Cherish Chandigarh as a city of urban excellence

Rajnish Wattas
Former Principal, Chandigarh College of Architecture

THE quintessential message in the Supreme Court’s recent order, forbidding redensification of residential units of the first 30 Sectors constituting Phase 1 of Chandigarh, is a resounding validation of the city’s ‘outstanding universal value’ and the need to preserve it stringently.

The SC recognised that Chandigarh transcends other Indian cities. It is the modern era’s greatest urban experiment, planned by the iconic architect-planner and visionary of the 20th century, Le Corbusier. Chandigarh is a rare creation of a city when visionary founding fathers, architects and eminent engineers, all came together, driven by the idealism of nation-building. No wonder, its Capitol Complex was accorded the UNESCO heritage tag in 2016 — the first in the country under the modern architecture heritage category.

In the larger context, the apex court also red-flagged serious concern over the unplanned urbanisation mushrooming across the country. Coming in the wake of the recent sinking of Joshimath and other hill towns, lakes choking up in Bengaluru, unseasonal floods in Chennai and waterlogging in Gurugram, the call for sustainable cities with environmental protection comes not a day too soon.

Amidst such burgeoning urban crises, the urgency and significance of saving Chandigarh, the country’s foremost ‘Garden City’, endowed with highest tree canopy cover, clean air and other excellent environmental attributes, besides heritage architecture, becomes even more imperative.

But why is the conservation of the ‘Corbusean Chandigarh’ — its northern Sectors from 1-30 constituting Phase 1 — much more critical? The spotlight falls on this component as it was planned and developed under the direct control of Le Corbusier’s team. The second and third phases of the city grew later, when on its periphery, in grave violation of an act, rival satellite townships were developed both by Punjab and Haryana.

To fully comprehend the pivotal location of the northern sectors in the larger context of the city’s layout plan, it is essential to go back to the evolution of the plan from its inception.

Corbusier observed that the Shivalik range provided a striking background to the city site and it had a gentle southern slope, facilitating easy and efficient drainage of the site. “The morphological order of the timeless countryside presented the exact combination of quality for merging landscape and urban design into a single totality, to integrate the spatial value of the architecture with the symbolic value of the natural environment,” says Maristella Casciato, a Corbusean scholar.

This manifested in Chandigarh’s layout plan when he deliberately placed the city’s crowning glory, the Capitol Complex, at the head of the plan, slightly detached from the rest of the city’s layout.

In fact, even before Corbusier, the original American team of Albert Mayer and Matthew Nowicki, too, had aligned the vertical axis of the city plan towards the mountains. They had also accorded great value to the majestic view of the hills and incorporated it in their plan.

However, what had been earlier just sketchy ideas found fructification in the gridiron layout plan of Le Corbusier, based on the module of a neighbourhood unit that laid great emphasis on this aspect. He envisaged city’s north-east edge as a ‘Capitol Parc’, stretching from Sukhna Lake to the Capitol Complex, an area reserved exclusively for naturalistic features. It has the lake, forests, nature trails and theme gardens, enhancing everyday encounters of the citizens with nature.

The Capitol was placed at the ‘head’ of the city layout as its crowning glory, tucked away in earthen forms and plantation as a modern-day Acropolis of Athens, which was his inspirational influence. As such, the northern sectors were kept as low rise neighbourhoods with large-plotted development.

It was certainly an urban design imperative, as right next to the monumental Capitol edifices, one cannot have dense built-form urban grain, as an impact zone is needed to absorb its monumental thrust. For the coherence of this visual order, it was essential to ensure an unhindered view of the hills.

The other issue is that the Phase 1 with its large plots and low heights allows plenty of green surfaces that absorb a lot of rainwater and permit it to percolate down to recharge groundwater. As the northern sectors are so close to the Sukhna Wildlife Sanctuary, Rock Garden, Bird Park and city forest, excessive concretisation, additional hard surfaces and increase in vehicular traffic that would surely follow redensification would impose environmental pressure on the presently serene surroundings adjacent to the ‘Capitol Parc’.

Another vital reason for conserving the ‘Corbusean Chandigarh’ is to embed it in the collective memory of its citizens as an era of ‘modern architecture’ that employed indigenous materials like concrete and brick and employed simple locally available technology. Or else, the coming generations will lose out on a sense of history of the making of their city.

Notwithstanding all heritage preservation imperatives, the door for redensification has not been shut. Should it become an absolutely necessity in future, it must be done with due diligence and only after rigorous environmental impact assessment undertaken. It should not be a laissez-faire affair or growth by stealth.

Edward Glaeser, eminent Harvard professor, in the Triumph of the City, rightly says that cities are our species’ greatest invention. “Cities enable collaboration, especially the joint production of knowledge that is mankind’s most important creation.” Therefore, quality urbanisation is the need of the nation and not its commercialisation.

Going back to Corbusier’s first visit to the Chandigarh site, overwhelmed by the natural beauty of the place, he wrote exultantly to his wife Yvonne in Paris, “We are on the terrain of our city under splendid sky and the midst of an eternal landscape... It will be a city of trees, of flowers and water, of houses as simple as those at the time of Homer, and of a few splendid edifices of the highest level of modernism....”

The hallowed portals of the apex court have echoed these sentiments. Let the city never forget them.