Chandigarh is famous for Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier’s architectural and planning genius all over the world. Considered as 20th century Modernism’s greatest experiment in architecture and urban planning, it was recently inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage property. However, what is less widely recognised is that it is also perhaps the world’s largest experiment in building a capital town inspired by the Garden City movement of the 19th century (popularised by Ebenezer Howard in Britain), significant for its planned green spaces and tree plantations. It is probably the only city on such a large scale—planned for half a million population, now holding nearly 1.2 million people— where landscaping was embedded in its core structure and every tree plantation was planned in detail beforehand. Besides going into the quantitative and qualitative benefits of such extensive scientifically analysed planned green cover, one needs to also examine Chandigarh conceptually, as an aspirational model in attempting to create an urban arcadia for the 20th century ‘machine age’. This attempted unique urban paradise (still holding good ground) in the present mostly dismal urban scenario of chaotic and polluted cities of India—if not fiercely protected would eventually also be swamped by the laissez-faire unplanned growth visible in the skylines of Gurgaon, Bengaluru, etc., and many such big Indian cities.

The inception of Chandigarh began with the trauma of partition of the country in 1947 and the urgent need to build a new capital city for the now truncated state of Punjab apportioned to the Indian side, as well as the pressing need to shelter millions of homeless refugees. Besides the great healing touch that Chandigarh imparted to the traumatised refugees by accommodating them in the new city and giving shelter, its aesthetic landscape perhaps too played a soothing role with its mantle of greenery clothing its built form of brick and concrete.

Before one delves deeper into Chandigarh’s landscaping, it is essential to address the question as to what landscape really is? Whenever we experience a building in an urban setting, there is either a foreground or a background comprising some component of vegetation or built-form. So cities are experienced in motion as one continuum of images: both built-up and landscapes. This underscores how critical is the role of nature in cities for a holistic and humane experience of urban areas.

In the Indian tradition knowledge was always transmitted by the guru/teacher to the disciple beneath a tree as was the occurrence of spiritual enlightenment. Trees were always planted around temples and worshipped, signifying their importance. In the medieval times in the walled cities of India, because of the fear of invaders, the built-form grain was very dense with winding narrow alleys and self-shading courtyards. The community focal point called chaupal usually had some big tree or a grove of shade giving sacred trees like banyans or peepuls where people congregated. As the structures were small and low, people could easily connect with the elements of nature and cosmos with everyday use of roof terraces and courtyards. So there was always a connection with the elements of nature and an experience of surrounding distant landscape, unlike in the present clutter of high-rise, densely spaced blocks in the cities mushrooming all over the country.

When the Mughals came they brought to India the great tradition of ‘Formal Gardens’ that basically originated from the Persian Gardens with their core elements of symmetry, the quadrant charbagh and use of water for cooling. Le Corbusier often visited the nearby Mughal Gardens at Pinjore located close to Chandigarh to observe and sketch copiously for possible solutions to deal with the challenge of climatic issues for his proposed buildings. With the advent of the British Raj in India about 200 years ago, it was decided to use the tools of architecture and landscape to make a political statement of imperial assertion. The grand Central Vista at New Delhi between the Viceroy’s Palace (Rashtrapati Bhawan) placed atop the Raisina hill and India Gate is a grandiose, monumental language of landscape. The British civil lines and army cantonments spread all over the country located outside the old, native cities too had Edwin Lutyens’ kind of layouts with beautiful, neat tree-lined avenues, gardens and parks.

When the Chandigarh project came up, the ruling elites of the post- Independence India steeped in the hierarchal social structure inherited from the British, too wanted to get away from the unhygienic narrow alleys of the old, traditional cities. The old bazaars might have been very picturesque and exotic for the visitors with their aromas and colours, but if one wanted to live there it was not all that romantic for the haves and neo-rich of the country. When A.L. Fletcher, an important bureaucrat tasked with the preparation of the brief for the new city for the future architect, began his work, there were a lot of uncertainties. Basic questions like a city for how many people, what should be the budget, etc., needed to be addressed. What will be the nature of the city: administrative, commercial or mixed? Fletcher, who was widely travelled and familiar with the Garden City movement in Britain was very impressed by the Ebenezer Howard’s concept for green towns. Though such experimental towns in Britain were much smaller settlements as an inspirational model for the Chandigarh project, it was nevertheless decided that Chandigarh should have the core attributes of a Garden City. Dr M.S. Randhawa, a distinguished senior bureaucrat and a qualified agricultural scientist at that time, too, had an enormous contribution in the landscaping for the city. He exhorted that the new city would urgently require a ‘mantle of greenery’, as the buildings in the city would come up much faster than the time taken by plantations to take root.

The original team of American architects and planners comprising Albert Mayer and Mathew Nowicki who were initially assigned the Chandigarh project had to be soon replaced by Le Corbusier, owing to the tragic death of Nowicki in a plane crash and Mayer’s inability to continue in his absence. However, the Americans too had shown a strong predilection for weaving in a lot of landscaping components in their conceptual master plan proposed for the city. Many of the seed ideas underlined by them in this regard, became precursors of what Corbusier too developed later on, including the alignment of the city plan towards the mountains.

During Corbusier’s training in an art school in his home town La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, his brilliant and inspiring teacher Charles L’Eplattenier, made the students go out to the mountains to vigorously sketch pine trees there. They left a great mark on him as he used them as motifs in his early residential projects as kind of modern decoration on their edifices. He was always collecting a repertoire of possible ideas and forms from his observations of nature for future application, and the pine tree became one of those motifs. So his training as a landscape painter influenced him towards establishing a special relationship between landscape and architecture.

[Niyogi Books has given Fair Observer permission to publish this excerpt from Le Corbusier Rediscovered: Chandigarh And Beyond, edited by Rajnish Wattas and Deepika Gandhi, Niyogi Books, 2018.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.