Architecture or Revolution : A Critique on Le Corbusier's Chandigarh Design

by Fame Ornruja Boonyasit


Architecture or Revolution?

By the time of Chandigarh inauguration, the city was indeed praised as a forthcoming metropolis. The edifices made here, the Capitol Complex buildings have become the main focus in and off the architectural realm. Le Corbusier did not made himself an artist when he opened the show at Musée d’Art Decoratif back in his early years of immense friendship with Ozenfant. He declared himself as a genuine artist once Prime Minister Nehru set the inauguration bronze plaque. (fig.1)

Today, the Capitol Complex stands a Corbusian masterpiece. The three government buildings, The Palace of Justice, The Secretariat, and the Assembly, all share Brutalism in material. Although the forms and plans differ, there always exists the five points. The embedded idea of a universal Radiant City must have guided the signature style of all Le Corbusier buildings, in spite of contextual issues. Voided landscape between the Palace of Justice and the Assembly remains in awe, despite of the disposition of the Tower of the Shadows.(fig.2) The Trench of Consideration where The Open Hand stands an estranged ground.(fig.3) Clearly, the attempt to create ‘moving air under shaded condition’ has not been successful in all government buildings.(fig.4) The crowned top of the buildings are nothing but ornamental, yet the expressions of Le Corbusier’s plastic impression.(fig.5)

The sectors neglect to serve the initial intention of a complete district, resulting in vague, unused terrain that does not respond to the idea of privacy as Le Corbusier had dreamt of. If, by his attention, privacy means adequate space for a person, then the vast plateau is hence an invert which is over-exposed and non-private. The segregate land use has failed in synergetic Indian context. The only gratitude we should be granting is the traffic flow. Law and order came into the picture when Nehru envisioned the city that is an emblem of independent India. Contradictory here, is whether or not the idea of democratic independence should involve regulating the city’s inhabitants. In the identity economy, the roads seem to lose uniqueness, and feel like a labyrinth.(fig.6) Although Modernism was properly used as a tool to synthesize a Tabular Rasa city state.

Should one seek for an architecture, an architect, or a revolution? Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh design accomplished the architectural brief, but failed to manifest its own being through time. Nevertheless, the open hand is still revolving. When a revolution became its own art piece, one could only hope for a re-designated program, with which Indian customs are harmonized, hence the re-inauguration of a public precinct, a Musée Corbusier?