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The Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust: a Nepal architecture archive at Harvard University

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2016

Hugh Wilburn*
Affiliation:
Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge MA 02138, USA
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Extract

The papers of the Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust are one result of the passion of Harvard University Professor Emeritus Eduard F. Sekler. In the 1960s he witnessed the encroachments of progress and the associated threat to buildings in the royal and religious centers of the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal, and co-founded the Trust in 1990 with others interested in documenting the sites and restoring the buildings. The Trust has restored numerous temples, guesthouses, townhouses and shrines in Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur, and in the process has generated vital documentation including measured drawings, photographs, contextual materials, planning reports and feasibility studies. Threats to this material from the natural environment and political turmoil, as well as longstanding ties to Harvard of several of its members, led the Trust to approach the Frances Loeb Library at the University’s Graduate School of Design, where as a result the archive will be housed. The infrastructure developed by Harvard University Library will be used to create a virtual archive available worldwide on the web, as well as a parallel paper archive to be maintained by the Trust in Nepal.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Art Libraries Society 2007

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References

1. Sekler, Eduard F., ed., Master plan for the conservation of the cultural heritage in the Kathmandu Valley (Paris: UNESCO, 1977).Google Scholar
2. Sekler, Eduard F., Proposal for the urbanistic conservation ofPatan (Lalitpur) Durbar Square as a monument zone (Cambridge, MA: Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, 1980).Google Scholar
3. Hagmüller, Götz, Patan Museum: the transformation of a royal palace in Nepal (London: Serindia, published in association with the Patan Museum, 2003).Google Scholar
5. Daniels, Mary, ‘Nepal: a preliminary excursion,’ ICAM News (January-June 2001): [13].Google Scholar