Chandigarh

The third trip of Le Corbusier to Chandigarh, a year after his first contact with India, is closely bound to the definition of the Capitol as an active platform, capable of pulling together the institutional palaces of which it forms a part and as a reality isolated from the city and uniquely linked to the experience of the vast dimensions of the country, to the plain that supports it, to its ceiling of sky and to the mountains that end the horizontal land. During the twenty-five days he stayed there, Le Corbusier defined the Capitol as an area and determined its limits. He introduced the physics of the combined reflections, intensified the topography as an architectural theme that animates the platform of the Capitol and drew the gardens that lead to the Governor's palace, as a synthesis of all the presented themes. The results would give rise, on his return, to the plan with the studio number of chand lc 4445 capitol. Later, as the palaces came to be defined, the Capitol would be modified to achieve a new position of balance with respect to them, but always in relation to what happened during those days of 1952.

El tercer viaje de Le Corbusier a Chandigarh, un año después de su primer contacto con la India, está íntimamente ligado a la definición del Capitolio en tanto que plataforma activa, capaz de poner en tensión los palacios institucionales de la que forman parte, y en tanto que realidad aislada de la ciudad y únicamente vinculada a la experiencia de las vastas dimensiones del país, al llano que la sustenta, a su techo de cielo y a las montañas que ponen fin al terreno horizontal. Durante los veinticinco días que permanece en el lugar, Le Corbusier define el Capitolio como recinto y determina sus límites, introduce la física de los reflejos combinados, intensifica la topografía como tema arquitectónico que anima la plataforma del Capitolio y dibuja los jardines que preceden al palacio del Gobernador, como síntesis de todos los temas expuestos. Los resultados darán lugar, a su vuelta, al plano con número de atelier chand lc 4445 capitol. Más adelante, a medida que se definen los palacios, el Capitolio irá modificándose para alcanzar una nueva situación de equilibrio respecto a ellos, pero siempre en relación a aquello que sucedió durante esos días de 1952.

A reading of Gayatri Spivak’s 1995 “City, Country, Agency,” this article offers a framework for constructing a responsibility- based agency for architecture and urbanism in service of decol-onization. Weaving together deconstructive readings of select verses from the Mahābhārata and other Sanskrit texts, it posits an alternate ecologist understanding of history and society as dhāranā, as a kind of holding otherness, that architects must pre- comprehend to responsibly and more impactfully situate their agency in the world. Architectural thinking, or the prac-tices of design, are offered as situational imperativist agencies that are accessible to dhāranā. The article also points toward the ethics of an alternate preservationist practice, that neither fetishizes the object nor sidelines its agency, but invests in and investigates other modalities of preservation. It argues for a future oriented praxis that is neither prescriptive nor reactive, but is propelled by desire as inflected via dhāranā.

Published by: University of Minnesota Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/futuante.16.2.0087

This essay is the introduction to the book on the Indian modernist Shivdatt Sharma. It outlines Sharma's career trajectory, describes the Chandigarh Capital Project Office and narrates the problematic of Indian modernism using Sharma's work as case study.

Sports is such an activity wherein lot of physical effort is required. A physically fit person has always been found to be better. However, being physically fit is not enough. One has to be emotionally stable as well to perform better. The present is an attempt to understand the same. The present study is based on a survey of 100 school students of Chandigarh region. The study revealed that the National players had exhibited better than their counterparts at inter-school level and non-players. Also it was found that the male players had demonstrated better than their counterpart female players.

This is the concluding chapter from One Continuous Line: Art, Architecture and Urbanism of Aditya Prakash (Mapin, 2021). It makes the case for rethinking the epistemologies of modernism as a global construct using the writings of Karen Barad as a major reference for thinking. -------

One Continuous Line: Art, Architecture and Urbanism of Aditya Prakash documents and contextualizes the work of one of the most prolific of the first generation of Indian modernists. Prakash was an architect, an urban planner, a painter, sculptor, set-designer, furniture designer, academic, theatre director, and actor, as well as an occasional poet. The first publication devoted solely to Prakash's work, the objective of this book is to introduce scholarly and general audiences the diversity of his work, to locate it in terms of its local, national, and international contexts, and to build a narrative that describes the motivations of the work. The "continuous" in the title refers both to Prakash's fascination with the possibilities of generating form using a single line, and to his search for synergy between the various disciplines. The book focuses on Prakash's efforts to re-think Le Corbusian idea through Indic forms and imperatives.

Chandigarh has the rare accolade of being one of the few cities in the world with planned landscape. Its Master Plan, ‘a unique work of art’, laid the foundation of what is now popularly called a city beautiful. Between the orderly chequered-mesh of the grid-iron road layout encompassing the sectors, lies a structured patterns of linear green belts and city parks. But sadly, the so-said ‘greenery’ on the master plan is largely misleading. In reality, many of the ‘green belts’ are ‘brown or dry belts’ in summer or cladded with piles of garbage, slums or unauthorised squatter settlements.
So, the big question which arises is what actually went wrong in just half a century after the inception of the city? Was the master plan or concept faulty in terms of landscape planning or are the changing socio-economic and political forces currently ruling the city to be blamed? More importantly, the issue is not just only confined to city turning from green and clean to brown and shabby. Other important urban and landscape issues of the city include management of water bodies, water run-off etc. With increased urban population and re-densified built forms in general, Chandigarh will also come under more and more severe environmental stresses. What expectations and strategies do we need to evolve for meeting this challenge?

See also above in Articles section: Charles Correa: An Infinity of Traces (Illustrated) ArchitectureLive! , 2022

The chapter, commissioned during India's Golden Jubilee, reviews the contribution of Architect Charles Correa to nation-building, against the backdrop of 50 years of modern architecture in post-Independent India (1947-1997). Footnotes that went missing in the published piece have been reinstated as endnotes in this upload.

Some projects can be seen in the illustrated seed-essay "Style Maestro" below.

(Adjunct Professor H Masud Taj has conducted Asian Architecture seminars but is not "Professor, Asian Studies" p.65).

This research paper attempts to establish orientalist undertones in Edouard
’s work at Chandigarh at its conceptual core, early design conception, the actualization of these ideas at Chandigarh and his extrinsic justifications and orientalist influences during his formative years to comprehension of his critics.

El palacio del Gobernador de Chandigarh es un proyecto elaborado a partir de contrastes intensos entre luces y sombras, reunidos por Le Corbusier en un único objeto arquitectónico en torno a un tema de gran efectividad plástica: el avance y retroceso de los niveles sucesivos que forman “la pile d’assiettes” del palacio y las relaciones ópticas que se establecen entre ellos.
El edificio no se reviste sistemáticamente de un  brise-soleil ni de un parasol que constituyan un espacio de transición entre interior y exterior, con todos los matices que esto permite.
Aún así, este ensayo plantea la hipótesis que explicar el edificio equivale a desvelar la relación característica, unívoca, que brise-soleil y parasol establecen conjuntamente con la luz y la sombra.

Le Corbusier, while designing Chandigarh, India’s first exemplar city, consciously designed the functioning of the public realm and its public spaces. The city turned out to be a resilient and positively progressive towards the first urbanization the country was experiencing. Today, India is
stepping into its second urbanization and Chandigarh is growing vertically and horizontally in its aspirations to be a metropolitan. As a result of this unprecedented movement there are myriad stresses applied on the city’s infrastructure, services and quality of life. While Chandigarh is one of the most progressive cities in India, other metropolitan like Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai have turned into a powder cake. More the stress more the haphazard spill over. India has launched the 100 smart cities mission, and Chandigarh is one of them. Public spaces play a major role in defining, weather the city will experience a progressive growth or a regressive one. This research paper aims at creating a methodology to analyse the quality of public spaces in 2 Indian cities – Chandigarh and Bangalore, so that they can be compared in a quantitative manner and the underlined patterns can be discovered to analyse weather the city is experiencing positive development or not.

La recherche s'intéresse à la formation de Le Corbusier et à sa capacité d'abstraction au travers des mémoires, images liées à la connaissance du monde antique; un approfondissement qui traite le lien entre les oeuvres du Maître et l'étude de l'architecture romaine, soulignant ainsi deux clés de lecture: une liée à l'archétype des modèles classiques, et une seconde liée aux ruines et à son paysage archéologique. Si la première laisse apparaitre clairement la composante rationnelle, volonté de poursuivre une architecture universelle, dans laquelle s'affirme l'utilisation de la raison que seuls les archétypes peuvent enseigner; la seconde tente de délimiter la relation entre le pouvoir évocateur de la ruine et les suggestions personnelles de l'architecte. Parcourant les phases de sa formation, la recherche se concentre sur les connaissances que le jeune Jeanneret acquiert durant son séjour allemand (1910-1911), première phase d'étude de l'architecture romaine qui alimente un intérêt destiné à se développer grâce à l'expérience du Voyage d'Orient et à l'approfondissement de certaines sources, tels que les vues de Piranesi. Cet approfondissement se retrouve dans de nombreux dessins et réflexions contenus dans les carnets 4 et 5 rédigés durant le séjour romain. Ces expériences représenteront une source d'inspiration pour sa production architecturale et théorique, présuppositions qui semblent apparaitre dans certaines oeuvres de l'architecte y compris la Haute Cour de Justice de Chandigarh en 1952. Abstract: The research focuses on Le Corbusier educational process and on his ability to abstract, through his memories, the images related to the knowledge of the Ancient World; a study that addresses the clear connection between the works of Le Corbusier and his knowledge of Roman architecture, outlining two interpretations: the first one linked to the archetype of classic models, and the second one to ruins and archaeological landscape. The first interpretation clearly illustrates the rational perspective, the will to pursue an universal architecture distinguished by use of reason, that only archetypes can teach, whereas the second interpretation attempts to outline the relationship between the evocative influence of the ruin and the personal suggestions of the architect. Retracing the steps of his educational process, the research investigates the knowledge acquired by the young Jeanneret during his German stay (1910-1911). This is the first phase of the study of Roman architecture, that inspires him an interest that will be pursued later through the experience of the Voyage d 'Orient and the study of some sources, such as Piranesi's views. This learning is reflected in numerous drawings and reflections contained in Carnet 4 and in Carnet 5, elaborated during his stay in Rome. These experiences will be a source of inspiration for his architectural production and theoretical assumptions, and they seem to be reflected in some works of the architect, as the Chandigarh Haute Cour of 1952.

This essay is written as a weave of notes, an indexed list of individualized “voices”
that are not always in sync. The weave is designed to try to describe the tangled
flows and networks, the inevitable mess, of transnational work, in the making of
Chandigarh, international modernism’s iconic postcolonial city of India. In any
complex, negotiated process, particularly a transnational one, there is always a mix
of secondary narratives and tertiary unacknowledged voices that are often lost
amongst the more dominant, better documented ones. So much is “lost in
translation,” so to speak, and inevitably so, but by writing this essay as an open
“weave,” rather than a unified narrative, my aspiration was to try and to make an
opening for other voices that I tried and to emphasize whenever I can.

This paper argues that heritage planning must not gravitate towards the singular and the exceptional, but must find ways of accommodating the innumerable and multiple claimants of a heritage, however impossible that task might be. The paper uses the case study of Chandigarh as its example, where preservation or conservation is a hot button issue today.

This paper argues that instead of thinking of modern architecture as a specifically European sun that rose in West and spread its rays around the world, it should be thought of as a decentered global event differentially nurtured throughout the colonial and postcolonial world.

Free access via this link: https://academic.oup.com/hwj/article/doi/10.1093/hwj/dbaa005/5734673?guestAccessKey=fd0bb655-ab40-441e-a619-292b0977f4b8

This essay traces the movements of a library from New York to Lahore in the wake of the First World War and then to Shimla and Chandigarh following the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947. It explores how this collection of books, assembled by the anti-colonial nationalist Lajpat Rai (1865–1928), intersected with and informed key moments of political struggle in twentieth-century urban America and colonial India. The essay then considers the fate of Lajpat Rai’s library today, its place in twenty-first-century Punjab, and the questions it poses for historians interested in anti-colonial histories, post-colonial presents and the commemorative work (as well as enduring political questions) that bind them.

As it is well known good physical fitness is the key to success for any sportsperson. However, being physically fit is not enough. One must also have good mental ability to perform better. The present is an attempt to understand the same. The present study is based on a survey of 100 school students of Chandigarh region. The study revealed that the female national players had exhibited significantly better general mental ability than their counterpart male national players. Also, the male players demonstrated significantly better general mental ability than their counterpart male non-players.

Le Corbusier, while designing Chandigarh, India’s first exemplar city, consciously designed the functioning of the public realm and its public spaces. The city turned out to be a resilient and positively progressive towards the first urbanization the country was experiencing. Today, India is stepping into its second urbanization and Chandigarh is growing vertically and horizontally in its aspirations to be a metropolitan. As a result of this unprecedented movement there are myriad stresses applied on the city’s infrastructure, services and quality of life. While Chandigarh is one of the most progressive cities in India, other metropolitan like Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai have turned into a powder cake. More the stress more the haphazard spill over. India has launched the 100 smart cities mission, and Chandigarh is one of them. Public spaces play a major role in defining, weather the city will experience a progressive growth or a regressive one. This research paper aims at creating a methodology to analyse the quality of public spaces in 2 Indian cities – Chandigarh and Bangalore, so that they can be compared in a quantitative manner and the underlined patterns can be discovered to analyse weather the city is experiencing positive development or not.

DR stood for a relationship of friendship and solidarity between the people of Haryana and Punjab and had the courage to share contrarian views on Bhindranwale (so different from what was circulated among the mainstream upper caste North Indian Hindus). He articulated a sophisticated position on Chandigarh as a place not suitable as a capital for Haryana and a position on religion (so different from the moribund position of many on the Left in India). Though professionally, he came from the literary tradition, he had advanced views on economics from an environmentalist viewpoint. He enriched my life personally and politically as he did of many he met in his life.

The Shape of the City presents updated essays on architecture and urbanity, deconstructing the common approach to the history of the city – mainly Eurocentric, American, male, divided between public and private initiatives – by offering new built narratives in which the main protagonists are not the usual suspects. Tom Avermaete addresses the dichotomy between the Global South and the Global North by presenting the experiments in modernity undertaken in Casablanca and Chandigarh; Hilde Heynen explores the latent dichotomy in the ideology of the two spheres, through an awareness of the presence of gender patterns in the shape of the city; Sarah Whiting reveals how economics defines politics, culture and society in the American context, showing how Chicago is being transformed through demolition, stressing the possibilities that a renewed, contemporary form of civic society could foster. Finally, Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani explores a methodological proposal of presenting what are the broad conditions that shape our cities, by going deep into determinations and dependencies ranging from environmental and technological conditions to social issues and cultural manifestations.

This publication is the result of the keynote lectures presented on April 2016, in the scope of the IST PhD Programme in Architecture.

With the coming of Companies Act, 2013, India became the first country to make Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) mandatory. Although, CSR, was not a foreign concept in the country, it was not enforced by law before, and remained a philanthropic custom. This paper will form a backdrop for determining the usage of the partially understood term ‘CSR’ and will try to glance upon its ‘past’ in India.
In consideration to the rich cultural heritage of India, and the recent law mandating CSR, it will concern itself, with the need to fit ‘Heritage’, inside the definite confines of CSR. The areas of Pinjore, Haryana and regions nearby Chandigarh were looked into for the purpose. Finally, it will, use these cases to discuss, through the scope of Archaeotourism, the empirical need of introducing the category of heritage conservation, under the wide ambit of CSR