Pam Logan, President of the US-based Kham Aid Foundation, reports on a training program to preserve and enhance local architectural styles in ethnic Tibetan area of western Sichuan.

Seng-ge Monastery, Kangding County, August 2005. Our opening ceremony was marred by an accident. A monk carrying a twelve-foot plank swung it around and smacked photographer Simon Lim across the bridge of his nose. Simon doubled over, face in his hands. We thought his nose must be broken, but were relieved when his injury turned out to be minor. The monk set the plank down on the wet grass, and we sat on it, the Tibetan nomad and farmer trainees in a semi-circle around us.

Behind us, just outside the wall that enclosed the lawn where we sat, was a big hole in the ground, recently dug. It was ready for the foundation of the new kitchen we would soon start.

Training director Doka acted as master of ceremonies and spoke to the trainees first. He introduced the Kham Aid team, headed by architect conservator Tenzing Chadotsang, site manager Tenzing Norbu, five instructors, documentarian Earl Stirling and myself. Tenzing Chadotsang spoke a few words to introduce himself, with Asang translating his Lhasa dialect into the Tagong nomad language.

Doka explained our program. He said, “If we just wanted a building, we could hire some Han workers and get it done. But building a new building is not our purpose. We're here to teach new skills to you. We want to show you how to make buildings that are stronger, safe against rainstorms and earthquakes, and that are still Tibetan. And we will teach you to do this not with concrete and tiles, but with local materials only: wood, clay, and stone.”

Doka told how an earthquake had had struck near Dawu in 1973, leading to clever advances in construction there. That’s why we had invited two Dawu (Ch. Daofu) teachers, stone mason Shamba Gyatso and carpenter Losang Dendrup. Two more teachers, Tsering and Tarsin, had come from Chaktreng (Ch. Xiangcheng) to show how to make leak-proof roofs out of arga, a construction technique used in central Tibet and some other areas but not Tagong. From Kangding, we had invited quarry-master He Zhanqun, who is expert at cutting round boulders into perfectly square stones.

Doka said “If any one of you is not willing to work and learn, you should leave right now.” The trainees--nomads from Dorakarmo village and farmers from Pasang--all stared back at us. Nobody moved.

Tenzing Chadotsang, who was able to follow Doka’s speech, nudged me and said, “He forgot to say that one of our purposes is to protect the monastery.”I touched Doka's arm and reminded him to mention this key point. He quickly explained to the trainees how we would also re-fit the monastery roof to make it more rain-resistant, and strengthen the joists to help it stand up against earthquakes. With that, the speeches were over and it was time to get to work.

Kham is known for its rich architecture but techniques vary greatly from place to place. So, it turns out, does quality of construction. In an April visit to the region, Tenzing Chadotsang had identified several important deficiencies in Tagong buildings. For example, their stone walls do not have long pieces incorporated into them to tie the walls together internally, so during earthquakes they tend to split in two. Wooden columns are not stabilized at the ground level, nor are the pegs that connect them to the capitals very secure. Roofs do not drain well and the clay on them is not as waterproof as it could be.

It's not that Tibetan culture wholly lacks this knowledge, it's just that the knowledge is not in Tagong. Why? Probably because Tagong has not had a serious earthquake in living memory, so people aren’t motivated. Yet the risk remains. Thus, ‘best practices’ for traditional construction need to be imported from other parts of the Tibetan Plateau.

Another reason for our program is to teach useful job skills to Tagong’s people, especially herders, because herding simply does not bring in enough cash to sustain a family. Yet in Tagong the construction trades are drawing outsiders who are capturing the market and leaving local Tibetans on the sidelines. We could not find a single ethnic Tibetan quarrier in Tagong or Xinduqiao, although stone-cutting skills are in high demand due to many new Tibetan buildings going up. Carpenters from outside have set up workshops to mass-produce pre-fabricated Tibetan-style windows and doors, displacing Tibetan carpenters who are accustomed to making the units on-site, one by one.

Our program is also intended to demonstrate that culturally appropriate methods are as good as or better than imported techniques. For example, cement is an increasingly popular building material, but it both undermines the traditional character of local architecture and also saps jobs from local Tibetans who cannot easily find someone to teach the relevant skills. Yet cement is often a poor choice and confers few advantages. Another example: these days, in new houses, pitched wood-frame tile-covered roofs are now in vogue (except in the town of Tagong itself where tiles are prohibited by local ordinance). The new roofs are dramatically altering the appearance of the countryside. It's true that tiles are more waterproof than badly-made flat clay roofs, but a well-made and well-maintained clay roof can match the performance of tile. And clay, unlike tile, does not employ outside materials or workers.

And so we began to teach. Our instructors gathered their students and began showing them what to do with the materials piled by the site. The arga experts, Tsering and Tarsin, went off looking for suitable clay with which to re-make the temple roof. Before long Tenzing Chadotsang, architect-in-chief, came to me and pointed at a spot on the mountain wall about a quarter mile away. “They found some good clay up there. The monks said it doesn't work, but they don't know the technique. They just put the clay on the roof, but that's not enough. You have to work it before you lay it down.”

Meanwhile, stonemason Shamba Gyatso was showing his trainees how to dry-lay rocks in the foundation trenches. Quarrier He Zhanqun was teaching his student how to split a boulder into two flat-faced halves. Carpenter Losang Dendrup and his students were stripping bark from the huge timbers that would form the new building’s columns.

The next day we added a dozen women to our crew. Under the tutelage of Tarsin and Tsering, they began removing bad clay from the temple roof and carrying good clay down from the digging site. They would prepare it, layer it onto the roof and harden it with a thorough trampling to make arga, the rock-hard material found on roofs in Lhasa and elsewhere. Tsering (who is a woman, by the way) explained,“With arga, every time it snows, you must sweep the snow off of the roof. But if you just do that, the roof will last a lifetime.”

With so many students, teachers, and staff from different parts of Tibet, China, and the world, communication was not always easy. Translator Asang was in great demand during the first few days. As stonemason Shamba Gyatso, who is 66, noted, “The first step is that create a good cooperation by being kind to each other. We must all share our ideas like we are one family.”

Although architect-in-chief Tenzing Chadotsang and stonemason Shamba Gyatso had learned their trades on the opposite sides of the world (Columbia University and Dawu, respectively) they found that their ideas on construction were not far apart at all. Tenzing said, “I was telling him about how to do the walls, and he totally understood. We agreed in about a minute.”

This program will accomplish three things: strengthening and retrofitting for Seng-ge Monastery’s main temple, a new kitchen building for the monastery, and new knowledge for our 25 students. With these skills, they’ll be able to create an architectural revolution in the Minyak area of Kham. We hope that the innovations learned in our program will enable traditional Tibetan architecture to endure in Tagong for decades to come.

This report first appeared in the Kham Aid Foundation's September 2005 e-newsletter. The project is a part of a Sustainable Tibetan Communities program funded by the US Agency for International Development and implemented by Winrock International and other partners.