Brick red and prayer flags
Kathmandu
Red-brick temples with carved dark wood, white stupas hung with prayer flags, and marigolds at festival time.
Why Kathmandu is newar brick red
The old cities of the Kathmandu valley are built of red brick and dark carved timber, the style of the Newar people. Tiered temples in the palace squares of Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur follow this pattern. An earthquake in 2015 brought many down, and rebuilding has gone on since. Two great Buddhist stupas add white: Boudhanath and Swayambhunath, each a whitewashed dome topped by a gilded tower painted with the eyes of the Buddha, and hung with five-coloured prayer flags. Saffron water is splashed on the domes in arcs to form lotus petals. Red powder marks foreheads and shrines. At the autumn festival of Tihar, doors and dogs alike wear garlands of orange marigold.
Values are fair approximations of what the eye sees there, not measurements.
Colours tied to Kathmandu
Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "Kathmandu" on Wikipedia. If you know Kathmandu and we have it wrong, tell us.
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🇮🇳 The open-air gallery of RajasthanShekhawatiMerchant mansions in the towns of north Rajasthan are covered inside and out with painted murals.
🇮🇳 Land of mirror work and white desertKutchEmbroidery, tie-dye and block print in deep red and indigo, set against the white salt of the Rann.
🇮🇳 The silk cityKanchipuramA temple town in Tamil Nadu whose heavy silk saris pair strong body colours with contrasting gold borders.
🇮🇳 Red earth and a golden sphereAurovilleAn experimental township on red earth near Pondicherry, centred on the golden globe of the Matrimandir.
🇮🇳 Akbar's red sandstone cityFatehpur SikriA Mughal capital built in one red stone in the 1570s and left by the court only a few years later.
🇮🇳 Capital in red sandstoneDelhiFrom the Qutb Minar to the Red Fort to the government buildings, Delhi's monuments share one red stone.Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Shekhawati In: Digrajsingh, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Kutch In: Zeel Satyendra Modi, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Kanchipuram In: Ssriram mt, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Auroville In: Kaspar Konrad, Public domain, source
- Fatehpur Sikri In: HibaSiddiqui, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Delhi In: A.Savin, FAL, source