Imagining Chandigarh

In the wake of India's 1947 partition, an architect was brought in to build a city from scratch that captured this exciting era. Even today, it still feels groundbreaking

- Poonam Binayak

Chandigarh, located in India's far north, near the foothills of the mighty Himalaya, is a city that has the pleasing habit of upending all expectations. Thanks to a quirk of history, it was created as a kind of Modernist calling card, consisting of a grid of civic precincts, large parks and long roads. How this marvel of urban development became the showpiece city of post-partition India is a tale worth telling.

The origins of Chandigarh can be traced back to 1947, when the partition of British India divided Punjab between India and Pakistan. With Lahore, the existing state capital, ceded to Pakistan, the Indian half required a replacement. To that end, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of Independent India, commissioned the creation of a brand-new 'planned city', one that would leave behind all colonial baggage and become a symbol of India's emergence as a modern, democratic, progressive nation.

To build his bold metropolis, Nehru tapped up American architect-planner Albert Mayer and Polish architect Matthew Nowicki in 1949. The duo's plan involved designing superblocks replete with green spaces that blended seamlessly with the natural terrain. However, with Nowicki's untimely death, Swiss-French architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier, was drawn into the project instead.

Le Corbusier harboured a distinct vision for the city, perceiving it as a human body. In his blueprint, the government complex took the centre stage as the head, the commercial area represented the heart, the green open spaces the lungs, while academic institutions and industrial areas were limbs, with roads criss-crossing them like arteries and veins. His innovative rectangular grid design fostered self-contained units, dividing the city into numbered sectors whose different eras show a change in ethos as urban design evolved across the decades.