FOR a country such as Bhutan, landlocked and somewhat isolated from the raging globalization and ‘McDonaldization’ rapidly transforming Asian countries, the tug of war between tradition and modernity, conservation and development remains yet to reveal the final verdict. The last few decades have seen most Asian cities caught up in the race for globalization, well on their way to the irrevocable transformation from traditional streetscapes to ubiquitous concrete, glass and aluminium facades in a desperate attempt to cloak their local identities with a global veneer.

Historic urban fabric has been lost at an alarming rate, leaving architectural heritage in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Colombo, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Kathmandu and many Indian towns virtually an endangered species. While most European towns have succeeded in retaining historic areas and towns with a picturesque quality, this rampant loss of identity in the blind rush towards globalization remains a looming question over the future of Asian cities and, in the long run, the very core of Asian identity.

It is truly refreshing to visit Bhutan to see a landscape that is not yet overwhelmed by this mass scale transformation. As the aircraft lands at Paro airport, it is a relief to see the cityscape retain its character of traditional forms and roofscapes even as one laments the loss of this picturesque quality in most Indian towns. One wonders if Bhutan would manage to defy this nearly pan-Asian trend, whether its towns and settlements will succeed in retaining much of their material and architectural integrity over the rest of the 21st century or be transformed into a schizophrenic concrete landscape as in most of its neighbouring countries.

The architectural heritage of Bhutan is encapsulated in its spectacular dzongs, traditional fortresses with their high battered defensive walls punctuated by slits of wooden windows and large expansive courtyards with multi-tiered wooden balconies. What is truly outstanding about these complexes is that they continue to be living centres of both religion and administration. Among them the majestic Punakha, Rinpung and Thimphu remain unique in the world. Built in 1637, Punakha Dzong was the second dzong to be built in Bhutan and continued as the capital of the kingdom and the seat of government until 1955, when the capital was moved to Thimphu. As one walks through the dzong, the visual richness of its painted timber carvings, colonnades of wooden columns surrounding introverted courtyards resonate with the sounds of Buddhist chanting by resident monks to rhythmic sounds of cymbals and drums. It is this living tradition that is at the core of Bhutanese cultural heritage and makes it truly unique.

 

The monasteries are distinguished by a maroon band near the top of the building and with a finial or sertog at the top. The dzongs and monasteries of Bhutan are repositories of its living cultural heritage. These not only keep the religious education system alive, but act as living treasures of the nation’s wealth of spiritual, musical and metaphysical information systems and treatises. Today, it is this near pristine landscape of dzongs, chortens and monasteries that is the picture postcard image of Bhutan for international tourists.

Bhutan has managed admirably to not only keep alive its traditions, but actively celebrate them. In a region where the ubiquitous ‘pant shirt’ has overtaken local dress, unlike the rapid dilution of local textiles in other Himalayan regions, Bhutanese men and women continue to proudly wear their national dress to work and at all official functions. On my first visit to Ladakh in 1978, every second woman walking on the street wore the traditional perak headdress and local costume. Today that is relegated only to moth-balled cupboards to be sparingly used at weddings, sharing the fate of the Japanese kimono. Fortunately, even school girls in Bhutan wear traditional kiras as the Bhutan royal family has actively patronized traditional textile and weaving skills, resulting in the conservation and active sustenance of many traditional textile crafts.

 

How Bhutan will continue to carry this tradition into the next century is the big question. Like all other countries, it too must be eyeing tourism as a major revenue source. The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) estimates that tourism generates nearly 12% of the world’s total GNP and it is therefore no surprise that most countries today actively promote their sites for tourism as a major revenue earner. However, tourism is a double edged sword, for while heritage tourism is aimed at discovering and promoting heritage destinations, it also results in irrevocable change to these very vulnerable sites once they are exposed to a flood of tourists.

Interestingly, while most countries tap into the immense heritage tourism potential offered by inclusion into the Unesco list of World Heritage Sites, Bhutan has not even sent a tentative listing, let alone any nomination dossier to Unesco for offering any of its historic sites for this tag. While its neighbouring countries China (with 38 World Heritage Sites), India with 28 and Nepal with four World Heritage Sites actively woo Unesco World Heritage Site status to attract the linked heritage tourism traffic to their cultural destinations – Bhutan has until now managed to avoid the temptation to hitch itself on to the global tourism bandwagon, preferring to remain fully in control of its heritage and tourism policies.

Perhaps this is a reflection of the country’s unique perspective towards its national objectives. When the world was caught up in the rat race for generating wealth to support increased consumption, in 1972 King Jigme Singye Wangchuk declared Bhutan’s policy of aiming at the conservation of the environment and sustainable and equitable socio-economic development as the two pillars of gross national happiness. It was not until the mid ’80s that Bhutan initiated its first diplomatic links with non-Asian countries and even now, remains an enigmatic land to many in the West. Rather than open the floodgates to mass tourism, Bhutan has taken perhaps the best route, of sustainable tourism with a minimal footprint, in order to ensure the sustenance of its environment, culture and way of life.

 

Emerging out of this vision, Bhutan’s National Forest Policy was introduced in 1974 to address environmental conservation, grazing rights of communities, watershed management and, most significantly, the allocation of at least 60% of the total area of the country under forest cover. With the establishment of five protected parks covering nearly a quarter of the land mass, the national policies have ensured the conservation of its rich biodiversity.

Bhutan’s tourism policy reflects this principle through the inclusion of local communities in decision making. The Tourism Bill 2009 states: ‘The government supports tourism as a major integrated economic sector with profound cultural, cross-sectoral, inter-dzongkhag and highly socialised characteristics; developing and making tourism become a spearhead economic sector aimed at meeting the demands of the citizens of Bhutan and international tourists for visits, leisure and recreation, thus shifting the economic structure; generating employment; eliminating hunger and reducing poverty; increasing foreign currency income; and contributing the socio-economic development of the country.’ It empowers each dzongkhag to act as a collaborative partner in tourism management and ensures equitable distribution of advantages and costs among tourism promoters, dzongkhags and gewogs and the population in host areas. This national tourism policy underscores the principle of sustainability so that tourism does not destroy or damage the very core of Bhutanese cultural identity that the tourist comes to seek in the first place.

 

While most of its resorts and hotels subscribe to the Bhutanese architectural aesthetic, an emerging concern to conservationists is the loss of traditional building technologies and that of mass scale concrete ‘replication’ of traditional architectural forms paying somewhat of a lip service to the original architecture of the region. Thus while the new buildings appear to be traditional, will they become merely concrete replicas of traditional stone and wooden architecture, resulting in a gradual loss of material authenticity in the ‘Disneyfication’ of historic settlements? There is a beginning of this trend creeping into mid-town Thimphu, where in the downtown market area, concrete columns are painted over in traditional imagery to imitate old timber architecture.

What has resulted out of a technological shift led by modernization in most of the subcontinent, is an attitude that is willing to compromise on material and design to get a faster product. Thus, as quick set cement replaced traditional lime mortar which took ages to cure, a sea change in public taste accrued. No longer was it convenient to pay a craftsman for a month to work on a timber carving, when a cheap imitation could be cast in concrete. And why bother with carved stone when plaster reproductions were more economical? In Delhi, this is referred to as jugadu¹ architecture, where the honesty of material, craft and aesthetics are overtaken by the need for a quick fix that is cheap and cheerful.

What Bhutan needs at this critical juncture is to guard against such a mindset. While development in midtown Thimpu is far more controlled than the rest of the subcontinent, with guiding planning principles that define scale, skyline and signage resulting in a far more cohesive urban fabric, it is time perhaps to have a closer look at establishing material controls and detailed conservation plans for historic settlements to ensure that they do not dilute their core traditional construction skills and material vocabulary over time.

 

At the heart of Bhutan’s architectural identity is its rich and largely intact stock of vernacular housing in its traditional settlements and villages peppering the Himalayan countryside. Developed over centuries as an architectural response to the unique climate, culture and local materials of the hill country, this rich vernacular domestic architecture is also perhaps most at risk of transformation. As modern quick fix materials such as corrugated galvanized iron sheets and concrete fast replace traditional roofing systems of slate and wooden shingles as construction materials, they pose perhaps the greatest threat to the retention and preservation of the country’s fragile vernacular architectural traditions.

It becomes critical to undertake as a first step, extensive documentation of existing historic resources and vernacular architectural settlements. Listing and documentation of historic buildings, streetscapes, chortens, dzongs, urban and vernacular housing as well as clusters of historic housing that create a characteristic built settlement, becomes the first step in their active preservation. This needs to be followed by a combination of regulatory mechanisms and economic incentives to ensure that the architectural heritage is not lost or irrevocably altered.

Training in both documentation and conservation skills would need to be imparted at the local dzongkhag and gewog level to ensure that the region develops its own set of conservation professionals that form an intrinsic part of the conservation system rather than relying on importing specialists. Conservation plans are equally significant for the more modest vernacular settlements as they are for iconic heritage sites, as they create a framework for negotiation on the way forward for ensuring their continued preservation and relevance in a changing society.

 

What is most important is the recognition of traditional building techniques and construction traditions within the ambit of human resource development. From traditional painting and wood carving to the use of earth construction techniques, the Himalayan region is fast losing traditional building skills. It is becoming increasingly rare to find a local craftsman adept in slate shingle roofs in Himachal Pradesh. The dhajji wall (half timber wall) construction indigenous to the Himalayan region across Jammu & Kashmir through Himachal and Uttarakhand that had evolved over centuries to be the perfect construction typology for the Himalayan seismic belt is today a vanished art. It thus becomes imperative to both document and preserve these traditional building crafts and create an environment whereby the craftsmen practising these traditional construction techniques are incentivized to continue practising in the local construction vocabulary and to train the next generation of craftsmen to ensure the sustenance of these skills.

Material controls in vulnerable historic settlements can be achieved through a combination of regulatory actions as well as incentives. Subsidies on historic construction materials, trained support and guidance for conservation of historic housing stock, grants and financial support towards retention of historic fabric complemented with perceived economic benefits of traditional home stays and tourism circuits aids in the preservation of otherwise vulnerable vernacular architecture. The idea is also to fight the aspirational model of building a ‘modern’ house in concrete through an awareness of the benefits of retention of cultural icons and traditional settlements.

Bhutan is today poised at a critical crossroads when it can chose to either make its own mistakes, or learn from the mistakes made by its neighbours. In the subcontinent, we are now living through the nightmarish results of our near comatose attitude in the sphere of regional and urban planning of the last five decades, with our historic sites engulfed by schizophrenic urbanization and an irrevocable loss of historic settlements. One only hopes that Bhutan is able to embrace its cultural identity and architectural heritage while it takes its bold strides into the globalized world, ensuring that the future of its architectural heritage does not remain skin deep alone but continues to be a vibrant cultural continuum.

 

Footnote:

1. Literal translation for ‘make do’, improvise.