In Profile: James Wescoat
It is a long way from the gardens of India’s Taj Mahal to the Colorado River, which tumbles out of the Rocky Mountains and runs through the southwestern United States, sustaining tens of millions of Americans. But the two places are closely linked in the work of James Wescoat, MIT’s Aga Khan Professor of Architecture.Wescoat, 58, is a landscape architect and geographer who specializes in the study of water, using a decidedly interdisciplinary approach. An expert on the grand Mughal gardens built in the 16th and 17th centuries in what is now India and Pakistan, Wescoat applies his insights from South Asia’s distant past to the use of water in contemporary America as well as Asia. “Water has been the unifying theme in my work,” said Wescoat. “Especially the study of water-conserving design across different scales, regions and cultures.” This theme has fully emerged after decades of fieldwork by Wescoat...