The slow return of the Kathmandu Valley's wooden windows

Walk through any of the valley's old towns and the windows tell you where the money went after the earthquake. New concrete frames sit beside restored timber ones, and in a few places the originals have gone back exactly where they were. (UNESCO World Heritage Centre 2025)

The craft survives in family workshops, mostly in Bhaktapur and Patan, where an apprenticeship still takes years.

A trade with a waiting list

Demand is not the problem. Restoration committees, hotels and private houses all want carved work, and the backlog runs to years. The problem is hands: the number of master carvers is in the dozens, and the young are not queuing to join them.

Historians note that the valley's building traditions have been interrupted before and recovered; the question each time has been whether the knowledge survived the gap. (Various 2019)