The Yamuna River Project, New Delhi Urban Ecologies is one of the world’s
ten best architectural books of 2018

Yamuna River Project, New Delhi Urban Ecologies, authored by Iñaki Alday (Dean of the
Tulane School of Architecture) and Pankaj Vir Gupta (Professor of Architecture at the University
of Virginia), has been awarded as one of the world’s ten best architectural books of 2018 by the
Frankfurt Book Fair and the German Museum of Architecture (DAM). The book has been
published by ACTAR Publishers and it is available in bookstores and online.
 
2018 is the tenth time the Frankfurt Book Fair and Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM) have
bestowed the International DAM Architectural Book Award. Now highly respected, the prize, the
only one of its kind honors the best architectural books in a year. 96 architectural and art book
publishers from all over the world accepted the joint invitation to participate. On September 04,
2018 a jury made up of external experts and representatives of DAM met to select the year’s ten
best architectural books from 238 entries. They based their decision on criteria such as design,
content, quality of material and finishing, innovation, and topicality.
 
About the book:
As one of the most rapidly urbanizing cities in the developing world, New Delhi confronts
enormous challenges of urban and social equity at a time of profound economic and climatic
uncertainty. As a result, the citizens of the world’s largest democracy live amidst extreme
environmental degradation. Existing governance structures have been hard pressed to cope
with the pace of the complex and rapidly evolving dynamics of economic and climate change.
Toxic air and septic waters are simply collateral damage in this circumstance. They are the
indicator of complex urban problems that need a holistic and multidisciplinary approach. The
Yamuna River Project aims to help the city of New Delhi and its stakeholders reimagine and
transform the sacred, yet polluted, Yamuna River by offering a research based solution for
dysfunctional river-city environments.

About the authors:
Iñaki Alday is the Dean and Koch Chair in Architecture at Tulane University. He is principal of
aldayjover architecture and landscape, and has previously written The Water Park (Actar, 2008)
and Aprendiendo de Todas sus Casas (UPC 1996). Pankaj Vir Gupta is Professor of
Architecture at the University of Virginia and principal of Vir Mueller Architects in Delhi. He is co-
author of the book Golconde – The Introduction of Modernism in India (Urban Crayon Press).
Alday and Vir Gupta founded the Yamuna River Project research initiative at the University of
Virginia School of Architecture in 2014. The Yamuna River Project was the first pan-university
research project in the history of the institution. Today, the project has expanded to encompass
academic and institutional partners including the Embassy of Spain in India, Tulane University
and the Delhi Jal Board in India, collaborating with local and national governments, agencies
and non-profit organizations.



featured by the German Architecture Museum 

featured on Tulane University News