Centre for South Asian Studies

Description

I will trace the evolution of discourse, policy, and practice that have legitimized lime as a “traditional” building material in heritage reconstruction in Bhaktapur, Nepal, following the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake. While historically much of Bhaktapur’s architectural fabric has used brick and timber as structural systems along with clay-based mortars and finishes, lime-based mortars and plasters have become ubiquitous as a material for heritage reconstruction. Local contractors, officials, and laborers describe lime as a traditional building material, even though it was introduced as mortar relatively recently by UNESCO consultants working in the Kathmandu Valley in the 1970s and 1980s.  I analyse the ways in which lime as a material for heritage reconstruction gets simultaneously classified as traditional and modern, local and global, through a brief historiography of its use in Kathmandu Valley and by engaging with specific case studies in the Bhaktapur Durbar Square, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site   

Chair: Dr Ana Bonet Miro, UoE