Chandigarh: once the future city - Place

Architectural Review, The, March, 2003 by Jim Antoniou

His main concept for the Capitol was to tap into the cultural traditions of India, while expressing the values of the mid-twentieth century. To achieve this, he used a variable balance of forms, with columns, terraces, ramps and screens in a range of colours. Yet, in this vast complex of space, he related each building intimately to its own approach, entry, solid and void elements and even texture.

The Palace of Justice expresses order and power and consists of a rhythm of eight law courts and a high court. The entrance is through a four-storey open hall, divided by full-height brightly painted piers. The orientation of the building was dictated by the direction of the prevailing winds and the sun.

Directly opposite is the square shape of the Assembly building, reflected in a pool of water, visually doubling its size. The design of the Assembly was to convey the cosmic forces that rule human life. As in Abu Simbel, in Upper Egypt, sun and moon were to penetrate the interior of the building at significant times. The result is an astonishing interior of a dark hypostyle hall, leading to the bright and colourful circle in plan of the principal chamber and the pyramid of the lower house.

The main doors, in 55 brightly coloured panels on either side (a gift from the French Government) make up the largest painting undertaken by Le Corbusier, depicting his own philosophy of life, in terms of the cosmos, nature, man and the discovery of numbers. The strong colours he used ensure that the doors remain dominant from as far away as the Palace of Justice.

Behind the Assembly to the north-west is the Secretariat building, with its distinctive facade and interplay of light and shade. This building houses the seven Ministries in an edifice 280m in length (the same length as the entire pier in Eastbourne) and 35m in height, accommodating 3000 civil servants. Each floor is reached by two giant ramps, with offices arranged on either side of a central corridor. The undulating roof is designed for recreation.

To Le Corbusier, the monument of the gigantic open hand, which turns in the breeze to indicate the direction of the wind, became India's symbol of giving and receiving. This monumental sculpture dominates the dramatic landscape and is part of a sunken court for public assembly, which he called The Pit of Consideration. In parallel with The Open Hand was to be The Governor's Palace as the crown of the Capitol, commanding the third edge of the huge space with the vast mountains as the backdrop. It was never built because Nehru thought it was symbolically inappropriate and extravagant. Other structures were also to be added (the Museum of Knowledge, still like the Governor's Palace, not yet started, while Geometrical Hill and the Tower of Shadows were not completed), exaggerating the vast distances between the great buildings.

The distance between the Assembly and the Palace of Justice is 450m, equivalent to the entire length of the Acropolis (or three and a half times the width of Trafalgar Square). Since the many artificial mounds and landscape features that Le Corbusier planned have not been carried out, this area remains stark and untreated, resembling an empty airport runway. Moreover, for reasons of security, each building is now separated by fencing and barbed wire. The result is a vast concrete deck with spectacular monuments, by implication, to Le Corbusier himself, since the Capitol stands in splendid isolation from the rest of the city and its people.