Ganges Water Machine by Anthony Acciavatti (MArch ’09) Exhibited at New Victoria and Albert East Museum
Anthony Acciavatti (MArch ’09), an architect and historian working at the intersection of landscape, science, and technology, had his award-winning project Ganges Water Machine: Designing New India’s Ancient River acquired for the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2023. Instruments, drawings, photographs, sketchbooks, and models from the project were featured in the inaugural exhibition at the new V&A East Museum, which opened to the public on April 18, 2026.
Developed over nearly two decades and first refined while Acciavatti was a student at the GSD, Ganges Water Machine visualizes the environmental volatility and monsoon rhythms of the Ganges River Basin through unconventional, self-made instruments and extensive fieldwork. He used these instruments to make a dynamic atlas—a method of visualizing how the basin cyclically changes with the monsoons.
“If we think about drawing in fashion terms, most maps are like couture by Christian Dior. They’re made for a particular body at a specific moment in time. If you gain a few kilos or lose a few kilos, they don’t fit,” says Acciavatti, “then my drawings of the Ganges are more like ready-to-wear from Uniqlo and H&M. They have a seam allowance so that they adapt to changes in shape and size and still fit.”
Ganges Water Machine was previously exhibited at triennales in Milan and Lisbon, biennales in Venice, Seoul, Rotterdam, and Quito, and in museums and galleries in Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
Acciavatti serves as the inaugural Diana Balmori Associate Professor at Yale University, in addition to his roles with Somatic Collaborative and the Ganges Lab at Collaborative Earth.
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