Illuminating Tibet

Image (c) Zhang Xiao for the New York Times

STUDIO NvS have recently been exploring projects in the mountainous west of China, but Kristian isn’t the only van Schaik fascinated by the region’s history and culture. Brother Sam is a world authority on the history of Tibet.

Sam received his PhD in Tibetan Buddhist literature from the University of Manchester in 2000, with a dissertation on the translations of Dzogchen texts by Jigme Lingpa. For the last twenty years, he has worked at the British Library, currently as project manager for the International Dunhuang Project, specialising in the study of Tibetan Buddhist manuscripts from the city in Gansu province. In 2019 Sam was appointed head of the library’s Endangered Archives Programme.

Sam ‘wrote the book’ on Tibetan history and we’re thrilled to be able to call on his expertise when designing projects in this remarkable place.

https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300194104/tibet