Chand handigarh is a dream city that got its character from the fascinating work of two gifted Swiss-French architects-Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret. The vision and approach of these two cousins, both masters of modernism, helped Chandigarh emerge as a beautiful, planned city. Over the years, however, it has been Le Corbusier who has been largely talked about and, unfortunately. Pierre Jeanneret's amazing contribution in shaping this city remained unknown. It is this gap that the book Pierre Jeanneret and Chandigarh aims to fill. For the author, Le Corbusier was the dreamer and Pierre Jeanneret was the implementer and it is their partnership that created the 'City Beautiful', as Chandigarh is known.
Pierre Jeanneret designed housing for government employees and buildings for health and education services, including the sprawling Panjab University campus. He arrived in India in 1951 and left Chandigarh in 1965, with the expressed desire that his ashes be submerged in Sukhna Lake, as he wanted to stay with his creation even after his death.
The author brings alive Pierre Jeanneret's days in Chandigarh, portrays the brilliance of the architect, the humility and simplicity of the man, as well as shows how he worked with dedication to leave a lasting impact on the world of architecture.
Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret on various projects in Chandigarh and was described as an "architect of rare qualities who understands deeply the meaning of built environment" by the latter. After working at the Architects' Office for a decade, he joined the Indian Space Research Organisation and was the Chief Architect at the Department of Space, Bengaluru (1973-80). He designed major campuses in different parts of the country.
On returning to Chandigarh, Sharma set up his own practice and has designed a diverse range of projects, ranging from a small bamboo museum to massive science and health institutes. He has received several prestigious awards, including the Babu Rao Mhatre Gold Medal Award 2001 and the Lifetime Achievement Award 2022, presented by the Indian Concrete Institute (Ultratech).
Congratulations on your beautiful photos! wrote world-renowned photographer Lucien Herve to architect and photographer Pierre Jeanneret in a letter dated May 31, 1956, after seeing Jeanneret's first images of Chandigarh.
According to Arthur Drexler, 'Since its very inception Chandigarh has attracted the elite of Western photography-to say nothing of the architects. The city has also been the object of a considerable number of exhibitions, in which photography played a vital role, often in a close dialogue with cinema and the visual arts.
I wish to draw attention to a small group of this early cohort who visited and documented the city's growth while Pierre Jeanneret was still living there. A few had already met Jeanneret before they reached Chandigarh; all established lasting friendships with him. Indirectly, this is my tribute to the 'parfait photographe d'architecture', as Le Corbusier acknowledged his cousin's stunning contribution to the building of the new capital of Indian Punjab.
Ernst Scheidegger (1923-2016)
The Swiss photographer was among these forerunners. Beginning in 1952, he worked as a photojournalist for the Magnum agency and during the following year, he decided to travel to Punjab, as the tension between India and Pakistan, on the north-western borders of the subcontinent, had recently reignited.
The story of his arrival offers a vivid picture of the novelty that the urban project embodied.
Since I was travelling to Chandigarh with the aim of documenting the emergence of a new, planned city, I therefore took the precaution of first visiting the State Bureau of Information-the body responsible for press relations-at the Interior Ministry in Delhi to find out whether there might be any objections to my work in Chandigarh. The official I approached was astonished by my question: 'Chandigarh? Never heard of it! How is it spelt?' I therefore decided to find out what was allowed and what was prohibited in Chandigarh itself, in spite of the torrential rain brought by the monsoon. Rain, more rain, and then a swamp!... Feeling rather at a loss, I toured the vast site in a rickshaw, using what plans there were to find my way around, but progressing more by chance than by design... What I definitely could not imagine, however, was that this vast and virtually unpopulated area would ever become a thriving state capital.
After his first encounter, Scheidegger returned to Chandigarh twice during 1956. In the meantime, he had offered his photographs to Girsberger, the Zürich-based publisher of Le Corbusier's Œuvre Complete. In addition, he proposed the publication of a series of booklets through which he would regularly document the development of the Master Plan and the new projects. This programme never saw the light of day, what remains is the layout of the first booklet, Chandigarh 1956, a sophisticated collage of sketches and texts by Le Corbusier, flanked by black-and-white reportage.
Karihanna (1926-2008) and Hans Frei (1930-2008)
In January 1954, a couple, the young Swiss architects, went on their honeymoon through India and reached Chandigarh at the end of their journey. Who could have informed or inspired them to undertake that adventure?
One source may have attracted their curiosity-the publication in 1953 of the volume of the Œuvre Complete 1946-1952, in which Le Corbusier's text, 'Chandigarh. La Naissance de la nouvelle capitale du Punjab (Indes)', was accompanied by about 40 pages of studies, sketches and drawings.
Moreover, at the Department of Architecture of the ETH Zürich, where they had studied, they had met architect Alfred Roth, who in the years 1927-28 was among Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret's collaborators. In short, their plan was born out of that encounter and became an editorial project. It is no coincidence, in fact, that the Freis published the first detailed documentation of the newborn buildings in Chandigarh in the magazine Das Werk, edited by Roth.
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