.com/india.html
By Victoria S. Lautman.
Once Muslim rulers began to dominate in India (dates differ depending on the area) stepwells shifted in their design both structurally and decoratively. Hindu builders used trabeate (or post and lintel) construction with corbel domes, Muslims introduced the arch and “true” dome. Hindu artists carved sculptures and friezes packed with deities, humans, and animals while Islam forbade depictions of any creatures at all. But when, for a brief period in Gujarat, the two traditions collided around 1500 A.D. a pair of brilliant offspring resulted close to the new capital of Ahmedabad, and worth a detour for anyone visiting the modernist masterworks of Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn, or B.V. Doshi.
Frances.
More images to follow....
Rudabai Vav, Adalaj.
Source:- http://www.victorialautman.com/india.html
By Victoria S. Lautman.
Both the Rudabai and Dada Harir vavs are five stories deep with octagonal subterranean pools, each commissioned by a female patroness and, although Rudabai boasts three separate entrances (a rarity), it and Dada Harir vav are conceptual cousins, built at virtually the same moment just twelve miles from one another, commissioned under Islamic authority using Hindu artisans. Each is elaborately decorated, but with a notable absence of deities and human figures, but compared to other, more somber Islamic-commissioned stepwells, these two are positively flamboyant.
Rudabai Vav, Adalaj.
Frances.
Dada Harir, Ahmedabad.
Source:- http://www.victorialautman.com/india.html
By Victoria S. Lautman.
As for the current state of stepwells, a hand-full are in relatively decent condition, particularly those few where tourists might materialize. But for most, the prevailing condition is simply deplorable due to a host of reasons. For one, under the British Raj, stepwells were deemed unhygienic breeding grounds for disease and parasites and were consequently barricaded, filled in, or otherwise destroyed. “Modern” substitutes like village taps, plumbing, and water tanks also eliminated the physical need for stepwells, if not the social and spiritual aspects. As obsolescence set in, stepwells were ignored by their communities, became garbage dumps and latrines, while others were repurposed as storage areas, mined for their stone, or just left to decay.
Frances.
More images to follow....
Trashed Anonymous Baoli, Fatehpur.
Mertani Baoli, Jhunjhunu.
Source:- http://www.victorialautman.com/india.html
Victoria S. Lautman.
More images to follow....
Takht Baoli, Narnaul.
Takht Baoli, Narnaul.
Source:- http://www.victorialautman.com/india.html
By Victoria S. Lautman.
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.
Gandhaki Ki Baoli, Delhi.
Source:- http://www.victorialautman.com/india.html
By Victoria S. Lautman.
Bhamaria Vav, Mehmedabad.
Anonymous Baoli (possibly Nagphuria ke Baoli, Narnaul).
Madha Vav, Vadhavan
Helical Vav, Champaner.
Source:- http://www.victorialautman.com/india.html
By Victoria S. Lautman.
Source:- http://whenonearth.net/walk-the-3500...f-chand-baori/
Link to the full article & web site where more images can be found.
Chand Baori: India’s Sublime Ancient Stepwell
If M.C. Escher ever designed stepwells in India 1000 years before he was born, the Chand Baori was probably his design. Located in the village of Abhaneri near Jaipur in the Indian state of Rajasthan,
Chand Baori is the one of the deepest and largest stepwells in India. Chand Baori was commissioned by King Chanda in the 9th century to give the local population easy access to clean ground water at the bottom of the well. Because the steps of the well made it possible for regular villagers to descend down to fetch water, Chand Baori became a popular gathering place, especially during periods of hot weather when the temperature at the bottom of the well would be several degrees cooler than at surface.
The well’s 3,500 narrow steps descend down 12 stories in a dizzying pattern that would give even Felix Baumgartner a feeling of vertigo (okay, so we exaggerate). Chand Baori is no longer an active well and is maintained by the Archeological Survey of India. The algae-covered green water at the bottom of the well does not exactly invoke feelings of refreshment, but certainly adds an otherworldy element to this already mystical structure.
Building stepwells has been a necessity under northern India’s hot summers. The earliest were made around 550 AD, but famous ones like Chand Baori were made during medieval times. And from those times, over 3,000 stepwells were built in India’s two northern states.
But nowadays, don’t expect to still see thousands of them for some have gone dry, old, filled with trash and abandoned; unlike the preserved ancient stepwells like Chand Baori, Agrasen Ki Baoli, Rani Ki Ji Baori, and Adalaj Vav.
Chand Baori isn’t only visited by the locals before just to get clean water for drinking and cooking. Some even had stayed here to bathe, meditate and pray because for Hindus, water is sacred and it represents the boundary between heaven and Earth.
And didn’t you know that this not-so-popular site was actually featured in Hollywood films like “The Fall” (2006) and “The Dark Knight Rises” (Batman, 2012)?
If you plan on going to Jaipur and head to Taj Mahal right after, get this chance right away to get off route and stop over Chand Baori which you can find through the ruined Harshad Mata temple right beside it. Going there could take you for 2 hours from Jaipur by cab, or longer especially if your driver isn’t familiar with the place. Chand Baori isn’t a popular tourist spot and even the locals may not instruct you the precise way to the stepwell, so better be sure you have enough time or better join tours that include the surprising Chand Baori.
It’s best to visit the village and stepwell from October to March. Be sure that you have packed food and water for there aren’t any facilities around the area.
Frances.
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=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.
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.
via Frances @ToT
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