Friday, October 21, 2016

Palace of the Assembly, Chandigarh - India

I complain many times about how hard it is to get cards from new UNESCO sites, however in the last 4 months I've actually got a few new sites. I've now cards from 869 UNESCO sites. This one from India was sent by Prashanth.

“The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier, an outstanding contribution to the Modern Movement” is one of this year's new UNESCO sites. The site includes seventeen of Le Corbusier's, a french-swiss architect, buildings, spanning over seven countries. Chandigarh's Capitol Complex in India is one of the classified properties.

Photo: Duncid
Palace of Assembly is one of the three buildings in Chandigarh Capitol Complex.
After the partition of Punjab, in 1947 following the independence of India, the divided Punjab required a new capital as Lahore was now in Pakistan. Thus Le Corbusier was commissioned by first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru to build a new city of Chandigarh as the capital of Punjab and newly carved state of Haryana. The brief for the design was a city "unfettered by the traditions of the past, a symbol of the nation's faith in the future". Subsequently, Corbusier and his team built not just a large assembly and high court building, but all major buildings in the city, and down to the door handles in public offices. Today many of the buildings are considered modernist masterpieces, though most are in a state of neglect. - in: wikipedia

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