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.

BUYING KIRAS

Bhutanese Dress

Already having a closet full of ethnic attire, I resisted the temptation to add a Bhutanese ensemble to a growing collection of beautiful but unwearable clothes. It is not just the grace of the floor length kira skirt with its perfect side pleat or the shiny material of the boxy jacket, the taego that convinces a western woman that this might just be the ethnic statement she was born to make. It's the combinations of colors and patterns meant to complement, not match, that lets one think of clothes in a completely new frame. Basic black is not a Bhutanese concept.

Buying my Kira

The first jacket I picked up at the wholesaler was shiny purple brocade with a pattern of gold, orange and turquoise flowers. Busy and gaudy, it was exactly what I wanted. The shop women laid a thin silky turquoise wonju, under blouse, over the taego, that perfectly picked up the turquoise in the flowers. The wonju's fabric is self-patterned with sprawling dragons. The half kira I chose is horizontally striped in blue, purple, black, orange, gray, and maroon with embroidered yellow-gold highlights. All these colors allow a kira to be matched with an assortment of jackets and blouses in combinations that go beyond anything I had been taught was acceptable.
Trying the clothes on in the middle of the store over my staid black, I felt daring--breaking every rule of the "clothes police". Who would have thought of such wild combinations? And there were so many more I could have taken.

Learning to wear the clothes

When I brought the package back to the apartment to show Judy, I couldn't remember how to tie the kira. It all has to be done in a special way, with the pleat on the right. Half dressed I asked the woman across the hall to show me. It is still a chore and when I wore it to the hospital the female orthopaedic techs shook their heads and re-did it.

Judy's Kira

Our friend, Nicola, helped Judy find her kira at a different wholesaler, a huge store with a choice that went on and on. After Judy's first purchase, she bought taegos for her sisters, another 2 for herself and has ended with a stunning collection of brocaded jackets that will make her the bell of any ball.

Last Sunday we returned to the fabric wholesaler, what we now call the kira shop. After four or five visits, we have become well known to the proprietor and so familiar with the merchandise, that we simply walk behind the counter, pullout the taegos, line them up on the counter and start matching them with silky wonjus and the bolts of kira fabric. We like to think we've developed the eye, the "Bhutanese eye" that looks at the color and pattern combinations and finds symmetry in amazing combinations.

The French Connection

A woman and two men chilups, French chilups, came into the store with a guide who was assisting them in clothes buying. The store's proprietor helped the men buy ghos, the men's belted national dress. Judy and I had the pleasure of showing the woman how to tie and pleat a half kira. We directed her in choosing a "Bhutanese color combination" that made her all black coat, pants, sweater and boots stand-up and cheer. After choosing their ghos, the men took interest in buying ensembles for their wives. Everyone left the "Kira Shop" with something. For Judy and me, we had the fun of mixing and matching, putting colors and patterns together, without paying.