Le Corbusier was a French architect who mustered up a storm in the built world with his fancy broad stroke forms and unstoppable zest for building. Challenging the norms and taking a huge liking to the pouring of concrete he not just thought out of the box, but threw out the box with his buildings per se. Apart from France his work is best exhibited by the joint capital city of Punjab and Haryana, Chandigarh. This city was offered to the stricken state of Punjab as a promise of a better tomorrow after the horrid affairs of the partition of India in 1947 that resulted in the creation of Pakistan. The horrors of the tale are told by people who have lived to see it, yet today apart from the tensions that India faces with its erstwhile part and now neighbor, Chandigarh remains an example of urban design and a mark of modern architecture, more specifically brutalist architecture in India.
After the partition and the formation of new India in 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of the country invited the fast growing in popularity architect, Le Corbusier who was known for his relentless in thinking and his modern ideas to build a capital in 1950. This was after the American architect Mayer who was first comissioned in 1949 died in a tragic plane crash. Corbusier designed the buildings in the Capitol complex, the urban design of the street and planned the city inspired the human form with a head, a torso, hands and legs. The body was further divided into self-sufficient cells that he called sectors. These sectors were to have housing, shops and were to contain parks that would suffice for entertainment. The shopping complex that he designed in Sector 17, reminds one of the streets of Paris with the leafy avenues, ample walking spaces and parking that is sufficing the city even today, 75 years on.
Yet was is inescapable about Chandigarh is its crumbling quality of most of its Capitol complex’s exposed concrete buildings. Not the best in aging, though endowned with vast, awe-inspiring proportions, the material over time with the temperate weather of Northern India looks dilapidated with the occasional coat of paint. The bungalows that dot the sectors are designed with brick, a welcome red in a tone of all grey. While Corbusier tries to make-up for the grey with blasts of primary colors in the doors, columns or even the interiors, the effect that produces makes the city look like a large playhouse. The leafy avenues are a big win though, as we spotted students cycling in the ample space that the city provides. In Chandigarh, like in Lutyens Delhi, there just seems to be a lot of space, a lot of breathing space, making a case for planned cities in this urban sprawl that we have gotten used to!
When a French architect builds for an Indian populace the result is questionable, just like when an architect houses extremely traditional people in a stark modern house, the philosophy of the architect takes no que of the people who live in it. Punjab with all its agriculture, color, gaiety and volume is subdued with all the concrete in its grey. We cannot but wonder how beautifully the people of Chandigarh accepted the whims of an architect who threw the radial city ideas, putting a vast distance between the head and the foot of the city, the Capitol complex is cut off from Sector 34 and its like. The punctuations in the urban space and the built form are the best part of the city, Corbusier who associated himself with the crow would probably have been so happy to fly about in this city that he designed.
The Hand monument and the Tower of shadows bear grand concepts that are thought-provoking, while the High Court and the Assembly are exquisite on the inside, there are so many experiments in Chandigarh, some that succeeded brilliantly and others that failed mercilessly, just like life and all its bearings the people of Punjab have accepted Chandigarh as their own, while the city has grown into them over the ages. There are some wins and there are some losses, the people have cut their losses and celebrated their wins, why even sharing their city with their neighbouring state that was carved out of them! While food is one of the most alluring parts of Punjab, the loud Punjabis met their match in their subtle French architect and together concocted a blend that is Indian in its spirit yet quite elegantly and subtly French in its outlook!
Vedasri Siddamsetty 