Niels Gutschow was born in 1941 to an architect in Hamburg, Germany. He was a curious child who enjoyed reading and learning about distant places and cultures. This led him to participate in different courses and explore the cultural events around him as a young boy.
When he was fourteen, he came across a small note in a newspaper about the book, “Nepal. Ein Sommer am Rande der Welt,” which kindled his interest to read further. So he requested this book as a present for his fifteenth birthday. The book included two photographs of the Kathmandu Valley and several others from Mustang, reflecting the journey of five German mountaineers who trekked to Annapurna IV and Pisang Peak and spent eight months experiencing the lands and settlements along the Kali Gandaki River, including Mustang – and this was his first encounter with Nepal.
He studied Latin and Greek in school. Similarly, fascinated by the different practices in the world of beliefs, he attended lectures on Scientology, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Buddhism. After joining the classes of the Buddhist Sunday school, he planned a trip to Burma to begin a monastic life.
“… equipped with a classical education in Latin and Greek, having encountered works of theater, music, art and architecture, I set out for Burma to experience a different world, not shaped by the heroes of European culture and thought.”
Thus began his journey toward the East. After traveling through various countries in Europe and the Middle East, he first landed in Nepal in 1962.
“I boarded a train on 13th March 1962 and crossed the border into Nepal in Birgunj on 9th July. The highway that had established the first road connection with “the world” in 1956 was blocked by a landslide, but a small airplane brought me from Simra to Kathmandu the following day.”
He stayed in Lakshmi Niwas Palace, north of Kathmandu, following an invitation by Pashupati Shumsher J.B. Rana, whom he met at a club in Jaipur. He was so impressed by the landscape and hospitality that he wrote to his mother, saying he felt intrinsically at home there.
“This seems to be a country of which I have always dreamt.”
Taking the road from Kathmandu to Calcutta and then a flight to Rangoon, he reached Burma around the end of July. After the military coup d’etat by Ne Win the same year, Burma was increasingly isolated, and he was one of the last foreigners to enter Burma. Having his residence permit renewed only upon the intervention of Buddhist dignitaries, he stayed there for three months. While he was still in Burma, he asked his father to arrange a place for an apprenticeship in carpentry in Japan. In 1962/63, he worked as a carpenter at Inuyama Castle and Fudo-do in Koya-san’s Kongobuji sanctuary. The building work experience gave him a good insight into studying architecture. He also took calligraphy and tea ceremony classes during his time in Japan.
In search of a direction, he enrolled in an architectural course at the Darmstadt University of Technology in Germany in 1963, which focused heavily on architectural history. That same year, he completed a couple of projects in Hamburg and made his early academic achievements. Eventually, the field of “vernacular architecture” drew his attention more. The book “Architecture Without Architects” by Bernard Rudofsky, published in 1964, contributed to his inquisitiveness.
“That book had a formative effect on me and many other architects (among them Carl Pruscha and Andreas Brandt – both with an affinity to Nepal).”
Around the end of the 1960s, there was a growing interest in vernacular architecture worldwide. As a result, architects began questioning their roles for the future. They looked for an approach to balance global and local architecture – and Gutschow was one of them.
In 1967, Gutschow began fieldwork in Turkey, Georgia, and Armenia. He was more inclined towards Turkish architecture, so he started collecting books on Turkish vernacular architecture and doing site inspections. But he did not stop there – he continued traveling and exploring the scope of vernacular architecture.
In 1970, he landed in Nepal to study the Gate Chörten found in Mustang, a project sponsored by the German Research Council. At that time, he met the first secretary of the German embassy, Heinrich Seemann, who told him about the Pūjārīmaṭh Restoration Project, funded by a grant from the Federal Republic of Germany as a gift on the occasion of the marriage of the Crown Prince Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev to Aishwarya Rajya Laxmi Devi Rana on 27th February 1970. Seeman had suggested this noble gift instead of the usual Meissen porcelain or the latest model of Zeiss-Ikon camera, which were plentiful in the palaces of Nepal.
Pūjārīmaṭh, a residence for priests, or Mahanta of Dattātreya Temple, is situated at Bhaktapur, serving as a shelter for mendicants. It is the oldest maṭh in the valley. Gutschow spent a few days in the ruined complex and prepared a restoration plan with the help of Krishna Prasad Shrestha, the National Art Gallery’s director. He expressed his interest in the project and indicated to Seeman that he would talk to his friends in Darmstadt. Meanwhile, he visited a few settlements in and around Kathmandu Valley, witnessed the local festivals, and completed the Mustang project he came for.
“Witnessing Indrajātrā and Dasāin opened up a new world in which urban rituals were more than simply a custom that had survived. It was a necessity for the entire society, an urge to contribute to ritual renewal. This experience changed my life fundamentally.”
Taking a route from Delhi, he returned to Germany, told his friends about the Pūjārīmaṭh project, and got them involved. A survey of the maṭh had already been done by Wolfgang Korn, a German architect, in 1971. The same year, the German Foreign Ministry invited a group of young architects (Gerhard Auer, Hans Busch, and Wilfried Kröger, including Gutschow) to carry out the first ambitious bilateral project for the conservation of the architectural heritage of Nepal, which ended in 1972 and was handed over to the queen during a gala function the same year.
“… we were barely professional in dealing with the conservation of Newar architecture, as we came from a totally different tradition. But nobody else was, either. Certainly, it was also crucial that we were not under contract as consultants for so-called international fees; [we] were ready to go to Nepal in return for a ticket and a modest daily allowance, because we were extremely keen to immerse ourselves in an unknown society characterized by a highly sophisticated urban culture.”
Living in Bhaktapur when only two or three buses shuttled commuters between Kathmandu and Bhaktapur was, in Gutschow’s words, “a genuine godsend.”
After a brief encounter with Nepal in 1962 and an equally short visit in 1970, his heart opened toward the Himalayas.
“In September 1970 I returned and when I witnessed the rice harvest in October I wrote in my diary ‘Everybody extremely busy in a country of old, serene and cheerful.'”
But only in 1971 did living and working in Bhaktapur pave the way for a love affair between him and the town, further enhanced by his scholarships in 1973-1976.
“Obviously, Bhaktapur is more than bricks and roads, a transcendental space graced by the Navadurgā, who appear as a living, tangible troupe of deities. This was probably a romantic impulse responding to a longing for an urban life that offered more than the fulfillment of functional requirements. That was maybe only possible in a world very different from my own cultural background. The fascination, however, turned into an affection so powerful as to bind a substantial part of my life to Bhaktapur.”
After completing the Pūjārīmaṭh Restoration project in 1972, Gutschow went to Japan to write his Ph.D. dissertation on the Japanese castle town (Jōkamachi). He also traveled to other places in East Asia to better understand the nature of town planning in developing countries. This helped him expand his knowledge of East Asian historic urban planning.
Upon his return from Japan in mid-1972, he began developing proposals for further preservation projects in Bhaktapur, focusing on nine maṭhas and temples of the Dattatreya Square. Since Bhaktapur’s planned urban redevelopment project sought a well-established consultancy, the “Project Group Pūjārīmaṭh” was not involved. Gutschow’s role in the project was limited to submitting reports on the social topography of Bhaktapur, of which he took an opportunity to focus on other projects.
Like those in Asia, European cities were also facing issues preserving historic urban cores. Thus, the European Council launched the European Architectural Heritage Year 1975, focusing on the future of the past. Gutschow coordinated a research project funded by the Federal Ministry of Regional Planning, Building, and Town Planning. He toured Europe from late 1972 to the first quarter of 1974, documenting case studies of urban preservation projects in the selected countries.
At the same time, he was preparing to get further involved with Bhaktapur. In 1973, he submitted a proposal titled “Analysis of Urban Space in Bhaktapur,” applying for a research scholarship granted by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The scholarship was initially granted for two years. Still, he wanted to expand his research on “Myths and Ideas of Urban Spatial Order.” He submitted that proposal, which was granted for another three years. He began observing and mapping different processions in Bhaktapur. In 1974, he started his field survey questioning all households of Bhaktapur regarding their caste affiliations. In the end, he had prepared twenty-five maps documenting the social topography. Visiting that area’s square, street, lane, and courtyard made him familiar with the place and prepared him for further exploration.
“The basic knowledge enabled me to create an inventory of the religious infrastructure and to map processional routes.”
During his research, he noticed the spatial patterns of the Newar towns mirroring the hierarchic principle of the accepted social order. With its important temples, the royal palace was at the center of all towns (in Bhaktapur at the periphery). Around it, the residences of different castes were clustered hierarchically – upper castes to lower castes. These towns had a cosmic order. To widen his experience of cosmic and spiritual dimensions in architecture, he took a couple of trips to Thailand, Indonesia, Italy, India, and others. In 1977, he completed a detailed report on “Ordered Space, a Contribution towards the Idea of Cities in South Asia.” For years, his fieldwork was devoted to the rich urban rituals – in and beyond Bhaktapur.
From 1977 to 1978, he joined a research team at the Darmstadt Technical University and started teaching. He attempted a few works in between, but due to setbacks, he decided to pause and join the service of Münster municipality, becoming the first municipal conservation officer in 1978.
After leaving Münster, his focus shifted from urban rituals to architecture. In 1980, he went to Gorkhā to conduct an architectural survey of palaces, temples, and clusters of houses. The team included Surendra Joshi, Saumudra Devpradhan, and Nutandhar Sharma.
“While producing my first drawing of a window at Gorkhā in 1981 on the scale of 1:5, the close-up gaze enabled me to understand the complex layering of a window in Newar architecture.”
He began compiling a photographic inventory of window types. Furthermore, he illustrated the working style and tools of carpenters, masons, brickmakers, coppersmiths, and blacksmiths. Compiling his collection of Newari terms in construction and architecture, which began in 1983 with the terms noted by Ishwaranand Shresthacarya, an illustrated dictionary was published in 1987 with the guidance of Bernhard Kölver. Gutschow was also involved in identifying and recording some key buildings of some neglected architectural heritage of the 19th century in Kathmandu Valley; besides this, he and the team also completed the site and sectional survey of Paśupatināth Temple in 1986.
The same year, Gutschow and Götz Hagmüller began inventuring Svayambhū Hill after the Nepalese government requested technical assistance from the Federal Republic of Germany. The Svayambhūnāth Conservation Master Plan was initiated in 1985 and announced as a national priority project in 1986.
Their work in Svayambhūcaitya paved an interest in documenting Stūpas/ caityas or cibhāḥdyaḥ; thus, an inventory of more than 3000 caityas began, with special emphasis on fragmented structures incorporating one or more elements dating to the Lichhavi era.
In 1987, Chancellor Helmut Kohl wanted to make a “present” to honor the Nepalese people during his visit, and the German Embassy reached out to Gutschow. Gutschow and Hagmüller discussed all the considerations and presented a preliminary design for the reconstruction of Cyāsilinmaṇḍapa, the pavilion of Eight Corners, at Bhaktapur Dārbar Square. The German Embassy supported their project, and they developed a detailed program.
With the beginning of the excavation of the foundation in 1988, the project came to an end in 1990, which was celebrated with a presentation of the Goethe Institute in Kathmandu accompanied by an exhibition of the model of Cyāsilinmaṇḍapa, drawings, and sample columns. Surendra Joshi was an important partner in designing decorative motifs. Between 1980 and 1990, he also traveled around India conducting surveys.
While working on both projects, Gutschow also managed a trip to Mustang in 1988 to inspect the castles of Kag and Dzar. This would soon lead to the approval of another priority research project on High Mountain Archeology in 1992, which kept him busy until 1998.
Similarly, in 1989, Gutschow and Hagmüller planned and proposed a Patan Conservation and Development Program, modeled after the Bhaktapur Development Program, which materialized in early 1992.
With his involvement in multiple projects, he was already planning to settle in the valley.
“By the end of the 1980s, I felt like I had to retire to a less exciting and, in a way, less agitating environment to be able to rethink my urban experiences and to produce texts.”
After a long search, he found a house on a hillock called “Tahaja,” near Bhaktapur. It was a lovely place to settle in with his family and have his private space to work.
“For us the house on the hill is, or was, without reservation the ‘most beautiful house’ on earth …”
The house, built in the 1960s, was inhabitable and required some renovation and spirit pacification following the Newar rituals. In August 1989, they finally moved in and lived there for the next 30 years. Along with them, an extended family lived on the hill, which included Punyeshvari Suval, Mohan Yakami, and Bijay Basukala. After arriving at Tahaja Hill, Bijay Basukala got closely involved in Niels’ documentation projects in 1987, and his brother Anil joined a couple of years later.
For him, the house was a never-ending architectural project. He describes it as “ a home beyond professional and academic interest.”
At his residence, he continued with the inventory of Buddhist votive structures in the Kathmandu Valley, published as “The Nepalese Caitya: 1500 Years of Buddhist Votive Architecture in the Kathmandu Valley” in 1997. Votive Architecture especially drew his attention in Angkor in 1993, and he traveled around Asia documenting them. In early 1998, the German Research Foundation provided him with a grant for a comparative study of vernacular architecture in the northern Himalayas of Nepal, the Palas Valley of Kohistan in Pakistan, and Bhutan. With the establishment of the Nepal-Germany High Mountain Archeology Project in 1991, he had already been involved in surveying the votive architecture in the Mustang of Nepal, which materialized as a publication later in 2021 as “Chörten in Nepal. Architecture and Buddhist Votive Practice in the Himalaya.” Although the surveys of the villages in Northwest Nepal (Mugu) turned out well, the research in Pakistan seemed impossible due to strict social and religious constraints. Thus, the comparative study could not be pursued further. However, his study and research on Stūpas and Chörten in Kathmandu Valley found more possibilities in 1999 at the courtyard of the Hyatt Regency Hotel. Nine caityas were selected, replicated, and placed in the courtyard, promoting Nepal’s architectural and cultural heritage. A project in which Bijay Basukala had a leading role.
From 1999 to 2002, Gutschow was involved in a research project at Orissa, Ranpur. He worked on the inventory of households and mapped the sacred landscapes of the villages. Around the same time, he was also engaged in fieldwork in Vārāṇasī, which ended in 2003. He was concurrently associated with the Buddhist Kathmandu Campaign by the Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust and worked on restoration projects based in Chusyabāhā (1999-2001) and Itumbāhā (2002-2003). In all these projects, Bijay Basukala was the proficient partner.
In collaboration with the Indologist Axel Michaels of Heidelberg University, he began documenting the life-cycle rituals of the Newars, with a focus on Bhaktapur, in 2001. Based on their research, the three volumes on death (Handling Death), initiation rituals (Growing up, 2008), and marriage rituals (Getting Married) were published in 2005, 2008, and 2012, respectively. Working on this project established a deeper connection with Bhaktapur, its architecture, and its rituals.
“… I felt a need to create a more challenging project which would keep me busy for at least five years: a comprehensive history and typology of Newars architecture.”
With his active work in architectural typology since 1980, and after countless surveys and research from 2005 and 2010, three volumes of “Architecture of the Newars” were shaped and published in 2011. This project led to another one focusing on the representation of the Sky Face (identified as Kīrtimukha). With the drawings by Surendra Joshi of the Licchavi-era version of Kīrtimukha and Bijay Basukala’s drawings of 10th and 11th-century representations, the project found a solid base to begin. Gutschow began his research not limited to Nepal but also Java, Cambodia, and Orissa. After almost a decade, it was integrated into a publication entitled “The Sky Face” in 2019.
Simultaneously, he worked on the surveys of the 17th-century Śikhara temples that were not satisfactorily covered in his previous book, Architecture of the Newars. The survey was published in 2014 with the sponsorship of the Saraf Foundation as “Towers in Stone.”
In 2008, Gutschow discussed with Gaddi Hassin the potential of the former Taragaon Hostel’s future within the Hyatt Regency’s compound. He discussed possible plans with Arun Saraf, and finally, Gutschow met Arun and Namita Saraf in Mumbai on 3rd December 2009. On that occasion, the Sarafs expressed their wish to preserve the Taragaon Hostel and to turn it into a documentation center collecting the works of architects, artists, photographers, anthropologists, researchers, and individuals from abroad, highlighting the cultural heritage of Kathmandu Valley. In partnership with Thomas Schrom, Gutschow planned the transformation of the interior space to serve as a museum. The buildings were renovated, and the space was revived. The renovation project ended in 2014, and the space started running as Taragaon Museum the same year. Many architects, artists, and scholars, including Gutschow, donated exhibits to the museum and its documentation center. Today, he is one of the advisory board members of the museum.
He spent years working to document and preserve the Kathmandu Valley’s culture and heritage. The valley, on the other hand, was walking the lane to its ruin. He witnessed its urban landscape deteriorate over the years and began documenting the changes. In 2012, he published a book, “The Kathmandu Valley,” revealing its bleak side. He shared with the Nepali Times:
“The curiosity I feel about this ongoing development has nothing denunciatory about it. The documentation of the construction sites does reveal a certain crudity, not to say brutality. Its aim is to achieve a largely unemotional presentation of one aspect of reality.”
From 2015 to 2019, Gutschow acted as senior advisor to the Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust in the Earthquake Initiative initiated by Erich Theophile and Rohit Ranjitkar. In cooperation with Bijay Basukala, he was primarily responsible for the faithful rebuilding of the collapsed Hariśaṅkara Temple. This project encouraged and involved carvers in repairing, recapturing, and even reinventing what their ancestors had achieved decades back. In the 30 years of his residency in Nepal – from architectural drawings and surveys to leading heritage conservation projects, from writing field reports to publishing over a dozen books related to Nepal, from traveling to the mountains for research and documentation to spending months in his studio producing texts, from preparing plans for different projects to planning and experimenting on his own residential home as a never-ending architectural project, from studying the field of architecture to anthropological and religious aspects of the valley – Gutschow has made tremendous contributions to the culture and heritage sector in Nepal. For him, Nepal was more than a research location – it was a home. In 2019, he left his home in Tahaja and retired to his home in Germany with his wife.
“We always refused to answer, or avoided answering, the question of where we feel more at home, at Mackenheim in Germany or at Tahaja in Nepal. These are two places, two homes which we loved and still love.”
Bhaktapur, Kathmandu, Patan, Mustang, Nuvākoṭ, Gorkhā
Pūjārīmaṭh Restoration Project, Svayambhūnāth Conservation Master Plan, Nepal-Germany High Mountain Archaeology Project, Reconstruction of Cyāsilinmaṇḍapa Project, Patan Conservation and Development Program, Buddhist Kathmandu Campaign, Special Research Field “Ritual Dynamics” of Heidelberg University, Transcultural Research- Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global context, Earthquake Campaign of the Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust
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