|
“Isn’t
it heaven on earth?” In these words, the poet Kunu Sharma described
Patan Darbar Square in 1652 A.D. and devoted two stanzas to the beauty
of Keshav Narayan Chowk which is now the Patan Museum.
Around the same time,
in 1660, the first-ever Western visitor came to Nepal: it was the
Austrian Jesuit (and mathematician) Johannes Grueber whose published
reports were the first eyewitness accounts of our country and culture in
Europe. His gift to King Pratap Malla is said to have been not a cross
but a telescope - probably the first piece of western technology in
Nepal.
Some 300 years later,
more contemporary relations between Nepal and Austria were established
during the sixties and seventies by Austrian individuals in their
personal and professional capacities. Carl Pruscha, a physical planner
and architect in the services of UNDP, helped Nepal in preparing a
detailed inventory of the Kathmandu Valley’s monuments and cultural
sites. The two volumes, entitled “Kathmandu Valley: Preservation of
the Physical Environment and Cultural Heritage, a Protective Inventory”
were published with Austrian financial support in Vienna 1975.
When preparing this
inventory, Carl Pruscha was supported by his scholarly friend and mentor
Professor Eduard Sekler, the eminent Austrian architectural historian at
Harvard University. From the first of his frequent visits to Nepal,
Eduard Sekler had cultivated a deep sense of attachment to our country
and more particularly to the Kathmandu Valley culture. In 1975, upon
request from His Majesty’s Government of Nepal, UNESCO sent a team of
consultants under his leadership to Kathmandu to prepare a Conservation
Master Plan of the Cultural Heritage in the Kathmandu Valley. Published
in 1977 by UNESCO, this basic document is still the blueprint for the
government’s efforts in heritage conservation. This Master Plan has
helped Nepal to nominate seven historical sites of the Kathmandu Valley
to UNESCO’s World Heritage List - among them the Patan Darbar.
This in turn enabled
Eduard Sekler to persuade the Austrian government to take a lead and to
contribute a part of its official aid to cultural conservation. He chose
Patan Darbar Square as one of the most beautiful squares of the world.
His proposal to restore the most damaged part of the “Golden Window
Palace” with Austrian aid was accepted in 1982 and the project began
with the repair of the Northern Wing of Keshav Narayan Chowk.
From the beginning in
1982 to its completion in 1997, the project was developed in cooperation
between the Department of Archaeology (DOA) of His Majesty’s
Government of Nepal and Austria’s Institute of International
Cooperation (IIZ). During these 15 years, the project coordinator was
Götz Hagmüller, the third architect in the succession of Austrian
conservation advisors to His Majesty’s Government of Nepal. He had
come to Nepal earlier, in 1979, as manager of the Bhaktapur Development
Project, the first and most comprehensive urban conservation programme
in Nepal undertaken with German assistance. This experience in Bhaktapur,
and his choice of residence there, in a historical Math, has kept him
living and working in Nepal, with assignments in various bilateral
projects. Worth mentioning is his part in preparing the Swayambunath
Conservation Masterplan and in reconstructing the Cyasilin Mandap, the
“Pavilion of the Eight Corners” on Bhaktapur Darbar (against which,
independently, both Professor Sekler and I had originally voiced our
reservations: luckily, we conservationists do not always agree).
With regard to the DOA-IIZ
cooperation project in Patan, Götz Hagmüller had widened its scope
early on, from the mere renovation of the palace to its conversion into
a museum complex, and he later succeeded in convincing both countries
concerned to a change of project definition - from the previous
bilateral mode of funding and implementation to a project on “turn-key”
basis. That means that Austria during the last seven years supplied the
entire budget and technical assistance, with the Department of
Archaeology, as the custodian of the national heritage of Nepal,
retaining its legal authority of conservation control.
Instrumental in
bringing about these improvements were the IIZ and its project
administrator Mrs. Gertrude Leibrecht, backed by the good efforts of
Austria’s aid-department officials Mrs. Heide Fenzel and Mr. Günther
Stachel who have been behind the project from its beginning.
Under this intensified
cooperation programme, additional manpower was provided not only from
the local resource base of Nepalese craftsmen and consultants but also
from abroad. Another Austrian expert, Thomas Schrom, joined the project
full-time as its manager, construction supervisor and visual design
specialist - as well as a range of other Austrian and American
short-term consultants. Most prominent among these was Mary S. Slusser,
and we are grateful that her successive project assignments made
possible by Austrian funding. Her conceptual and scientific work for the
Patan Museum has given us a powerful impulse to look at our cultural
history with new focus and appreciation.
Another unique feature
of this museum is its operational concept. For the first time in Nepal,
a museum of the public domain has been conceived as a semi-autonomous
and economically self-sustaining institution. Only a year after its
opening to the general public, its performance can be judged as a solid
success. With 15 years of mutual efforts and generous help of the
Austrian Government, not only a palace has been restored to its original
beauty, but also a museum of international attraction has been
established in Nepal.
The Patan Museum was
finally inaugurated on October 28, 1997 by His Majesty King Birendra Bir
Bikram Shah Dev in the presence of Mrs. Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the
Austrian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, with a festive concert
given by Austrian and Nepalese music ensembles. The audience was
enchanted by the harmonious blend of ancient ritual, architecture and
music, and by the meeting of two so far-away cultures of the same
historical time: the ambience of a candle-lit Malla palace court with
its sounds of tabla and flute, enwrapping the highlights of Vienna’s
classical era of music.
(Dr. Shaphalaya Amatya was Director General of Nepal’s Department of Archaeology and later Chairman of the Patan Museum Board. He stood firmly behind the development of the museum from its inception.) |
