NAKO

ARUNACHAL PRADESH

ANISHA PANESAR
 LOCATION
Perched high up in the

Trans-Himalayan region
of Kinnaur district in Himachal Pradesh, the
quaint village of Nako on the Indo-China
border buttresses some of the most time-worn
treasures of early Buddhism.
 The Buddhist temples
from the 12th century at
Nako, in the Kinnaur
region of Himachal
Pradesh – Western
Himalayas of India, have
been identified as one of
the 100 most endangered
heritage sites by the
Worlds Monuments Fund.
 NAKO's MAP
The village was formed around the
monastry which was built by the
sacred village.
The rest of the village evolved from
there, towards the lake.
 The Primary Structure and Interventions:
Established in the 13th and 14th centuries, subduing the baroque
Pala styled frescos, the elementary designs of mud mortared
stone foundations with mud bricks and barley husks washed in
mud plaster possess a domestic scale architectural simplicity of
the Alchi complex. The Lotsawa Lhakhang structure portrayed the
use of birch barks for waterproofing. In a faux attempt to appear
self-sufficient to the Buddhist leader Dalai Lama on his visit, the

monastery committee intervened with random wood supports to

sagged beams and replenished painted ceiling panels with new
but blank cedar wood panels.
Most of the cultural heritage was damaged beyond repair owing to
the use of just a plastic sheet, priorly before conservation, to
sustain the rains and the snow. To counter this issue, locals
sandwiched birch bark sheets on panel tops with clay as
waterproofing, but it suffered a mighty fall owing to its density. The
pioneered wooden ceilings panels, though revived during
restoration, suffered from smudged color schemes and rotten
material boards.
 The village has a lot of historic significance which was in a state of dilapidation.
A lot of communities have come forward to conserve the heritage and take care of the
paintings, murals and buildings constructed back in the 12th Century.

The other signigicant aspect of the culture seen there is their methods of construction and
vernacular architecture.
the end