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PLANNING TWENTIETH CENTURY CAPITAL CITIES
Chapter 16
Chandigarh: India’s Modernist Experiment Nihal Perea
Chandigarh, one of the first state capitals built in independent India, is also the first Modernist capital to follow the CIAM model. The need for it was created by the division of the Province of Punjab between India and Pakistan, at their separation in 1947, and the allocation of its magnificent capital, Lahore, to Pakistan (see figure 16.1). Although designed as the state capital of Indian Punjab, symbolically Chandigarh acquired the attention of the national leaders from the beginning and several worldrenowned planners and designers were involved in the project. The factors that played a major role in its planning include the independence of India, the partitioning of the British colony and imagined state of India, the allotment of several major cities to Pakistan, nostalgia for lost places, the flow of refugees, national goals, and postcolonial imaginations. National aspirations, especially those represented in the first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru’s ideas of India and the notions of modernity promoted by Punjabi officials, particularly A.L. Fletcher, T.N. Thapar,
and P.L. Varma, had profound effects on the plans and planning. Adding more complexity to the process, two plans were prepared for the city. The project was initially awarded in January 1950 to the American firm Mayer and Whittlesey; and Albert Mayer and Matthew Nowicki were the primary designers of the plan. The second plan was made by Le Corbusier, supported by Pierre Jeanneret, Maxwell Fry, and Jane Drew. The death of Nowicki in a plane crash and the increase in the value of the US Dollar are cited as reasons for replacing the Mayer team in November 1950.1 While Nehru championed the project, the plan was negotiated by many social agents, especially those mentioned above and the inhabitants of the site. With the approval for a new capital of Punjab in 1949, the first phase of Chandigarh Master Plan area of 70 km2 (in 1951) was acquired and a Periphery Control Act of 1952 enacted to control development within a 16 km (10 mile) periphery. The estimated expenditure of the first phase was Rs. 167.5m (£10.5m) and the project was wellfunded.2 Among the new towns built in India