Musi River Historic Buildings on 2025 World Monuments Watch

2025 World Monuments Watch highlights Musi River Historic Buildings in Hyderabad, emphasizing heritage preservation for a sustainable future.

The ‘Musi River Historic Buildings’ in Hyderabad have been put on the 2025 World Monuments Watch, in an announcement made by the New York-based organisation on late on Wednesday. Gujarat’s ‘Bhuj Historic Water Systems’ is the other site in India named by the WMF on its list of 25-sites facing risk due to the water crisis and climate change. 

“As Hyderabad confronts environmental challenges and rapid change, World Monuments Fund highlights heritage as a pathway for rejuvenation alongside environmental conservation and climate adaptation,” says the WMF document that puts it on the watch.

“Landmarks like the High Court, State Central Library, Osmania General Hospital, City College, and the former British Residency, now a women’s university, highlight the waterfront’s civic legacy,” said a media release by WMF ahead of its release of list that includes a pick of sites from 29 countries that it feels need help advocacy and protection. 

The 2025 World Monuments Watch spotlights the Musi River Historic Buildings at a key moment in the city’s history. It comes just in time when the present Congress government is pursuing an aggressive and challenging programme for rejuvenation of the river and its surroundings.

“The Watch underscores World Monument Fund’s commitment to ensuring that heritage preservation not only honors the past but actively contributes to building a more sustainable, inclusive, and resilient future for communities around the world and beyond,” wrote WMF President & CEO, Bénédicte de Montlaur in a media statement.

The biennial nomination based advocacy programme of the New York-based organisation spotlights building and sites facing tourism, conflict, climate change and natural disasters. The OGH is part of the ‘Built Heritage of the Musi River’. “Historic buildings like Osmania General Hospital, if preserved and reactivated, can be invaluable assets for Hyderabad’s future. More than that, built heritage—from grand landmarks to everyday structures—offers a lens to understand the shared uses of space that have given the Musi River meaning and life over time,” says the announcement.