Bhutanese Buildings

I look at architecture with an untrained eye as to how buildings are put together or what is 'right' as far as design. What determines my pleasure in a building is based on beauty and functionality and I like to think these two should go hand in hand. Traditional Bhutanese architecture of white-washed stone or pounded mud with wood framed windows and doors rates high on both the beauty and function scales.

Traditional buildings

The traditional rural houses I've seen around Thimphu, Paro and on our trip east to Bumthang are usually 2, 3, or 4 stories high and rather large to accommodate an extended family and lot of "in house" functions that are necessary in rural life. There is an open loft under the roof for drying food and for storing fodder and wood. The wooden beams supporting the upper floors, door and window lintels are painted in traditional colors and patterns, contrasting with the stark white of the high.

The decorative paintings of swastika, cloud, conch shell, lotus, wheel, and animals, such as deer, tigers and mythical Garudas eating snakes give a whimsical quality to the buildings. Phalluses are commonly painted on the white walls of rural houses. These are said to ward off evil, spouting a spiral of semen. I can't imagine what my neighbors would say if I painted a handsome penis prominently on the wall of my house. Stone and wood phalluses emerge from walls, are the conduits for water fountains, or hang in flying form from the corners of roofs. (See picture of painting a house).

Buildings are traditionally made using no nails. Wood beams and posts are precisely cut to fit and ceilings are secured to cross pieces with bamboo strips. Roofs are flat stones in the form of rectangular or square tiles, wood shingles, or iron sheeting. Clay is sometimes used to hold down the stone tiles, but large rocks--often round, white, river rocks laid directly on the shingles, or laid on a plank of wood that holds down a row of shingles or pieces of metal--are the normal means to keep the roofs intact.

Public buildings, such as the covered, cantilevered foot bridges, temples, and huge dzongs (the large, fortress-like combined administrative and monastic complexes that are the center of provincial government) are built in the same style of whitewashed stone or tamped dirt with the same sort of beamed construction and no nails.

Besides building without nails, traditionally buildings are built without plans. This fact is stated by guides and repeated in books with pride. It seems that much else in the country is done without plans.

Modern buildings

Modern buildings in Thimphu are made in a traditional style, but of concrete (like "adobe" construction in Santa Fe). The square concrete "beams" function only as decorations. The shoddy modern workmanship does not shine like that of the glorious and loved buildings that most Bhutanese outside the towns live in.