chandigarh - 1950s capitol architecture

jjedwards

In Chandigarh I'd like to visit the 1950s Capitol buildings designed by French architect Le Corbusier... such as Secretariat, Law Courts, and Assembly. I understand that due to security reasons these buildings are not easily accessible, and that advanced permission is required.

If anyone can help by explaining how to get permission to enter these extraordinary modern buildings I would be grateful? thanks

hfot2

We have the answer for you - it's a complicated process and we want to check our journal notes to get all the details right.

Baiscally, though, you have to be truly passionate about it to make it worth the effort. You have to deal with an office in downtown Chandigarh to get permission a day in advance just to see the buildings. Then, if you want to photograph, you have to make further applications at the buildings. All of this takes hours of waiting around for the right people to be found and the right papers to be filled out. And even then we were prevented from going into, or even getting close to, the Secretariat by security guards who refused even to look at our paperwork.

We did get into the High Court Building but were not permitted any interior photographs, though we could photograph on the ramps and in the verandahs.

Let us know if you want more details.

iwanttogoback

ok, here's how we got in:

a)we had a letter from a well known indian architect with whom we had done a workshop asking for assistance in seeing the buildings;

but mostly, what seems to have worked for us was running into a chap called nurinder singh, a retired civil servant who likes to guide tourists around chandigarh and managed, through having done it before, to get us permission in about two hours, for the same day.

i don't think you need to get permission the day before, but it took another group of friends half a day to sort it.

access seems to depend on who is on duty that day. we were allowed into the secretariat only to sign a book, then up the ramp (a brilliant experience) to the roof, from which we could take as many photos as we liked. we were allowed into the assembly building, including the chamber, but no photos (and we were patted down). we were only allowed on the ramp and the roofs of the high court and could not take photos from the roof (although you could take photos of the high court from the secretariat roof...)

and at all times we were accompanied by guards, armed ones at the secretariat.

absolutely worth the effort.

there is also the city museum, entry by way of a small fee, and absolutely no problem getting in!

are you going to ahmedabad - there are at least three corb buildings there.

jjedwards

Many thanks...I'm glad to hear that access is indeed possible!

I read a reference on the web that a good starting point is the "Deluxe Administration Building" in Sector 9...at the single storey tourist bureau building at the back. I suppose I can start there.

I will definitely check out the City Museum, and I understand the School of Architecture is also by Le Corbusier.

hfot2

iwanttogoback apparently had the right stuff.

We, on the other hand, didn't have Narindar Singh to help us out. (It happens we did meet him the next day. He's a curious man who arrived on a bicycle laden with pamphlets and flowers. He accosted us on the street, where we were trying to make a photo. We took him at first for a street vendor, then a proselytizer, because we're East Coast skeptics. He proved in fact to be a very sweet man who has devoted his retirement to helping what he calls budget travelers. In a pinch we could dig up his address. I think you can find him easily in Chandigarh, though, just by standing on a streetcorner looking foreign and lost for a few minutes.)

Your info about the one-story tourist office is corect, or was when we were there. Ignore the directions in (2001) Lonely Planet North India to seek out the "Architect Department on the second floor of the UD Secretariat in Sector 9": we went there, and they just shunted us on to the tourism office. We were sent to see Nidrosh (?) Kumar, who shares a small and crowded office. It's a very jolly place, with a good deal of banter going on while they sort out what you want and what permission slips you need. No doubt we could have got permission to visit the Corbu buildings that day, but we'd shot up so much time it was too late to start.

We particularly wanted permission to photograph. Nidrosh Kumar produced a letter to an official at each of the buildings, cautioning us not to fold the papers. We carried them next morning first to the High Court. We ran into a Catch 22 – if you want permission to photo there, you have first to see the Chief of Protocol for the High Court. To do that, you have to go into the High Court building. But you can't go into the building without having a permission slip for your camera!

Leaving the distaff half with the cameras, I went in to spend more than an hour waiting for the Chief of Protocol to show up for work. He finally arrived at around 10:30AM, then ignored my exasperated form sitting in front of his desk for easily fifteen minutes till one of the underlings in the office told him why I was there. After a long review of the paper from the tourism department directed to his attention, he finally gave me permission. I was told we could not go into any room in the building, but were free to photo from the roof, the plaza, the porches, wherever else that was outdoors.

By the time we were finally able to photo, the light was pretty well shot to hell, the sun so high and scorching that anything in sun bled out, anything in shade was black. It was possible to do some good work on the verandahs, shooting all the quotidien clutter of homely furniture (sofas, chairs, coffee tables...) the staff have scattered about to get into the cool air – stuff I suspect Corbu never anticipated. But big shots of the whole building from the north were pretty well ruined by the sun and by the fact that the guards won't let you walk too far out into the plaza. From the south, there is such a clutter of new construction and dense trees that it's hard to get a view of the building.

I envy iwanttogoback getting into the Secretariat. That's where we were stopped by a most imperious officer with spectacular moustaches and a godawful big rifle. It may be that we were stopped because this was "a week of high security" (or some such) proclaimed on billboards at the site.

I'd be interested to hear whether iwanttogoback went to see another architectural wonder of Chandigarh, the Rock Garden. If Corbu is high art, the Rock Garden is sorta at the other end of the scale. We had expected a piece of folk art similar to the Watts Towers in LA. I'm not sure we found it.

karuna

Hmmm...I didn't realise it was so difficult. We were there in Feb this year. We pitched up at a tourist office (on the 2nd floor in the bus station...you go up some outdoor stairs. Sounds easy but we wandered around for ages!), waited a couple of minutes, signed our names in a book, were handed permission letters, were "assigned" a knowledgable guide with perfect English, and he took it from there. The whole application process took about half an hour. Unfortunately I can't remember how much the guide cost but his first name was Gurav, for what it's worth. And my word did he know everything there was to know about the city.

We weren't able to take photos inside the buildings, but the exteriors were OK as well as views from the roof.

We only had to wait for papers to go into the main government administrative building- it wasn't more than ten minutes but it involves a security check, and an armed guard accompanies you. In all the other places it was quick and painless.

Edit to add that the Rock Garden formed part of the tour Gurav took us on. He knew loads about that too.

One thing - my dad had to explain in the tourist office that he had been a student of architecture. Many years ago, but it's true. This seemed sufficient to get him, his wife and daughter in!

Edited again to say that the whole tour consisted of:

High Court
Parliament/Assembly
Secretariat
Government Museum, Art Gallery and college
Punjab University
Tower of Shadows - well, we just walked out to it unaccompanied from the Assembly building.
Suhkna Lake
Rock Garden
and the important point that we had a (previously hired) car and driver to ferry us between all these places, obviously a taxi will do the same thing.

jjedwards

This is tremendously helpful, and I'm encouraged to go and spend a few days there.

Initially I thought that I might just have to satisfy myself with seeing the so-called 'secondary' buildings by Jeanneret, Fry, and Drew (which I've been reading about in an excellent book by Kiran Joshi) but it sounds as though seeing some of the government buildings by Corb will be possible.

cheers

iwanttogoback

mr singh can, i believe be found hanging around the bus station trying to save budget travellers from touts. he is a lovely man, an absolute pleasure to spend the day with him. he even managed to organise for us to eat lunch at the hostel for parliamentarians!!

we didn't get to see much of the secretariat, only what could be seen from the ramp, but that is an experience in itself - the wind blows in through some missing glazing, the ramp is pitched perfectly for a brisk walk, and as you walk up the building side you catch glimpses of the inside of the building, you just go round and round and the view changes and you realise the absolute genius of the ramp. the roof was cool, although incredibly windy. if you can get inside the assembly the chamber is amazing - think the senate chamber in the later star wars movies. the shape and the colour are just mind boggling.

and i loved the rock garden. such a cool place, and such a contrast to chandigarh and corb.

there are quite a few photos in my gallery here of the corb buildings and the rock gardens.

and hfot2, don't you just love the way the buildings are inhabited, using every corner and niche in ways that i'm sure corb never imagined. the pot plants on the horizontal elements of the brise soleil are a particular favourite.

the hand of peace is worth looking at if you can get out that side. we wandered out there, watched a group of indians playing cricket in a sunken area in front of it, and took turns riding mr singh's bicycle around the open area.

we walked the whole way from our hotel in sector 22 to the rock garden to the capitol complex. and we got lost, but because it's a grid it was fine.