5. September - October 2010

ANALYSIS
The Trauma Centre, recently
built through technical
assistance and funding
from India, occupies a very
prominent urban site on the
Tundikhel, but its gesture to
the city as a large architectural
addition is feeble.
The Narayanhiti
Palace designed by
American architect,
Benjamin Polk.
The architecture of
the Chinese project
grants, the Birendra
International
Convention Centre
and the new Civil
Hospital, although
occupying important
and visible sites, are
indifferent to making
any connection to
the city.
the Ministry of Health, decided to
put a metal roof over the terraces to
create more floor space. The local
architecture community protested
by taking out public protests. A
media campaign was launched,
and simultaneously a legal case
was filed in the apex court by the
Society of Nepalese Architects.
However, the bureaucrats of the
ministry prevailed, since rules to
protect contemporary building as
cultural assets were feeble.
Tadao Ando, the renowned
Japanese architect, designed a
Women’s and Children’s hospital
in Butwal, which was supported by
a Japanese Charity Organisation
(AMDA) in the 90's. Benjamin Polk,
the American architect, designed
the new Narayanhiti Royal Palace.
Some of the leading Indian
architects also made their mark.
Achyut Kanvinde designed the
Rampur Agricultural Campus and
Habib Rahman designed buildings
in the TU Campus.
Barring Polk’s Narayanhiti Palace,
which sits almost in the middle
of the City restructuring that took
place under King Mahendra, none
of the other projects really captured
the imagination of either the public
nor the architects. In the design
of the new Royal Palace building
at the top of a newly created
boulevard, Polk achieved a rare
resolution of the issue of cultural
identity and monumentality in a
modern project without being very
extravagant or resorting to kitsch.
enthusiasm that it perhaps deserved. It also took a long time to
get off the ground. Subsequently when it did pick up momentum, it
fell prey to speculative development, both within the Master Plan
area and outside it. Its contribution to contemporary architecture
thinking has been very limited too.
Among the most famous and controversial projects in the country
is the Family Planning Centre (funded by the USAID), designed by
Louis I. Kahn. This project, among Kahn’s last projects, was designed
in a largely governmental institutional area. Kahn even prepared
a Master Plan of the entire area, which was followed only partially.
Kahn designed a symmetrical composition of exposed brick piers
interspersed by vertical strips of wooden windows. The building
was topped off by a one-store high exposed brick parapet with
deep punctures enclosing large roof terraces (possibly meant to be
‘courtyards in the sky’). In 1995, the current resident of the building,
The 3rd. Stream: Works of Foreign Design ‘Invisible’
Consortiums in Public Projects
The third stream of work by foreign architects relates to the
construction of large and programmatically complex building
complexes, which were built as technical assistance projects. The
bilateral agencies which executed these projects brought their own
consortium of architects/consultants to ensure a certain standard
in design and construction.
Most of these projects required the design and construction of
building types which had no precedence in the Valley. Therefore
functional design, ease of maintenance, limitations of construction
technology in a developing country and minimizing use of energy,
were the principal design considerations in these projects.
Generally, architectural scale and materials which fit in easily
www.spacesnepal.com 70
September-October 2010