Niels Gutschow Livres

Includes not only architectural information, but also the cultural significance of these Buddhist monuments.

The book gives a comprehensive view of the complex world of india's sacred place par excellence, also known as Barnes.

In a unique collaboration, an architectural historian and an indologist document the death rituals of the Newar community in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. The first section focuses on Bhaktapur, exploring its calendric rituals of death and renewal. It introduces the city’s urban landscape, including cremation sites, death procession routes, and locations of spirits and ancestor deities, accompanied by 28 illustrative maps. The second part details the ritual that unites the deceased with their forefathers, which is also presented on a DVD. Additionally, local handbooks and manuals used by Brahmin priests during this ritual are edited and translated. This ethno-indological approach combines textual and contextual methods to understand the agency in rituals and the role of texts within their contexts. The study reveals that formalized rituals are not rigid or unchanging; rather, they are influenced by the unique characteristics of the participants, locations, and timing. The authors emphasize the significance of naming places and actors and dating events. This exploration of death rituals is the first volume in a trilogy examining life-cycle rituals in Nepal, conducted under the Collaborative Research Centre “Dynamics of Ritual.”

The final chapter is dedicated to stone in modern art. The Surrealists of the 1920s were 'stricken with sculptural fever' when confronted with 'living stones'. André Breton explained his fascination in an essay titled 'The Language of Stone'.

The volume investigates the visualization of both ritual and decorative aspects of auspiciousness and protection in the form of celestial characters in art and architecture. In doing so, it covers more than two and a half millennia and a broad geographical area, documenting a practice found in nearly every corner of the world. Its transcultural approach aims at gaining insights into cultural dynamics and consistent networks and defining new historical mindmaps; it examines reciprocal effects and aspects of interwovenness in art and architecture with a view to reconceptualizing their established realms. The collection opens a window on a phenomenon in the history of art and architecture that has never before been considered from this perspective. The book focuses on a transcultural iconography of aerial spirits, goddesses and gods in art history, pursuing a methodologically innovative approach in order to redefine and develop the practice of identification and classification of motifs as a means to understanding meaning, and attempting to challenge the categories defined by academic disciplines.

The authors – an architectural historian (Niels Gutschow) and an indologist (Axel Michaels) – are presenting the second part of a trilogy of studies of life-cycle rituals in Nepal, carried out under the auspices of the Collaborative Research Centre “Dynamics of Ritual”. The initiation of boys and girls of both Hindus and Buddhists of the ethnic community of Newars in the Kathmandu Valley are documented. The first part of the book presents elements of Newar rituals, the spatial background of Bhaktapur and the hierarchy of ritual specialists – illustrated by 21 maps. The second part documents with detailed descriptions the. rst feeding of solid food, birthday rituals, and pre-puberty rituals like the first shaving of the hair, the boy’s initiation with the loincloth (in Buddhist and Hindu contexts), the girl’s marriage with the bel fruit and the girl’s seclusion. One girl’s marriage (Ihi) and three boy’s initiations (Kaytapuja) are documented on a DVD. The third part presents the textual tradition: local handbooks and manuals used by the Brahmin priest to guide the rituals. Two of these texts are edited and translated to demonstrate the function of such texts in a variety of contexts.

Im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland gehörten nicht nur Techniker, Wissenschaftler, Juristen, Ärzte und Eisenbahner zu den willigen Helfern des Regimes. Auch Architekten und Raumplaner folgten dem »Führer« auf der Spur der Panzer. Niels Gutschow zeigt, dass diese Fachleute dabei mit Menschen umgingen wie mit Sachen. Baueingabepläne, Strukturuntersuchungen, Gutachten - deutsche Architekten planten und entwarfen Rathäuser und Wohnsiedlungen mit derselben Sachlichkeit wie Arbeits- und Vernichtungslager. Auschwitz, Posen und Lodsch sollten zu deutschen Städten für deutsche Menschen werden ... Nach dem Ende solcher Wahnvorstellungen waren es dieselben Architekten und Planer, die die Kontinuität der Funktionseliten sichern halfen - unter ihnen nicht wenige, die sich nach 1945 an prominenter Stelle um den Wiederaufbau in Westdeutschland kümmerten.