Kaiser Mahal and Kaiser's Library, Kathmandu (Nepal article 2017-07)

The Ranas built a number of extravagant palaces in Kathmandu. Many are now being used as government ministries, while others were damaged in the 2015 earthquake and are closed. But there is some good news. The Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Restoration, funded by the United States, has provided a grant for conservation and restoration of the south wing of Kaiser Mahal. I think this is the section that includes the library but am not sure.

When my friends and I visited the Garden of Dreams in October of 2017, the Kaiser Mahal was a hulking building of brickwork and plaster with only a small section open as a photograph gallery. But looking over a brick wall, we saw the palace east entrance, a dilapidated garden, deserted cars, and junk. Ah ha, urban decay on a grand scale.

Surprisingly, we could walk around the corner to Kanti Path (street) and walk through an unguarded brick entrance. A couple of cooks were cleaning dishes at a tap. And there was the palace, looking quite forlorn. The Department of Education formerly used the building, but has now moved.

The architecture is a combination of neoclassical European with Oriental influence. Everything was locked, so we left.

Two weeks later, I returned by myself to Kanti Path. This time, the grounds were bustling, with parked scooters and cars and people milling around. And the Kaiser Library was open! I signed in and walked around. The collection looked like a repository of early 20th century Indian-printed volumes: Birds of the Indian Garden, or Sport on HRM's Royal Tour of India and Burma (= shoot many tigers from the back of elephants), or Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet (the amazing story of Sarat Chandra Das, a school teacher turned explorer and spy). The books were damp. The library desperately needs climate control.

A barrier prevented me from going upstairs, but I saw a group with an English-speaking gent go up the stairs and examine the collections and some oil paintings. Dr. Messerschmidt, an anthropologist, told me that many volumes have been stolen because of lax security.

Some background to the library: According to an article in Wikipedia, Kaiser Shumsher Jang Bahadur Rana was an avid book collector. Kaiser visited England with his father early in the 20th century. "He was very much impressed by the government of England, as well as by the library system and the proper management of books there." He brought home many books, and back in Kathmandu, he established a library in the palace. Eventually, he acquired thousands of volumes. At first, the library was open only to family members and special visitors, but he bequeathed the collection to the nation upon his death in 1964. The good news is the library is still open to students and the public, there is staff during opening hours, and there is functioning electricity. Let's hope this cultural treasure can be preserved.

I took the black and white photographs with a Leica IIIC rangefinder camera and a 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens. The library photographs are from a compact Yashica Electro 35CC camera with 35mm ƒ/1.8 lens using Fuji 200 film. The camera's shutter is electronically timed, so I placed it on shelves, set the self-timer, and let the shutter stay open as long as needed (many seconds); very convenient. The film came from a shop in the Thamel area of town.

Preserved! Staying at the Pałac Żelazno, Kłodzko, Poland

During my 2016 trip to Poland, we needed a room near the southwestern town of Kłodzko. It was a long drive there, and we wanted to visit a castle in Kłodzko in the morning. I booked via Easyjet's web page and by chance found a place called Pałac Żelazno at a reasonable price. OK, no problem.

Following the GPS unit, we drove some distance south of Kłodzko through woods and rich agricultural fields, turned and drove through a monumental gate, and there it was. It was a palace, not a chain hotel. Poland is full of neat surprises like this!

We checked in and were booked in a room on the second floor. The next  morning, I started exploring. The great rooms are just amazing. They survived the Great Depression, World War II, and 50 years of Communism?

The solarium on the south side was cheerful and sunny. It had some massive radiators to maintain heat during the winter. Our proprietor told us they use coal in the furnace (and a lot of it). I wanted to see the basement, but it was off-limits.

Wandering through some hallways, I found a stairwell that led upwards. All of a sudden, I was in the 1970s. Pałac Żelazno must have been a rest and relaxation hotel for workers during the Communist era, and the rooms in the attic had been decorated in Communist-moderne style.

The carpeting had a design that looked like old-fashioned TV sets. The brocade was gold. Some of the rooms had sinks, with lavatory was down the hall. What kinds of fun and games went on here when factory workers came on holiday? Recall that in the pre-World War II era, the servants would have lived under the roof (think of the intrigue and activity in the attic in Downton Abbey).

The palac has a tower on the south side (see the first photograph). On the ground floor, there was a gorgeous, sunny, cheerful round room with yellow plaster. Very nice. But what was above?

I snuck (sneaked?) through a doorway and up some curvy stairs. Hmmm, a fixer-upper room with some air conditioners. Note the 1960s lamp fixture.

Finally, the garrett (from an old French word guerite, meaning "watchtower" or "sentry box."). I looked for Rapunzel, but she was not there. I suppose her prince already took her away.

The former stables were out back. They needed a bit of restoration, but the massive tile roof looked sound. Did the Communist administration pay for that?

Palac Żelazno has its own web page where you can book a room for your stay. I'm impressed that they can cover maintenance and utilities. And I am glad the Communist authorities maintained the place in the post-war era. In the West, it likely would have been demolished on purely economic grounds. But the Poles have done a fantastic job preserving their historical culture. As I wrote above, Poland is full of surprises like this.

Photographs taken with a Fuji X-E1 digital camera with 18-55mm and 14 mm Fuji lenses.

Burmese Days 1: Very Odd: the Lim Chin Tsong Palace

Dear Readers, this will begin a series of posts on sights and architecture in Burma, now officially known as Myanmar. I lived in Burma in the late-1950s and will use this familiar name, as do many locals. The title, "Burmese Days," comes from the novel of the same name by George Orwell, who was a police officer in the Indian Imperial Police force in Burma from 1922 to 1927. We can describe the book in more detail in a later post.

Burma was one of the British Empire's richest countries, an incredibly profitable exporter of teak, fish, petroleum, tea, gem stones, and rice. Rangoon has some really odd architecture dating from its opulent days early in the 20th century. One of the strangest is the mansion/palace built by the flamboyant Chinese tycoon, Lim Chin Tsong.

Mr. Tsong inherited a business from his father in 1885 and promptly began to expand it, eventually forming a business empire of shipping, rice-export, and petroleum agent for Burma Oil Corporation (historical note: in the late 1800s, Burma was one of the world's original major oil producers). In 1919, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire for his fundraising efforts during the Great War. In 1917, he began to build his lavish residence in the Kokkine area of Rangoon (now off Kabar Aye Road). The central part of the brick and tile mansion was designed to resemble the Fu Xiang pavilion in the Yihe Yuan (Summer Palace) in Peking (Zaw 2014). He imported materials and crafts from Italy and China, and British painters were invited to design the interior.

The photograph above is a scan of a 1957 slide from the family archives. Then, the palace was in reasonably good condition. Notice the odd juxtaposition of an English country manor on the bottom with a Chinese temple sticking out of the top. The weather vane is English, and so are the windows. The gardens were still immaculately tended in the English manner. By coincidence, this was only a few blocks from where we lived.

Jump to 2014; the building is still intact, but in poorer condition.

Look at the gorgeous glass art nouveau cupola over the garden door, now unfortunately partly blocked by a steel cover over the walkway.

The main entry featured a colonnaded carport. Once, the cream of society, all elegantly-dressed, arrived in Rolls Royces or carriages.

Even after a century, the woodwork and plaster trim is mostly intact. But who knows what decorative arts have disappeared.

The center atrium was 3-floors high. The temple portion with the 2 upper floors is supported by the granite pillars and dome - impressive engineering for 1917. I tried to go upstairs, but the door was padlocked.

A second floor room still has original paintings (fresco?) and teak parquet floor. The ceiling panels are new.

This was the second floor balcony, with a view of the formal gardens. Unfortunately, Mr. Tsong had only three years to enjoy his view and magnificent house. His businesses began to unravel in 1921, when the British government banned rice sales except to India, and soon he had to borrow money from friends. In 1923, only three years after inauguration of the house, he passed away, a broken man.

After Mr. Tsong's death, the house went to a Japanese creditor and was used by the All Burma Broadcasting Station during the Japanese occupation of 1941-1945. It finally went to the Burmese government in 1950, who used it as a guest house. Currently, the Fine Arts Department under the Ministry of Culture maintains offices and an art and architecture school on the premises (Zaw 2014).

The afternoon we explored, the building was almost deserted. A few students were doing something on computers in some offices, but the drawing rooms were empty.

The porch adjacent to the drawing room is rather funky. Do they take baths and do laundry out there? I had fun exploring and taking pictures, but then someone told our guide that photography was forbidden. Oops, too late.

Fortunately, in 2014, the Ministry of Culture designated the Lim Chin Tsong palace as heritage status, with the Archaeology, National Museum and Library Department to take responsibility to maintain the building. This unique memory of an eccentric entrepreneur deserves tender loving care.

Final note: on the approach driveway, workers had dug a deep pit to expose the sewer. Look at the construction: arched brick, just like the sewers in London in the 1800s. Also note: no hardhats, steel boots, or safety harnesses. Hmm, the walls are not braced, either.

References

Zaw, A. 2014. The House on an Island, The Irrawaddy, Vol. 21, no. 10, pp. 21-23.

My dad took the 1957 photograph on Anscochrome film with a Leica IIIC camera and 5cm ƒ/2.0 Summitar lens. The 2014 photographs are from a Panasonic G3 camera with 9-18mm Olympus lens, with RAW files processed in PhotoNinja software.