Shortly after the Partition of India and liberation from British colonial rule, a new capital for the Punjab was to be built from scratch at the foot of the Himalayas, with the former capital of Lahore having become part of Pakistan. The planned city of Chandigarh would stand for the new democracy, progress and faith in the future. Architects from the West were called upon – first Albert Mayer, and then the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier. Plans, visions and utopias came together.
For Le Corbusier, Chandigarh offered a unique opportunity to complete his life’s work and put his urban planning ideas into practice. His vision was to create a modern, humane and just city, built according to the “measure of man”, which allowed for a cultural life and harmonious interaction between people and nature.
On the 70th anniversary of Le Corbusier’s planned city, we reflect on whether this vision has become a reality in Chandigarh. The film accompanies people on their journeys through the city, seeking out settings and scenes that reveal the inspiring interplay of old dreams and new life, the utopian and the everyday, decay and quiet poetry. A contemporary witness recalls the early days of the city. The director of the Le Corbusier Centre, an artist, an actor and an architect all talk about the experience of settling here, and contemplate their life in and with Chandigarh. We meet residents who offer an insight into the city as we roam and immerse ourselves in the everyday life that has evolved around the built environment.
NOTE BY THE DIRECTORS
Everything in Chandigarh is designed and planned, from the furniture to the street signs to the houses and their layout. And amazingly, the structures have barely changed to this day. The city’s first “foundation stone” was laid in the creation of Chandigarh’s lake – 70 years later, we take the chance to talk to the last remaining witnesses of these beginnings. As filmmakers, we’re interested in how the urban planning and social visions of modern architecture have become reality, and how they have developed over time. How the collaboration between East and West and the enormous creative power of the design has impacted the cultural life of the city. We explore Chandigarh’s at a time when the world is in turmoil and searching for new ideas. What can we learn from this utopia today for today’s world?
Le Corbusier is one of the most influential architects, artists and urban planners of the modern era, and his approach and ideas are still inspiring and groundbreaking today. His presence in the film is felt through quotations of his words. Chandigarh is relatively unknown in Switzerland, although the country’s 10-franc note bore Le Corbusier’s portrait until October 2017, with the Chandigarh Secretariat built in 1958 printed on the reverse.
A conscious decision was made not to address the Le Corbusier’s somewhat controversial personality and his life’s work as a whole in the film. Our interest lies in his utopias. Our aim is to counter the often capitalist motives of building development in Switzerland with the utopias of modernity.
In Chandigarh, the Western architecture of classical modernism with which we are familiar meets the Indian everyday life of the present. Making the film allowed us to immerse ourselves in a different culture and an unfamiliar reality – and audiences will now be able to do the same. This kind of encounter allows us to see the supposedly familiar in a new way. We look back to Europe from afar, and ask ourselves how we want to live as human beings in the future. We are interested in Chandigarh as a laboratory for a new way of living together.
