Unfortunately, Corbusier did not possess the same God-given gifts when it came to city planning- as perhaps he himself finally realized. So when Chandigarh came along, he reverted back to what he understood best: Architecture! for the next few years, he devoted himself to the Capitol complex (always sketched against the foothills of the Himalayas, so that his life comes full cycle back to the paradigm of the Parthenon). The rest of the city he left to the lesser mortals, viz., Jeanneret, Fry and Drew.
But when you look at the great iconic drawing of the master plan of Chandigarh that adorned so many architectural and planning offices during that period, you don't sense any of this. Because you get the scale wrong! Each sector looks like a delightful miniature world, brilliantly interconnected with the rest of the tapestry- east-west through the shopping street, and north-south through the generous greens. Nothing could be further from the truth. Each sector lives in sad isolation, cut off from its neighbours on all four sides by the V.3 roads, and by the high brick walls that run along the periphery. The result is a city of very separate rooms, a zenana city, lacking the interaction- and the synergy- that we love about our city.
Obviously, if Chandigarh was just the city itself, nobody would ever have bothered to go there. It is the buildings of Corbusier that have attracted architects from all over the world. And rightly so. Although more than fifty years of imitation should have irrevocably devalued its architecture, a visit to the Capitol Complex is still a stunning experience.
But when you look at the great iconic drawing of the master plan of Chandigarh that adorned so many architectural and planning offices during that period, you don't sense any of this. Because you get the scale wrong! Each sector looks like a delightful miniature world, brilliantly interconnected with the rest of the tapestry- east-west through the shopping street, and north-south through the generous greens. Nothing could be further from the truth. Each sector lives in sad isolation, cut off from its neighbours on all four sides by the V.3 roads, and by the high brick walls that run along the periphery. The result is a city of very separate rooms, a zenana city, lacking the interaction- and the synergy- that we love about our city.
Obviously, if Chandigarh was just the city itself, nobody would ever have bothered to go there. It is the buildings of Corbusier that have attracted architects from all over the world. And rightly so. Although more than fifty years of imitation should have irrevocably devalued its architecture, a visit to the Capitol Complex is still a stunning experience.
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