Chadigarh, India. When India and Pakistan became independent the state of Punjab was divided between the two countries. Since its main city, Lahore, remained on the Pakistani side, there was need for a new capital city on the Indian side. Nehru, the first prime minister of India, seized the chance to prove the newly independent country’s modernity by commissioning a new model city, and selected Corbu, the first global hero of architecture and city planning, to develop the plans. These two men discharged their creative energy and will power into forming a completely new kind of settlement. The outcome was a city on which all Indians I have met agree that it is very non-Indian in its look and feel, but whether this is good or bad always stirs a controversial discussion.
However, ten years after the completion of the new capital, the state of Punjab underwent another partition, this time not along religious, but along linguistic lines. But since Chandigarh is located exactly on the fault line of this conflict, it remained the capital city for both states. For Corbu’s monumental buildings, this meant that both governments either used them alternately or that they were simply divided in half. What was meant to be a celebration of the people’s legislative, executive and judicative powers cast in concrete is now a high-security district drenched from all urban life.
The security measures require that every visitor needs to get a written permission to enter and another special permit to take photos. Obtaining the latter is an adventure of its own. Entering the secretariat building on one of Corbu’s characteristic ramps already slows down the speed of walking. Having reached the first floor after this decelerating approach, the light inside the building is dim. The officer handing out the permits is waving us into his large office with a silent hand gesture. Inside his room there are some ten desks facing his, with one lower-ranking officer on each desk, dazing and daydreaming. The boss silently orders one of them to take a copy of our passports. After he returns one copy is filed, or rather thrown on the paper compost at the back of the room. We are handed over our permit, and can now visit the famous buildings.
The legislative building is a large sculptural block, shaded by a brise-soleil, Corbu’s characteristic deep sunshades. To keep up with the theme set in the secretariat building it is no surprise that inside each unit of the concrete grid that forms the facade lies one dog, snoozing in the sun.
On the other side of the large ceremonial square is the Palace of Justice. A raw but radiant piece of architecture, a big chunk of a building crowned with an elegant flying roof. On the open terrace under this roof there is an enormous pile of run-down office furniture: desks, chairs, shelves from the last five decades. For whatever reason these items cannot be ejected from the bureaucratic system that this administration has grown into, and thus this sculpture of stagnation is formed.
What started as a creative engine for India, and for architecture, has become dormant. Chandigarh is now the capital of snooze in the state of somnolence.Chadigarh, India. When India and Pakistan became independent the state of Punjab was divided between the two countries. Since its main city, Lahore, remained on the Pakistani side, there was need for a new capital city on the Indian side. Nehru, the first prime minister of India, seized the chance to prove the newly independent country’s modernity by commissioning a new model city, and selected Corbu, the first global hero of architecture and city planning, to develop the plans. These two men discharged their creative energy and will power into forming a completely new kind of settlement. The outcome was a city on which all Indians I have met agree that it is very non-Indian in its look and feel, but whether this is good or bad always stirs a controversial discussion.
However, ten years after the completion of the new capital, the state of Punjab underwent another partition, this time not along religious, but along linguistic lines. But since Chandigarh is located exactly on the fault line of this conflict, it remained the capital city for both states. For Corbu’s monumental buildings, this meant that both governments either used them alternately or that they were simply divided in half. What was meant to be a celebration of the people’s legislative, executive and judicative powers cast in concrete is now a high-security district drenched from all urban life.
The security measures require that every visitor needs to get a written permission to enter and another special permit to take photos. Obtaining the latter is an adventure of its own. Entering the secretariat building on one of Corbu’s characteristic ramps already slows down the speed of walking. Having reached the first floor after this decelerating approach, the light inside the building is dim. The officer handing out the permits is waving us into his large office with a silent hand gesture. Inside his room there are some ten desks facing his, with one lower-ranking officer on each desk, dazing and daydreaming. The boss silently orders one of them to take a copy of our passports. After he returns one copy is filed, or rather thrown on the paper compost at the back of the room. We are handed over our permit, and can now visit the famous buildings.
The legislative building is a large sculptural block, shaded by a brise-soleil, Corbu’s characteristic deep sunshades. To keep up with the theme set in the secretariat building it is no surprise that inside each unit of the concrete grid that forms the facade lies one dog, snoozing in the sun.
On the other side of the large ceremonial square is the Palace of Justice. A raw but radiant piece of architecture, a big chunk of a building crowned with an elegant flying roof. On the open terrace under this roof there is an enormous pile of run-down office furniture: desks, chairs, shelves from the last five decades. For whatever reason these items cannot be ejected from the bureaucratic system that this administration has grown into, and thus this sculpture of stagnation is formed.
What started as a creative engine for India, and for architecture, has become dormant. Chandigarh is now the capital of snooze in the state of somnolence.