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View from Bhutan: in Bhutan, life and architecture have changed little for the last four centuries. But urbanization, electricity and television have started to make irreversible changes - View

Architectural Review, The, August, 2003 by B.O. Helliwell, Kim Smith

Protected by its formidable geography, Bhutan has been isolated until quite recently. It was only fifty years ago that it started to open and it was not till 1974 that tourism began. Today fewer than 6000 tourists visit per year. Its population is estimated at 600 000.

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A brief topographic sketch: Bhutan is a spectacularly beautiful country. It is 150km from south to north, rising like a gigantic staircase from 180m elevation on the hot and humid plains of India to 7550m in the Great Himalayas bordering Tibet. Some 330km east to west at its widest point, Bhutan is bisected by five mountain ranges that run north-south. Any journey east-west involves mountain passes, some up to 4000m high. There is very little flat land. The scarce land at the bottom of the valley is used primarily for agriculture and settlement. Major rivers run south, downhill to India, providing Bhutan with its biggest export, hydro-electric power.

Bhutan is in rapid transition from the seventeenth century to the twenty-first. It is consciously trying to preserve the elements that contribute to its traditional culture, the environment, and an attitude of 'gross national happiness'.

In an attempt to preserve and promote traditional cultural values, legislation dictates that Bhutanese wear national dress and that all building construction emulates national historic styles. So most buildings borrow from the building orders of Bhutan's most striking and dominant architecture, its religious buildings, the Dzong (fortress/temple) and Lhkhangs (temples). Their forms and construction techniques influence virtually every building in the country. Although the result is a very homogenous and harmonious look to the cultural and built landscape, the arrival of television in 1998 and Bhutan's own aggressive education programme for its young will probably mean challenges to these restrictions of personal expression will begin to emerge.

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Dzongs are large rammed earth, stone, and cypress timber structures. Their original function in Tibet was as fortress and district administration centres. In Bhutan, monastery and temple functions were added. They are strategically positioned on mountainsides, on the confluence of two rivers or overlooking valley entrances. In times of war, the entire population of the valley would seek refuge in them. Most Dzongs were built during the seventeenth century. They were built without drawings, guided by a mental concept of what was to be built and in response to the natural site. Squares and rectangles are the main planning module and these warp into parallelograms to accommodate the natural topography. The formal architectural order is stunning and for fortified buildings, surprisingly light. The battered masonry walls rise dramatically from the landscape. The only opening to penetrate the base of white-washed masonry is the massive entrance door. The next horizontal layer has occasional punched window openings with expressed timber lintels. Higher up on the walls is a continuous band of intricate timber bay windows. The traditional trefoil window arch expressed in timber is ubiquitous, along with corbelled timber dentils used as a supporting cornice. These details are normally highly decorated with carvings and paint, but also look quite fantastic in their natural timber state. Just below the roof is the chimera, a wide red stripe signifying a religious building. Flying above all this are the wide overhanging eaves of the low slope timber roofs. Think Frank Lloyd Wright prairie house crossbred with a Japanese royal palace. Because of the short lifespan of the shingles, they are slowly being replaced by galvanized metal roof sheets. These buildings are huge. The Punakha Dzong is 180m long by 25m tall with the interior of its temple soaring eight stories high.

These religious buildings constitute an incomparable living architectural heritage. As a comparison, many timber temples are older than Machu Picchu. Several major temples have been rebuilt in recent years, usually as the result of fire or earthquake damage. The enormous effort in construction and maintenance of Bhutan's over two thousand religious structures can perhaps be explained by the following creative philosophy:

'Religious objects and buildings ... are sacred. They are not considered as inanimate objects but as supports of faith ... The artist does not work to make a work of art but a work of faith, which he wants as beautiful as possible, while following the precise and symbolic iconometric and iconographic rules codified in treatises. The artist has very little composition freedom but his talent lies in the execution.' (*)

The Paro Dzong is visually familiar, as it was used in the opening sequence of Bertolucci's Little Buddha. Yet the view up to it from the cantilevered bridge is breathtaking. Its imposing size and its mountainside position dominate the Paro Valley. We were able to enter both secular and religious courtyards to see the Paro Tsechu, an annual five-day festival. The monks dress in wild, colourful masks and costumes and perform dances that are believed to subdue evil spirits.