7. July 2014

Architecture
‘THE FIRST AND
THE ONLY ONE
ARCHITECTURE
GALLERY IN NEPAL’
Rohit K Ranjitkar, The Country
Director of KVPT
How KVPT initiated the establishment of the Architectural
Galleries?
The monuments started falling and decaying with the smack
of the great earthquake of 1934. It is obvious that the rescue
of living beings is given the first priority in the time of
crisis and the arts and heritages are left out-of-the-way. The
devastated major monuments were hastily reconstructed
during a period of material scarcity after the earthquake,
leaving many buildings in a fragile condition.
KVPT, in association with The Department of
Archaeology of The Government of Nepal, has been
working to safeguard the historic architecture of the
Kathmandu Valley. Over the past two decades KVPT
has restored over 50 buildings throughout the valley
including palaces, temples, monasteries, and homes.
Since 2006 KVPT has been working primarily on
the complete restoration and adaptive re-use of the
historical palace complex adjacent to Patan Durbar
square. A number of organizations and individuals
including The Department of Archaeology of The
Government of Nepal, US Ambassadors Fund for
Cultural Preservation, The Government of The Federal
Republic of Germany, Prince Claus Fund for Culture
And Development, The Prince’s Charities, Sumitomo
Foundation, Nepal Investment Bank, Lamu Amatya,
Ludwig Kuttner & Beatrix Ost, Prithivi B. Pande &
Pratima Pande, University of Applied Arts in Vienna have
supported to make the restoration project a success.
Patan Palace Restoration Project is KVPT’s largest
program of works to date, encompassing the
restoration and conservation of 2 major palace
courtyards, 3 tiered temples, 2 Shah-period public
buildings, a water tank, a step-well, a rest-house, and
a large urban garden. The oldest inscription in the
area dates back to a Licchavi monastery from the 8th
century, but most of the existing structures were built
by the Malla kings in the 17th century. The palace was
abandoned by royalty in 1769 when the Shah dynasty
captured the Malla kingdoms and shifted the seat of
power to Kathmandu.
Over the course of the 20th century the monuments of
the Patan Palace were encroached by various government
offices for other purposes leaving it suffer from neglect and
decay. Sundari Chowk, for example, housed police station
at the time when a documentation project started in 1993.
Similarly, the negative impact of today’s development
pressures has been another threat for the monuments in
this square. With the mission of safeguarding the threatened
architectural heritage, KVPT launched The Patan Palace
Restoration Project. Though the Architecture Gallery was
not in original plan, with an objective of preserving the
monuments and making the palace self sustaining, we
established architecture gallery. This is the first and the only
one architecture gallery in Nepal.
How far is the dream to come true?
Besides the complete restoration of the Patan durbar
complex, the gallery is under development and there are a
lot of things to do. We are focused on the elements of the
architecture like tundals and pillars and we have been able to
exhibit only a few things. We have only been able to give the
captions but the sub captions for individual exhibit are yet to
be given.
Now we are working on the north wing. We are thinking
about the possibility of establishing a proper audio-visual
exhibition area with an objective of contributing for the
proper documentation and archiving. We have not been
able to make the proper use of the rooms at Mulchowk yet.
We are thinking of allocating a space for the temporary
exhibition of rescued monuments, too. Mulchowk Gallery
exhibits objects whereas we are planning to make Sundari
Chowk, which is under restoration, a gallery of drawings and
facsimiles of historic paintings.
Your dream as a conservation architect?
Nepal’s identity is its architecture. There is only ours
in our architecture; our architecture is originally ours. I
wish all the monuments were preserved - It can be one
of the main resources for our prosperity. There seems
to be a misconception about the monuments: only the
temples, palaces and idol are not monuments; surrounding
atmosphere including private houses are also monuments.
It should be taken as a composite whole and, thus, the
development or other construction should go well with
the surrounding atmosphere of the space. I wish the
owners of the private house as well would step ahead for
the preservation of monuments. May every individual be
conscious of its importance and start preserving monuments
right from individual level!
june 2014 / 35