NEPALESE ARCHITECTURE

HISTORY OF
ARCHITECTURE HIS 374

YEAR: III, SEMESTER: V

LECTURE 6 : – MALLA
(12th – 18th CE)

MALLA HOUSE AND

ARCHITECTURE

Asst. Professor SUNITA SHRESTHA

2080 MBMAN
 Newari house (Basic Pikhache)

Nepalese Architecture @ MBMAN_Sunita Shrestha

Plan type and location in Town
Chuka & Chukache: Courtyard and Courtyard House
Nani: Secondary Courtyard
Yakahche: Isolated single house
Pikhache: street-side house
The Courtyard House
(Chukache):

 House for a large

family, extended family
or a clan

 Access from under the

front house on
Streetside

 Function of the
courtyard: play,
washing, grain working,
sitting, sunning

 Dalans and Stairs

 The average Newari house is
basically rectangular in plan,
depth around 6m while the
length ranges from min 1.5m
to 15 m. (normal range 4-8m)
 The characteristic feature of
this design is the vertical
room arrangement, which is
not dependent on the size of
the house
Newari house
 Due to security considerations and to use as little irrigable land as
possible, the Newari house is vertically orientated
 Usually the houses are three storeyed but the houses of the poor in the
fringes are two storeyed
 The houses in the center of town are four storeyed
 The uniform depth facilitates the building of additional houses on to
existing ones, to form block of houses
 The houses are normally around the courtyard
 Different units make up the four sides of a Chauk, with at least one
house providing access to the street through a gateway on the
ground floor
 Staircases generally located in the corners, lead to separate room
clusters, which, due to the symmetrical façade are not distinguishable
from the outside
 A courtyard is a multi-purpose space where it is a playground for
children, a washing area, a grain grinding area and provides an area
for sitting, especially in the warmth of the sun during the winter
 Access to this courtyard in a Newari dwelling is through a single door
or a low, narrow gateway, that can be closed
 Common lifestyle within each habitation, together with similar building
methods, led to a uniformity in architectural style, with only superficial
variations

Nepalese Architecture @ MBMAN_Sunita Shrestha

 A spine wall parallel to the house frontage divides each floor into two
rooms
 This division on the top floor is replaced by columns
 The rural and a city houses also look similar
 Usually the domestic animals like goat and buffalo were sheltered on
the ground floor, whereas grain is kept in the upper floors and
anywhere convenient
 Most common is the use of the ground floor as an open shop front or
workshop, marked by a row of twin columns
 Bricks used are sun-dried, rough and simply baked, others may be
carefully burnt for specific purposes, some are especially smooth
surfaces and are polished before firing
 Other distinguishing features may be the ornately carved doors and
windows, of which the crowning achievement is the large living room
window or Sanjhya facing the street from the second or third floor
Pikhache: Streetside House

Pikhache: functional layout in the vertical

 Chhedi: storage, animals, fodder/raw materials

Shop front/ workshop
 Matan: Bed rooms
 Chvota: Living room
 Baigah: Attic for Kitchen, Worship space, Kitchen Stores
Doors/windows, Dalan: location, function and design

Pikhache: street/terrace houses- party wall, skyline, cornice

 Uniform depth: about 6m, varying width 4- 15m

 Shop front double tham (Column) construction
 2 and a half, 3 and a half or 4 and a half floors
 Gable roof and ridge line
 Main facade
 SKETCH SHOWING STANDARD ACCOMMODATION

Nepalese Architecture @ MBMAN_Sunita Shrestha

 SanJhya

Tiki jhya(Lattice window)

Section of typical newari building

 Facades

•Symmetry
•Entrance
door ,with
two
massive
wooden
Planks
•Windows
-fine woo.
den lattice
work.

SKETCH OF TYPICAL TERRACED DWELLINGS

Door plan and
elevation
Function and allocation of space:
 A deciding factor for the utilisation of different rooms in the house is its
vertical location
 The size of the house is virtually irrelevant as is the size of the family or
the caste consideration
 A central wall (Du Anga) normally divides the ground floor, Chhyadi
into two narrow rooms, of which the front room usually serves as a
shop or workshop
 A twin row of columns frequently replaces the entire front wall,
opening rooms, or workshops, opening onto the courtyard
 The centre wall, for structural reasons, is seldom replaced by columns
 Where the ground floor is used as a stable or store-room, only small
windows admit light and air and the same general access is used
 Doors in each of the external walls provide direct access between the
courtyard and the street
 A separate corridor leads to the courtyard where shops and
workshops occupy the ground floor
 A narrow staircase gives-access to the upper storeys
 A trap door in the form of two heavy planks closes off the stairwell
normally at each floor level and this was probably the result of
earlier defense requirements
 Originally the ground floor was never used as a living area as among
other reasons, it offered no protection against dampness
 The floor is either tiled with bricks or covered with a layer of clay
 Only shops have a well-ventilated wooden floor
 The actual living space and sleeping areas of the family begins with
the first floor (Matan=middle section)
 Depending on the size of the house, the two rooms created by the
central wall are further divided by either solid or light timber
partitions to form sleeping quarters for family members, or for
married sons, who remain in the parental home with their own family
Ladder construction(staircase)

Construction technology
Roof construction

Ridge construction
Rafters
and
purlins
Foundation System
Development in architecture during malla period

Highly carved windows

Advanced brick making
> introduced the polished telia bricks
 Highly decorative brick moldings
1. Lichhavi / Malla:
Most of tiered and Shikhara
Square window, artistic Sanjhya,
2. Shah:
Elongated lattice windows, less
carving
3. Rana:
structural dome, French window,
wall pilasters, Lime carnesh
4. Modern:
RCC members,
cement mortar

Conservation@Khec_DBJayana 22
Conservation@Khec_DBJayana 23