It took around 3 hours to get to Chandigarh Station. While porters were busy carrying lots of heavy suitcases belonging to us, we quickly got on an air-conditioned bus. The topics of our talk were of the city-planning and various buildings conceived by Corbusier. Finishing lunch at the hotel, the group immediately left for the next pilgrimage tour of architectures in scorching Chandigarh.
The city of Chandigarh was built in the period from 1950 to 1965. It was built as the Capital City of Punjab State whose old Capital City was taken by Pakistan when it became independent from India in 1947. Le Corbusier was called upon from France to engage in the city development of Chandigarh. Corbusier divided the whole city in a grid into 47 sectors. Each of the divided sector had its own functions such as commerce, education, parks and residences, etc. Each sector bordered by broad straight boulevards has its green-belt to be an ideal garden city. What’s Chandigarh like now after its birth given by the ideas of Corbusier more than 50 years ago?
The first place the group visited there was the central governmental area located to the north of the city. On the first day, we visited the joint governmental building of Chandigarh. It was like a huge wall with its front of 254 meters in its length and 42 meters in its height. What covers this huge wall is the breeze-soleil protecting the building and the people inside from the strong sunlight of India. After checking in, we, climbing the modest slope, saw the whole city of Chandigarh from the windows. Outside was full of dazzling sunlight but inside was dim because of the breeze-soleil preventing direct sunlight. The contrast of the light and the shade intensifies our special impression of the building. For Corbusier, rooftops are a very important element for his constructions. The rooftop of this building is equipped with various spaces and tricks, too that make it a perfect garden in the sky.
The group , then, took a walk and saw around ‘the Monument of opened hands’ ‘A Shadow Tower’ located in the huge park-like central governmental area. On the way back to the hotel, we dropped in at ‘Boat Club’ designed by Corbusier in the man-made lake on the edge of the city , Sukhna. After visiting the ‘Boart Club’, the group went back to the hotel concluding the long pilgrimage tour of that day.