About Chandigarh
Chandigarh, the dream city of India’s first Prime Minister, Sh. Jawahar Lal Nehru, was planned by the famous French architect Le Corbusier. Picturesquely located at the foothills of Shivaliks, it is known as one of the best experiments in urban planning and modern architecture in the twentieth century in India.
The name of Chandigarh was obtained from the name of the temple Chandi Mandir, which was located at the site were the city is now located. The deity of this temple was `Chandi`, the goddess of power and there was a fort beyond the temple, known as `garh`. Thus the name of the Chandigarh was partly derived from the name of the deity of the temple `Chandi` and the fort `garh`. Thus, the name Chandigarh was evolved and the meaning of Chandigarh means fort of the goddess of strength.
The city has a pre-historic past. The gently sloping plains on which modern Chandigarh exists, was in the ancient past, a wide lake ringed by a marsh. The fossil remains found at the site indicate a large variety of aquatic and amphibian life, which was supported by that environment. About 8000 years ago the area was also known to be a home to the Harappans.
Since the medieval through modern era, the area was part of the large and prosperous Punjab Province which was divided into East & West Punjab during partition of the country in 1947. The city was conceived not only to serve as the capital of East Punjab, but also to resettle thousands of refugees who had been uprooted from West Punjab.
In March, 1948, the Government of Punjab, in consultation with the Government of India, approved the area of the foothills of the Shivaliks as the site for the new capital. The location of the city site was a part of the erstwhile Ambala district as per the 1892-93 gazetteer of District Ambala. The foundation stone of the city was laid in 1952. Subsequently, at the time of reorganization of the state on 01.11.1966 into Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pardesh, the city assumed the unique distinction of being the capital city of both, Punjab and Haryana while it itself was declared as a Union Territory and under the direct control of the Central Government.
The story of Chandigarh
Chandigarh has become synonymous with a certain kind architecture, alongwith planned landscaping, not found in other cities of India, and not amenable to being strait jacketed. And so we begin the story of Chandigarh.
Initially the Government of Punjab approached American town planner Albert Mayer who along with architect Matthew Nowicki became the key planners for the new city. The master plan conceived by them had a fan-shaped outline filling the site between the two seasonal river-beds. At the northern edge of the city was the capitol complex against the panoramic backdrop of the Shivalik hills. The City Centre was sited in the middle, and two linear parklands ran from the northeast to the southwest. Mayer sought to create self-sufficient city, restricted in size and surrounded by green belts. Areas were clearly demarcated for business, industry and cultural activities. In August 1950, his co-planner Nowicki died in a plane crash and Mayer withdrew from the project.
This vision of Chandigarh, contained in the innumerable conceptual maps on the drawing board together with notes and sketches had to be translated into brick and mortar. Le Corbusier, eminent architect and urban theorist, was selected to carry forward this task. He retained many of the seminal ideas of Mayer and Nowicki, like the basic framework of the master plan and its components: the Capitol, City Centre, besides the University, Industrial area, and linear parkland. Even the neighbourhood unit was retained as the basic module of planning. However, the curving outline of Mayer and Nowicki was reorganised into a mesh of rectangles, and the buildings were characterised by an ‘honesty of materials’. Exposed brick and boulder stone masonry in its rough form produced unfinished concrete surfaces, in geometrical structures. This became the architecture form characteristic of Chandigarh, set amidst landscaped gardens and parks.
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