Author

Rohit RANJITKAR
Country Director, Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust
Email: rohit.ranjitkar@kvptnepal.org

 

Abstract

Patan Darbar Square, a historic site in the Kathmandu Valley, was heavily damaged in the 2015 Earthquake, which caused great loss to cultural heritage. Many temples and traditional buildings collapsed or were severely damaged. This disaster highlighted the vulnerability of heritage structures, often weakened due to a lack of regular maintenance.Despite the destruction, the local community in Patan acted quickly; they protected the site, rescued valuable artefacts like statues and temple pinnacles, and moved them to the Patan Museum for safekeeping. Their swift and dedicated response showed deep care for their cultural heritage, even though they had no formal training in disaster response. The Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust, working with the Department of Archaeology, the Patan Museum, and the local community, led the rescue, documentation, and storage of artefacts. Many volunteers, police, and army personnel helped to carefully recover architectural elements from the rubble without using damaging equipment like bulldozers. All recovered items were documented, cleaned, and stored for reuse. Restoration work required careful planning, skilled artisans, and traditional materials. Damaged pieces were repaired or replicated using old photographs and expert craftsmanship. Structural reinforcements were added to strengthen the monuments and improve safety. Overall, the recovery of Patan Darbar Square has been a community-driven success, blending traditional knowledge with modern conservation techniques. It serves as an example of how heritage can be preserved even after major disasters, as long as there is collaboration, care, and commitment.

Keywords

Earthquake, Historic, Reconstruction, Structure, Monument.

 

Patan Darbar Square is one of the Monument Zones in the Kathmandu Valley, badly affected by the recent 2015 Gorkha Earthquake. We are now ten years after the devastating earthquakes that hit Nepal on 25 April 2015, and took almost 9,000 lives and destroyed a large number of cultural heritage buildings. Many major historic structures collapsed, and hundreds of private houses, shrines, and monasteries were fully or partially damaged. 

The impact was particularly devastating in the urban centers or the metropolis of Kathmandu, Patan, and Bhaktapur, as well as the smaller historic settlements of Changu Narayan, Sankhu, Bungamati, Khokana, and others. These historic structures are the showcases of the valley’s art and architecture, developed over millennia with a distinct architectural character. These heritages were developed by a community and passed on from generationto generation, which express tangible as well as intangible custom practices with their artistic expressions. None of the public monuments or private residences were ‘monotonously’ built as is done today with prototype designs. Each monument or structure was built to a custom design. 

We have archival records since the 13th century of earthquakes that struck the Valley every 90-100 years or so. We do not know much about the history of restoration or rebuilding before the 1934 earthquakes. But we do know from many photographs before the 1934 earthquake and the present condition, in the case of the 1934 tremor, that several temples and parts of the palaces were not rebuilt in the original configuration, and also that there were monuments that were not rebuilt and hence lost forever.

Besides the loss of life and the impact on the economy, the loss of physical cultural heritage was a major setback for society that resulted from the earthquake. Several iconic multi-tiered temples collapsed completely, while many of those still standing exhibited moderate to severe structural weaknesses. It was not easy to make classifications or typologies of buildings that collapsed in the earthquake, such as concrete structures or historic houses built with mud mortar and timber. One major lesson learnt was that we need to go into the different causes of collapse, rather than present the superiority of one building type over another. At the same time, there is the crucial understanding that traditional monuments, including private dwellings, were significantly damaged where periodic maintenance was not implemented. 

The recent 2015 earthquake was of a kind that hit the mud-mortar buildings the most, partly because the wooden members that are part of these buildings were rotten, due to the lack of maintenance. The fact that many of the heritage buildings (public and private) used mud mortar meant that they were vulnerable. But a faulty message seems to have gone to the public at large that mud-mortar buildings are unsafe, whereas it is the matter of maintenance (mostly of wooden members) that seems to have weakened the heritage structures. For whatever reason, it is the built public heritage that will now have to give continuity to the historical urbanscape of the Valley, with its tiered roofs, wooden struts and beams, jhingati roof tiles, bricks and mud mortar, stone statuary, bronze statuary, etc. that will have to stand testimony to millennia of historically evolved architecture. 

Fig. 1: (a)Patan Darbar Square, before and (b) after the earthquake. The two most important temples, Harishankara and Char Narayana, totally collapsed. Photographs: Rohit Ranjitkar, 2013 and April 26, 2015.

Fig. 2: (a)Bhai Degah, Patan Darbar Square. Three-tiered temple Bhai Degah in the middle, looking towards the west before the 1934 Earthquake. Photograph: circa 1920, collection Rohit Ranjitkar. (b)Bottom: The collapsed temple was rebuilt in a simplified version with a dome finish. The Court Building in the foreground lost its top level after the earthquake repair, even though only the gable wall was damaged. Photograph: Rohit Ranjitkar. 1997.

Patan Darbar Square

Naturally, the saving of human lives is always the priority in such events, rather than the rescue of artefacts. This is what happened at all sites of the Valley immediately after the earthquake, whether it was the large monument or small monuments, whether in the monument zone or outside. But in Patan Darbar Square, the local community responded quickly and rescued important objects from the rubble, mainly gilded objects, pinnacles of the collapsed temples, and the king’s statue with his consorts, etc., which were transferred to the Patan Museum courtyard for safety and security. All these elements suffered severe damage as they fell from a height. And most importantly, local stakeholders decided to close the square for security and safety reasons on the same evening and didn’t allow the people to enter the Darbar Square. They guarded the area day and night for the first couple of days until the Nepal Police took over. This shows how much the local community still cares for their heritage. It must be noted that these local communities don’t know about disaster management and risk preparedness, and have never been trained; it just so happened that they reacted to save the historic artefacts out of concern for their cultural heritage.

The post-earthquake rescue, as well as conservation and reconstruction of destroyed or damaged heritage, was a massive effort with multiple institutions, acting individually as well as in collaboration with the community. In the immediate rescue, local clubs and community members were the first responders, followed by security forces and government institutions. The rescue efforts at various sites were quite uneven. On some sites, such as Kathmandu Durbar Square, bulldozers were used on the rubble of collapsed monuments to open access for the emergency vehicles, damaging many delicate parts of the heritage sites. Whereas rescue practices were much better in the historic city of Patan, where local communities and humanitarian workers conducted very sensitive rescue efforts by hand under the initiative of the Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust (KVPT), securely bringing the salvaged architectural elements such as metal statues, carved wooden elements, stone objects, etc. for storage in the courtyards of the Patan Museum. KVPT, in coordination with the Department of Archaeology (DoA) and Patan Museum and the local community, initiated efforts to rescue artefacts and clean up the Patan Darbar Square. Remnants of the fallen temples in Patan Darbar Square were secured with the help of the Armed Police Force, Nepal Police, and the Army, as well as hundreds of volunteers and stakeholders. At the beginning of the 5th day, the Nepal Army came with a bulldozer to create an access route through the square. It took me a couple of hours to convince the troops to use the alternative access for emergency vehicles and rescue the historical elements manually before running the bulldozer. Finally, after convincing them, there were more than 350 people (army, police, and community) helping to rescue the objects manually from the square. The priority was collecting carved elements, as they are the most important artefacts, which took five days to sort out from the huge pile of earthquake rubble. All the rescued artifacts were stored in the Museum courtyards in a huge pile. Within a week and a half, all the carved wooden fragments were salvaged and started to be assembled, which were transferred to be stored safely later. Not only carved elements, other uncarved timber members were collected from the rubble, and all the brick and even reusable terracotta tiles were also collected from the rubble. 

We were proud that our rescue of artefacts happened so quickly as a result of all the cooperation between stakeholders, the community, Patan Municipality, and the Department of Archaeology, coordinated by the Trust as a Patan Darbar Earthquake Response Campaign.

Fig. 3: (a)Patan Darbar Square. Immediately after the earthquake, local people rushed to rescue the important elements manually, mainly gilded metal elements. (b)Rescue of people trapped under the rubble. It was easy to do manually with traditional building, built in mud mortar, unlike in cement concrete structures. Photographs: Suresh Lakhe. April 25, 2015.

Fig. 4: All carved elements from collapsed monuments were carried from the destroyed site and piled up in the Patan Palace courtyards for security.Photographs: Rohit Ranjitkar. April 30, 2015, and May 05, 2015.

Fig. 5: Unusable debris was collected for transport to a dumping site after reusable bricks were stacked in the square. Photographs: Rohit Ranjitkar. May 07, 2015.

Fig. 6: Local community collecting artifacts from the pile of rubble as well as segregating elements. Photograph: Thomas Kelly.

Recovery and Reconstruction 

Shoring up structurally damaged monuments - Some of the monuments did not collapse, but were severely weakened and structurally damaged. These monuments need more attention to keep them from collapsing due to the continuous aftershocks afterwards, which would cause even more damage and pose a potential risk to the people. One of the first responses immediately done by the KVPT was to shore up unstable sections of the different monuments to prevent their collapse or further damage. So, many of the monuments were supported with timber shores as they were needed for the time being until the restoration or structural reinforcement, or even needed rebuilding.

Storage of artefacts - Due to the risk of theft of artefacts as well as to save the valuable items from weathering, storage became an important activity, which would also aid later reconstruction efforts. In the melee, it was but natural that rescued artefacts were mixed up and there was no proper segregation, even as many lay people got enthusiastically involved in the rescue effort. But we were happy that all the artefacts were saved. Segregating the pieces was challenging, since artefacts from different temples were mixed. Rather than waiting and doing it later, we planned to work with our team of carpenters and wood carvers to work immediately. It is like a huge jigsaw puzzle, some of the window sets were levelled with geometric shapes, individual pieces that have circles or triangular marks to give us clues for reassembling. Almost all the pieces were assembled with the help of woodcarvers and carpenters. Every part was documented photographically before being sent to storage. 

The documentation, segregation, and storage of rescued statuary, struts, beams, tiles, and other items happened differently at different sites, based on convenience at that time period, as well as there was a lack of guidelines as well as trained personnel to carry out the work of documenting and storing.

Cataloguing / Inventories - As rebuilding might take some time to start, all the salvaged elements needed to be catalogued for use in the future so that anyone in the future could place them in the respective original location as much as possible. All the pieces were leveled as much as possible with identifications, separated into individual monuments. To maintain the ‘historicity’ of a heritage site, it is important to use as many of the original elements as possible.

Fig. 7: Left: A Couple of monuments were immediately supported, mainly the Vishveshvara Temple, which experienced substantial structural damage; all the walls were puffed out during the earthquake movements, the entire upper level of the temple was standing on the doors on four sides, and timber columns. Right: Krishna Temple, where some of the stone pillars failed and structural corner stones of the stone masonry cracked into pieces. All the structurally unstable sections were propped immediately after the earthquake. Photographs: Rohit Ranjitkar. May 22, 2015, and May 20, 2015.

Fig. 8: Left: The North Taleju top tier was dislodged from its respective place, which appeared to be in critical condition. If it were to come down, it would certainly create more damage to the lower sections of the roofs. Scaffolding was started within a week of the earthquake, and the top tier was secured to prevent further damage to lower roofs. Soldiers are seen at the bottom transferring rescued bricks from the square to the back garden. Right: Metal craftsmen disassembling the pinnacle as an emergency rescue. Photographs: Rohit Ranjitkar. May 10, 2015.

Fig. 9: Left: Salvage of the destroyed monuments being separated. Right: Carved elements were sorted and assembled right part of the sets from the pile of rescued elements before being sent to the store. Photographs: KVPT. May 02, 2015.

Fig. 10: The salvaged window assemblies of various temples, as well as other carved timber elements and struts were stored in a newly built shed. Photograph: Rohit Ranjitkar. May 9, 2015 and June 7, 2015.

Fig. 11: Left: Damaged parts were individually measured and photographed as soon as they were transferred to a safer zone. Left: Every assembled piece, as well as all the individual elements, were photographically catalogued before they were sent to the storage. Photographs: Rohit Ranjitkar. May 07, 2015.

Reconstruction Efforts 

Since 2015, the monuments at the Patan Durbar Square in Nepal have been conserved, recovered, and reconstructed with enormous efforts following the damage after a series of earthquakes. The collaborative work between KVPT and DoA, in coordination with local craftsmen, made a significant contribution in this regard with the help of the local community.

Heritage conservation and restoration works require long preparation, even in normal times. It is not an ‘Overnight job’ -- very delicate work, needs to be executed very carefully with proper skilled knowledge. We are very lucky as these traditional artisans still exist and are active, but most of the time, when contractors implement conservation works, they hire cheaper labor and try to finish quickly. This reduces the quality of the work that used to be there originally. While Nepal is rich in heritage, and there are still some individuals who carry on the building tradition of their ancestors, the society is challenged when it comes to specialists in heritage conservation. The earthquake brought down or weakened so many structures that the task of reconstruction was overwhelming. The entirety of the reconstruction of the Valley’s built heritage is human-specific, with very little mechanization other than some activities such as sawing and planing of wood. The bricks have to be laid by hand one by one, and the wooden struts and other elements have to be painstakingly carved by hand. There is also the matter of cost, as the price for sal wood (Shorea Robusta) has gone up, as has the price of artisans, given the high demand for their specialist labor.

There were unexpected new challenges that the reconstruction process had to face beyond the lack of documentation, human resources, and funding, as well as uncertainties linked directly and indirectly to the political instability that has been constant in Nepali society, from which conservation activities could not remain unaffected. There were also newer challenges to be faced at the site. To take just one example, the need to excavate the foundations of temples and conduct soil tests before starting reconstruction, for the first time, it was felt necessary to see how the base of a centuries-old monument may have been weakened by time or previous earthquakes. For the first time, the foundation of the Char Narayan temple was checked, and a soil test was conducted before the rebuilding.

Repairing of damaged elements and artefacts - To maintain a link to the past and to the original artists, artisans, and builders of centuries past, it is preferable to reuse historic elements as much as possible. Wood carvers were already working from the beginning to assemble parts from the pile of carved pieces, rescued from the rubble. They continued to repair the damaged parts and replicate the lost carved parts, which carefully fit on the transition area between new and old pieces to harmonize the appearance of the damaged objects. In earlier centuries, it would have been mandatory that these craftspeople replace all damaged components, as we believe it is not auspicious to reuse broken pieces, which is still in practice largely, only a handful of cases are following what we are doing, trying to reuse as many historic elements as possible. The hardest part of this process was to convince the community to keep the old pieces.

Fig.12: (a)Top: South Façade tympanum on the Char Narayan Temple before the earthquake. (b)Middle: The pieces of tympanum, after being cleaned and put together to form a complete set, were rescued in the rubble from the collapsed site. Some small parts were missing, and some parts were not reusable. (c)Bottom: Some lost and damaged parts were carefully replicated based on unusable pieces and a pre-earthquake photograph. Photographs: Rohit Ranjitkar. 2014, June 2015, and January 2016.

Fig.13: Repairing the three-bay doorway fromChar Narayan Temple using as much of the historic section as possible, with only unrepairable sections re-carved new part to complete the doorway.Photographs: KVPT. July 2017.

Fig. 14: Left: Except the face of the statue, every part was badly crushed. Photographs: University of Applied Arts. August 2015. Middle: Metal craftsmen (repousse) repairing damaged parts. Right: King’s statue after restoration and gilding. Photographs: Rohit Ranjitkar. October 2016 and February, 2017.

Cleaning

Anything before reuse needs to be cleaned properly, as it will not be easy to do so after installation. The items also need to be photographed in detail, as the details will be well visible, whereas this will be impossible to do once the elements are put on the structures, sometimes many stories high. The cleaning is also considered important because the wooden and other items have collected a lot of pollutants over the decades, which would have added to their corrosion.

Fig. 15: Left: Cleaning of carved wooden elements before repair, rescued from the rubble. Right: Every single piece was photographically documented after cleaning. Photographs: KVPT. May 2015 & July 2017.

Replicas of damaged elements 

Non-repairable wooden elements were copied from the original broken pieces, as all of the columns had a different design. In case of missing or broken parts, making copies required photographic references, sketches, local memory, support of elders, as well as scholarship. As a rule, however, it is important to understand that every part, big or small, tends not to repeat itself in temples, with the structures as well as all its elements truly ‘custom-built’.

Fig. 16: Left: Pillars after repair from Mani Mandap, Patan Durbar Square. Three of the twelve outer columns after being repaired with the addition of missing and damaged sections. Repairs are specific to the damaged condition of each column. Photograph: Rohit Ranjitkar. January 22, 2016. Middle: Full-size drawing of one of the unusable pillars made before the carving. Drawing: Bijay Basukala. Right: One of the pillars was structurally unusable and was replaced with a new one, repeating the designs from the broken pillar. All columns had different designs. Photograph: Indraprasad Silpakar. December 2015.

Reinforcements

All the structurally damaged monuments were strengthened, and collapsed monuments were rebuilt with improved weak details since the Valley is in an earthquake-prone zone, and the importance of human safety as against the density of local and visiting populations in monument zones, and the lack of regular maintenance. Any improvements were made as much as possible with traditionally used materials, or other materials with minimal intervention, where traditionally used materials are not compatible.

Traditional material and techniques - Besides using as many historical elements as possible, it is also important to use the same material for building, of equivalent quality. An example can be seen in the specialized use of mud mortar for improved brick bonding between veneer brick (dachi apa) and inner layers (Ma apa). Besides materials, the technology for building should also be as much according to historical methods as possible.

Fig. 17: Left: New additional masonry walls in mud mortar using ma-apa in between plinth walls, which were filled with rubble. Even using the traditionally used materials, not logical to interpret as traditional technology as that did not exist before. Middle: King Yognarendra Statue foundation was found in bad condition, which was wrapped with a new masonry wall, wrapping the historic foundation. Right: The Sanctum wall and outer main outer wall were built together with plinth walls in mud mortar as a one large base platform, replacing infill rubble to create a large solid base for the temple. Photographs: Rohit Ranjitkar. August 2016.

Fig. 18: Left: The Bhimsen Lion Pillar collapsed in the earthquake. Photograph: Suresh Lakhe. April 25, 2015. Right: Broken pieces were repaired using stainless steel pins to join both elements. Photograph: KVPT. Aug. 2015.

Fig. 19: Vishveshvara Temple withstood both earthquakes of 1934 and 2015, but was structurally damaged; all the lower-level walls on all sides puffed out from the inner core. Bricks were leveled before being taken out to be put back in the same location. Photographs: Rohit Ranjitkar. May 2 and May 30, 2015.

Key findings, experience, and learnings

A key danger during restoration, particularly when there is so much destruction and damage, has been the tendency towards doing quick work. Thus, some monuments have been restored or rebuilt without proper examination of structural condition, and there are even times when we have had simply ‘beautification’ instead of restoration. But the fact is that the Valley is in a seismic zone, there is bound to be a strong earthquake in the proximate future, and hence there should be concern for authenticity, historical accuracy, documentation, speed (to allow intangible heritage activities to resume as quickly as possible), as well as focus on human safety.

• Rebuilding needs to be structurally sound.
• Enhanced importance of public safety in reconstructed as well as restored structures.
• Exacting standards are required.
• Community involvement is crucial.
• Strong collaboration between the Government (DoA), the Local Community, and Reconstruction Institutions is essential.
• Choices required between traditionally used and new materials / appropriate use of traditionally used materials.
• Insufficient skilled craftsmen as well as technical experts.
• Long lead time to train new artisans as well as technical personnel.
• Procurement of conservation materials, including Nepali timber and stone (hard to get the required sizes and quantity).
• The Government’s Procurement Act, which gives priority to the lowest bidder, does not always work for reconstruction and conservation works.

Conclusion and future perspective 

Regular maintenance - Any human-built structure in the world requires maintenance, and this applies especially to the Valley’s traditional buildings, which were put together in mud mortar using lots of timber elements. The builders of these monuments always established a certain income source, mostly in the form of agricultural land, whose produce was used for income. Today, most of this traditional source of income has disappeared, and there is a reliance on Government funds and governmental bureaucracy. It may not be feasible to bring back the lost sources of income, but the government (central, provincial, or local) must step forward to establish funds for regular maintenance of monuments and a checklist for periodic repair.

Documentation - Regrettably, there was not enough documentation of restoration and reconstruction efforts, which would have made the rebuilding process much easier in the future, both for regular maintenance as well as in the event of disasters. We need to understand that documentation of monument structures and building / maintenance methods is vital for the future protection of Nepal’s monuments. While some documentation of the monuments was put together in the past, the information is scattered among experts and institutions, and there is an absence of a central repository with available and accessible heritage data. This suggests the systematic establishment of an ‘archive of built heritage’. Such an archive should be accessible to the general public and also serve as a resource for site managers.

Unfortunately, the focus after the earthquake tended to be on physical intervention, and documentation did not seem to be a priority, even though the importance of documentation was understood after the earthquake. It was also noticed that philanthropists, as well as government and donors, were more interested in brick-and-mortar work, to show a physically visible contribution, rather than in documentation.

Fig. 20: Char Narayan Temple, Patan Darbar Square. Plan, section, and elevation. Drawings made in the 1970s by Wolfgang Korn (published in “Traditional Architecture of the Kathmandu Valley”) made the reconstruction process easier. This is not impossible to do, but without information will take much more time to research. The collection of information in any form helps in the rebuilding process.

Opportunities

The response to the destruction and weakening of Nepal's built heritage as a result of the 2015.

Earthquake indicates that it has also been an opportunity, as follows:

• Raising world awareness of Nepal‘s unique architectural and cultural heritage.
• Raising iss ues of what Nepal’s governmental authorities and architectural conservation / reconstruction organizations have achieved.
• Community, federal / local (municipal) governments, and international funding.
• Reinforcing monuments to ensure structural soundness.
• Production of drawings and inventory / catalogue of artefacts for the future.
• Improve urban quality of life by restoring much-loved and revered structures.
• Stimulate an economic engine; create jobs, skills, and income: preservation architects, artisans, etc.
• Revive tourism and promote jobs / income in localities.
• Increased engagement of the government, international, and local community.

Fig. 21: (a)Harishankara Temple before the earthquake. Photograph: Stanislav Klimex. 2008. (b)Collapsed temple in the earthquake. Photograph: Rohit Ranjitkar. Apr. 27, 2015. (c)After rebuilding. Photograph: Rohit Ranjitkar. Nov. 27, 2019.