Newar Architecture

Newar architecture, also called Newa architecture, is the indigenous building tradition of the Newar people of the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal, encompassing temples in pagoda, stupa, shikhara and chaitya form as well as monastic courtyards, known as baha and bahi, palaces and houses. Its defining contribution to world architecture is the multi tiered pagoda roof form, which scholars believe may have originated in the Kathmandu Valley before spreading to India, China, Southeast Asia and Japan, a diffusion credited in part to the Newar architect Arniko. The tradition developed from the Licchavi period, beginning around 400 AD, through the Malla dynasty of the twelfth to eighteenth centuries, and is marked by finely worked brickwork combined with elaborate carved wood. Its buildings are concentrated above all in the Durbar Squares of Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur, the historic royal plazas of the valley's three Malla era city states.