Anthony Acciavatti
Anthony Acciavatti, who works at the intersection of architecture, landscape, and the history of science and technology, was recently appointed the inaugural Diana Balmori Assistant Professor of Architecture.
He is a faculty member at the Yale School of Architecture.
Acciavatti’s scholarly interests include the histories of the environmental sciences, as well as landscape architecture and engineering since the 18th century, including cartography, agriculture, anthropology, and ecology. His publications include chapters on the first institute of design in post-independent India, the history of infrastructure and urban growth in Asia, temporary cities and agriculture in monsoonal landscapes, and the formation of new scientific disciplines like psychorheology.
His book, “Ganges Water Machine: Designing New India’s Ancient River” (Applied Research & Design, 2015), was the first comprehensive mapping and environmental history of the Ganges River Basin in over half a century. Combining fieldwork with archival research, the book is an atlas of the enterprise to transform the Ganges into the most hyper-engineered landscape in the world. In 2016 the book was awarded the John Brinckerhoff Jackson Book Prize.
He is currently completing the manuscript of his next book, “Republic of Villages,” which looks at the histories of science and environmental design in South Asia since the late-19th century.
Acciavatti trained in architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design and Harvard University, in the history of science at Princeton University, and was a Fulbright Scholar in the department of geography and town and country planning at the University of Allahabad. He was a fellow in the Agrarian Studies Program at Yale in 2016-17, and previously taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, Columbia University, and Princeton University.
Acciavatti is a principal of Somatic Collaborative in New York and a founding director of Manifest Institute, which publishes Manifest: A Journal of the Americas. He has written for The New York Times, The Public Domain Review, Cabinet, Indian Express, Architectural Design, Harvard Design Magazine, Topos, and other publications.
