CHANDIGARH (INDIA)

ZAINAB ASHAR 08
ALINA BASHIR 16
Location:
Chandigarh is located near the foothills of the Sivalik range of
the Himalayas in northwest India. It covers an area of
approximately 114 km2.[25] It shares its borders with the states
of Haryana and Punjab. The exact cartographic co-ordinates of
Chandigarh are 30.74°N 76.79°E. It has an average elevation of
321 metres (1053 ft).

The city, lying in the northern plains, has vast fertile and flat
land. It has portions of Bhabar in the north east and Terai in
rest of the area.[33] The surrounding cities are Mohali, Patiala,
Zirakpur and Roopnagar in Punjab, Panchkula, and Ambala in
Haryana.

Chandigarh is situated 114 km southwest of Shimla, 45 km (28

miles) northeast of Ambala, 229 km (143 miles) southeast of
Amritsar and 250 km (156 miles) north of Delhi
HISTORY:
On August 15, 1947, on the eve of India’s independence from the United
Kingdom, came a directive which would transform the subcontinent for the
next six decades. In order to safeguard the country’s Muslim population
from the Hindu majority, the departing colonial leaders set aside the
northwestern and eastern portions of the territory for their use. Many of
the approximately 100 million Muslims living scattered throughout India
were given little more than 73 days to relocate to these territories, the
modern-day nations of Pakistan and Bangladesh. As the borders for the
new countries were drawn by Sir Cyril Radcliffe (an Englishman whose
ignorance of Indian history and culture was perceived, by the colonial
government, as an assurance of his impartiality), the state of Punjab was
bisected between India and Pakistan, the latter of which retained
ownership of the state capital of Lahore. It was in the wake of this loss that
Punjab would found a new state capital: one which would not only serve
the logistical requirements of the state, but make an unequivocal
statement to the entire world that a new India—modernized, prosperous,
and independent—had arrived
Bereft of Lahore, the Punjabi government elected to build a new capital
city in a plain situated along an existing railroad track 270 kilometers (167.8
miles) north of New Delhi.
Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, was determined that this new
city should project an image of modernity and progress, a mandate which was put
to the American architect Albert Mayer and his collaborator Matthew Nowicki.
Over the next year, the pair began to develop a plan based on the Garden City
model but, when Nowicki died unexpectedly in an accident in August 1950, Mayer
withdrew from the project

With the initial design team gone, the directors of the Chandigarh Capital Project
journeyed to Europe to search for a replacement. They were referred to the French
architect Le Corbusier who agreed on the grounds that his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret,
be hired as the site architect. Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew, the English couple and
architectural team who had suggested Le Corbusier for the project, also agreed to
work on the housing for the project; Le Corbusier would be in charge of further
developing and detailing the preliminary plan already laid out by Mayer and
Nowicki
Chandigarh master plan was made by Le Corbusier.
He conceived the Chandigarh Master Plan as
analogous to human body, with a clearly defined
• head (the Capital Complex, Sector 1),
• heart (the City Centre Sector-17),
• lungs (the leisure valley, innumerable open spaces
and sector greens),
• the intellect (the cultural and educational
institutions)
• the circulatory system (the network of roads,
the 7Vs) and
• the viscera (the Industrial Area).
The concept of the city is based on four major
functions: living, working, care of the body and
spirit and circulation
Residential sectors constitute the living part whereas the Capitol Complex, City Centre, Educational Zone (Post Graduate
Institute, Punjab Engineering College, Punjab University) and the Industrial Area constitute the working part
The Leisure Valley, Gardens, Sector Greens and Open Courtyards etc. are for the care of body and spirit.
The circulation system comprises of 7 different types of roads known as 7Vs. Later on, a pathway for cyclists called V8 was
added to this circulation system.
The basis of Le Corbusier’s master plan is a gridiron pattern of V3 roads (fast moving traffic)intersecting at half a mile across
and three quarters of a mile up the plan, enclosing areas known as ‘sectors’. The plan area stretches between two river beds
defining its natural boundaries on both sides.
Rather than simply fill in the gaps of the incomplete master plan, Le Corbusier
embarked on a decisive mission to tailor it to his own design rationale. The
curvature of Mayer’s fan-shaped concept, with roads conforming to the terrain of
the site, was reworked into a grid with curves so shallow as to nearly be orthogonal.
The new roads were assigned a hierarchy, ranging from “V1” arterials that
connected cities to “V7” pedestrian paths and “V8” bicycle paths.The grid of
roadways bounded large Sectors (originally referred to as “Urban Villages” in the
Mayer scheme), each of which featured a strip of greenspace along the north-south
axis crossed with a commercial road running from east to west. The new layout
compressed Mayer’s 6,908 acres down to 5,380 acres, increasing the density of the
city by 20% while still essentially respecting the principles of the Garden City
Movement
The inspiration for Le Corbusier’s master plan has been
credited to a number of sources. Its emphasis on ample green
space between its roads and buildings drew not only from the
Garden City principles requested by the local government but
from the architect’s own concept of the Ville Radieuse – albeit
with the towering glass skyscrapers replaced by sculptures
reflecting Chandigarh’s governmental purpose. Rather than
razing one of the cities in his native Europe to craft his perfectly
ordered urban paradise, Le Corbusier had the opportunity to
utilize those same principles on the untouched Punjabi
countryside
 Curiously, Chandigarh’s system of grand boulevards with key
focal points appears to have been derived from that of Paris,
the metropolis which so disgusted Le Corbusier that he wished
to demolish it in favor of his preferred urban scheme (itself
Haussmanian in its vision). It is also likely that inspiration for
these qualities came from the earlier plan for New Delhi, a
more local example of comprehensive city planning aimed at
the glorification of the state. The overall rectilinear format of
Chandigarh has also been compared to the squared layout of
medieval Beijing; the new city was therefore based on at least
three auspicious national capitals.

While the Master Plan took form as Le Corbusier envisioned, he

was never pleased with the housing that rose alongside his
cherished grid. From the moment he took on the project, the
architect intended to apply his Unité d'Habitation concept to
Chandigarh, inserting residential highrises for the city’s
government employees into the otherwise low-lying city;
despite his efforts, however, the local government demurred,
and the design of the residential units became the sole
responsibility of Jeanneret, Fry, and Drew