KVPT’s Patan Darbar Earthquake Response Campaign - Work to Date - September 2016

menting agencies. We decided that a focus on the Patan
Darbar World Heritage Site would be the most effective
use of our resources and could serve as a sort of model.
To implement this, we envisioned a five-year Patan
Darbar Earthquake Response Campaign (now already
entering its second year). The Patan Darbar - palace and
square - are recognized as the most intact of Nepal’s historic
urban spaces and are architecturally outstanding in
context of the entire South Asian subcontinent. KVPT
has worked as part of this community for 25 years, and
this allows us to focus on five of Nepal’s most significant
structures, (Sundari Cok Palace, Char Narayana Temple,
Harishankara Temple, Vishveshvara temple, and
Krishna Mandir), as well as the manimandapas,—all of
which collapsed or were heavily damaged in the earthquake
and demand the highest level of restoration and
conservation, which no other agency is in a position to
deliver.
KVPT as model
Just as our building rescue efforts in May 2015 were an
example followed by others, KVPT’s post-earthquake
work can be developed and documented as a model for
other agencies and sites. As we work to restore Nepal’s
most important urban site, we are collaborating already
with Nepalese and other partners, including the municipality
and the Nepal Government Department of Archaeology,
which is planning several projects in Patan
Darbar, and the Austrian Government, who will restore
the Patan (art) Museum with KVPT in a coordinating
role. UNESCO was in touch early on for advice and
help with their work in Kathmandu. We feel this collaborative
approach is especially critical given rapidly
developing plans for new partners and projects, —notably
Chinese and Japanese partners at Kathmandu Royal
Square. KVPT’s 10-year project to bring up the Patan
Royal Palace Complex up as an architecture museum
now provides a natural venue to show this work to others
who may be interested.
Evolving conditions
Since the earthquake, in working to get the funding and
planning for a number of significant restoration and reconstruction
projects underway, the Trust has had to
navigate a new, still-shifting human landscape. Thirdworld
bureaucracy issues have multiplied as billions in
foreign aid suddenly pour into the world’s tenth-poorest
country. Nepal had a very hard time establishing a new
Reconstruction Authority. The Department of Archaeology’s
response to the loss of historic monuments has
been tortuous, with monument zone guidelines appearing
only in March 2016. The months-long Indian
blockade in 2015-16 wreaked havoc on materials cost
and availability. The widespread fear that traditional
buildings are unstable and should be replaced with new
construction continues to be a critical existential threat
to an enormous number of buildings that withstood the
earthquake. Addressing this larger, more complex situation
is a less obvious need than restoring buildings but
is integral to the work. In part simply because working
in this context is so complex and difficult, we consider
it part of our job, given our unique position, to gather
resources, document and circulate information, and develop
strategies that can be shared with other agencies
working in the Valley.
Strategy
Meanwhile, the situation in Nepal continues to evolve,
requiring us to adapt to and assess the ongoing political
and economic aftershocks. As there is no national institution
with specialized technical capacity in seismic-related
preservation issues, KVPT—the only international
agency registered in the field—considers it our role
to share information, promote dialogue, and provide
model projects. We believe that with the overwhelming
scope of restoration projects ahead, we should take a
two-pronged approach: 1) focus strategically on a group
of preservation projects we can successfully manage; and
2) broaden our impact by better documenting, analyzing,
and making available information on our long and
unique experience in Kathmandu Valley preservation, in
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