FROM PAST PATHS TO FUTURE WALKS

1. FROM PAST PATHS TO FUTURE WALKS Reading and Learning From the Traditional Streets of Kathmandu Valley Towns Sudarshan Raj Tiwari Nepal

2. Concept of City Egyptian ideographic symbol for the word ‘town’ http://www.urbagram.net/images/concentric-chicago.gif

3. Traditional settlements of Kathmandu valley Traversed by pathways, embellished with crossings and ringed by boundary markers - physically, literally and ritually.

4. History of Development of Urban Patterns in Kathmandu Valley • Kirat Period (Before 300 AD) • Lichhavi Period (Around 400 AD -900 AD) • Malla Period (1201 AD –1769 AD)

5. Urban Pattern • Ritual mediation of public spaces • ‘Pringga’ – Small and Dense Settlement • Street that linked the in-town sanctum • Before Lichhavi??? • Kathmandu – a Ceremonial Arena

6. Urban Pattern • LICCHAVI: • Hindu Planning templates: • PRASTARA, Mangriha • DANDAKA, Kathmandu • KARMUKA, Deupatan • Formality and order of geometry on the ritual mediated order. • Stone Water spouts at cross roads

7. Urban Pattern LICCHAVI Lichchhavi town of Maneswor and the Surviving Street Segments and Cultural Markers

8. Urban Pattern • MALLA • Diversity of clan, class and caste • intricate web in the town • boundary edges met in the public spaces of the streets and the squares. • Increasing density were sought to be managed by • Gathering spaces • Institutions • Streets • Squares

9. Urban Pattern • MALLA • Newars?? • Era of Urban agriculture along with • Religion • Arts • Crafts • Commerce • CompetativeStance in Arts, Crafts and Celebrations after independent small kingdoms

10. Squares in 3 Periods- KIRAT TunaldeviDyochhe Chowk • Use of spaces or elements- Dyochhe, Jadhu, crossings, pati in everyday life • Expression of symbolism and meanings; cognitions and recognitions; knowledge and experiences of RITUALS • DABALI, SATTAL and PATI • Kirat Andipringga now transformed into a perimeter street of the Lichchhavi Maneswora

11. Squares in 3 Periods- LICCHAVI Maneswora • Narayan Images and templese on stone Plinth • Chaityas and Shivalingas • Complexity of Religious Faiths

12. Squares in 3 Periods- MALLA

13. Order of Spaces • 1st Order • Durbar Square –Public structures: dabali, mandap, sattals, and temples ,Hiti • Around the Palace • 2nd Order • Market squares or urban plazas • Intersection of neighbourhood streets and hight streets • Temples, Hiti, dabali and Pati • Multi-cultural

14. Nugah - A Second Order Market Square in Patan. (Drawing adapted from Raghuvamsi, 1998)

15. Order of Spaces • 3rd Order • Street intersection inside a neighborhood • Temple- Ganesh • Pati • Size varies according to the traditional trade of Caste • Mono cultural or intermix of related cultures • 4th Order • End of a pathway • Extended Family • Well and miniature temple • Mono-Cultural

16. Urban spaces of Malla Chyasa Square Patan Durba Square Subaha Nugah (Map adapted from Theophile & Gutschow PATAN.

17. SUBAHA (Drawing adapted from Raghuvamsi, 1998)

18. Streets • Kirat used geometric pattern earlier to Lichhavi ?? • Ceremonial Streets- wide enough to carry small khat and pedestrians. • Widening at Cross-Roads ( Bamboo Support of Khat??) http://static1.demotix.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/a_scale_large/600-9/photos/1302032264-hindus-celebrate-khat-jatra-and-try-to-break-the-temple-gates_649759.jpg

19. LICHHAVI STREETS

20. Geometric Pattern Based Planning TO Informal Organic Network Guided By Topography And The Urban Ground With Power Places, Dyochhe, Temples And Other Markers Organizing Principle Of The Cosmic Imaging And The Newer Mandala At A Philosophical Level. • LICHHAVI TO MALL

21. STREETS • Streets continued to serve the movements of the divine, the living and the dead. • Route of the dead and the route of the divine should not intersect, and the funerary paths linked each and every house to its designated funerary ghat, a very complex pattern of back lanes became laid out. • Overlapping layers of ritual mediations in the streets added charm and variety in the experience of moving of the living. • All the three movements i.e. of the DIVINE, THE LIVING AND THE DEAD, ---- Definition, Delineation And Detailing of the Malla street and pathways.

23. System of voluntary set back - increasing social interculturation • SPACES from narrowing and widening of the arteries (lachhi) and interspersed with platforms (dabali) and resting pavilions (pati), numinous stones, shrines, chaitya and temples also offer restorative potions of sun and shadows, calm and breeze, sights and sounds, neutral 'voids' and spirited spots and etc. apparently catering physiological, psychological and spiritual recuperation and rest. • Every streets have stories to tell • They create, nourish and continue thick urbanism.

24. Changes and Challenges from Contemporary life • Heterogeneity, diversity and density have intensified over the decades in Kathmandu valley towns. • Old spaces are reduced or misused • Breaking down of traditional organization and structure of the society • Cultural symbols and values have lost their essence • For quite a few users, the surviving environmental characteristics comes as a boon in an otherwise ‘space-less’ city. • Migration of multi-culture : limited ability of the migrants to integrate with the local population well.

25. Changes and Challenges from Contemporary life SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

26. GORKHA EARTHQUAKE- APRIL 25 How are the original society, the new society and the public space coping with each other?

27. THANK YOU