Saving the Zangla Fortress
MúzeumCafé 20.
Every summer since 2008 under the auspices of the Csoma Room Foundation research and rescue operations have been undertaken in Zanskar, located in a hidden valley of the Indian Himalayas, in connection with relics relating to the 19th-century Hungarian explorer and linguist Sándor Kőrösi Csoma. The project began on a private initiative and is chiefly based on voluntary work. Large numbers of sponsors to contribute to the work if they agree with the project and its aims. Since the relevant monuments are located in an extremely difficult to access and geographically isolated region, with extreme climatic conditions, the employment of local people is an indispensable requirement, since they are the ones who have the necessary technical knowledge. Restoration of the Zangla Fortress, which contains a small room where Csoma lived, is a much more complex task than that of a stupa. Besides the King of Zangla, who owns the building, we also insisted on participating in the renovations ourselves – which, as it turned out, was sensible. During the summer of the first year, 2008, besides an architectural assessment, we were only able to implement the most necessary structural interventions. We learnt how to manage the local workforce, how to obtain and use traditional building materials, and how to organise the work. We were officially registered as the Csoma Room Foundation and our functioning started to move towards organising the work of volunteers. Among those is Sándor Finta, founder of the Centre for Contemporary Architecture, who often manages the work in India. We strongly stress that whoever participates in the initiative will get as much experience and hands-on specialist practice as possible in the field of traditional and sustainable architecture in a mountainous region.