FROM PAST PATHS TO FUTURE

WALKS
Reading and Learning From the Traditional Streets
of Kathmandu Valley Towns

Sudarshan Raj Tiwari

Nepal
 Concept of City

Egyptian ideographic
symbol for the word ‘town’

http://www.urbagram.net/images/concentric-chicago.gif
 Traditional settlements of Kathmandu valley
Traversed by pathways, embellished with crossings and ringed by boundary
markers - physically, literally and ritually.
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)
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
 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
 Urban Pattern
LICCHAVI

Lichchhavi town of
Maneswor and the Surviving
Street Segments and
Cultural Markers
 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
 Urban Pattern
• MALLA
• Newars??
• Era of Urban agriculture along with
• Religion
• Arts
• Crafts
• Commerce

• Competative Stance in Arts, Crafts and Celebrations after

independent small kingdoms
 Squares in 3 Periods- KIRAT
Tunaldevi Dyochhe 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
 Squares in 3 Periods- LICCHAVI
Maneswora

•Narayan Images and templese on stone Plinth

•Chaityas and Shivalingas
•Complexity of Religious Faiths
Squares in 3 Periods-
MALLA
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
Nugah - A Second
Order Market Square
in Patan.

(Drawing adapted from

Raghuvamsi, 1998)
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
 Urban spaces
of Malla
Chyasa Square

Patan Durba Square

Subaha

Nugah (Map adapted from

PATAN. Theophile & Gutschow
SUBAH
A

(Drawing adapted
from Raghuvamsi,
1998)
 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
LICHHAVI STREETS
• LICHHAVI TO MALL
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.
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.
• 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.
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.
Changes and Challenges from Contemporary
life

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