Zangla, India

Architects: Dániel Déri , Csaba Nagy
Text: Balázs Irimiás
Photos: Csoma’s Room Foundation

Alexander Csoma de Kőrös, an internationally acknowledged scholar and the founder of Tibetology, spent a formative period of his creative career and his whole life in the Himalayas. After writing his most significant work, the Tibetan-English dictionary and a summary of the grammar of the Tibetan language, he found his final place of rest in Darjeeling, India. The concept of the Csoma’s Room Foundation emerged during a bicycle tour in the Himalayas as an initiative to promote and facilitate community building as well as the conservation and restoration of historic monuments. Drawing inspiration from the life of Alexander Csoma de Kőrös their primary aim was to preserve the last relics of the scholar’s career in India. After acquiring the local building technologies and partially restoring the ruins of the Zangla Royal Palace, the foundation restored several historical Stupas of the region and built an elementary school in cooperation with Archikon architects’ team for the local community based on the principle of passive solar sustainability.

Architecture: Archikon Kft.
Leading architects: Dániel Déri, Csaba Nagy
Fellow architects: Károly Pólus, Ágnes Kádár, Bence Várhidi – Archikon Kft., Balázs Irimiás, Bulcsú Szabó – Csoma’s Room Foundation
Project coordinators: Balázs Irimiás, Bulcsú Szabó, Ágnes Kádár, Balázs Szelecsényi, Giacomo Butte – Csoma’s Room Foundation