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Le Corbusier Forays into urbanism

For a number of years French officials had been unsuccessful in dealing with the squalor of the growing
Parisian slums, and Le Corbusier sought efficient ways to house large numbers of people in response to
the urban housing crisis. He believed that his new, modern architectural forms would provide a new
organizational solution that would raise the quality of life for the lower classes. His Immeubles Villas (1922)
was such a project that called for large blocks of cell-like individual apartments stacked one on top of the
other, with plans that included a living room, bedrooms and kitchen, as well as a garden terrace.

Not merely content with designs for a few housing blocks, soon Le Corbusier moved into studies for entire
cities. In 1922, he presented his scheme for a "Contemporary City" for three million inhabitants (Ville
Contemporaine). The centerpiece of this plan was the group of sixty-story, cruciform skyscrapers; steel-
framed office buildings encased in huge curtain walls of glass. These skyscrapers were set within large,
rectangular park-like green spaces. At the center was a huge transportation hub that on different levels
included depots for buses and trains, as well as highway intersections, and at the top, an airport. He had
the fanciful notion that commercial airliners would land between the huge skyscrapers. Le Corbusier
segregated pedestrian circulation paths from the roadways and glorified the use of the automobile as a
means of transportation. As one moved out from the central skyscrapers, smaller low-story, zigzag
apartment blocks (set far back from the street amid green space), housed the inhabitants. Le Corbusier
hoped that politically-minded industrialists in France would lead the way with their efficient Taylorist and
Fordist strategies adopted from American industrial models to reorganize society. As Norma Evenson has
put it, "the proposed city appeared to some an audacious and compelling vision of a brave new world, and
to others a frigid megalomaniacally scaled negation of the familiar urban ambient." [3]

In this new industrial spirit, Le Corbusier contributed to a new journal called L'Esprit Nouveau that
advocated the use of modern industrial techniques and strategies to transform society into a more efficient
environment with a higher standard of living on all socioeconomic levels. He forcefully argued that this
transformation was necessary to avoid the spectre of revolution that would otherwise shake society. His
dictum, "Architecture or Revolution," developed in his articles in this journal, became his rallying cry for the
book Vers une architecture (Toward an Architecture, previously mistranslated into English as Towards a
New Architecture), which comprised selected articles he contributed to L'Esprit Nouveau between 1920 and
1923. In this book, Le Corbusier followed the influence of Walter Gropius and reprinted several
photographs of North American factories and grain elevators.[4]

Theoretical urban schemes continued to occupy Le Corbusier. He exhibited his "Plan Voisin," sponsored by
another famous automobile manufacturer, in 1925. In it, he proposed to bulldoze most of central Paris north
of the Seine, and replace it with his sixty-story cruciform towers from the Contemporary City, placed in an
orthogonal street grid and park-like green space. His scheme was met with criticism and scorn from French
politicians and industrialists, although they were favorable to the ideas of Taylorism and Fordism underlying
Le Corbusier designs. Nonetheless, it did provoke discussion concerning how to deal with the cramped,
dirty conditions that enveloped much of the city.

In the 1930s, Le Corbusier expanded and reformulated his ideas on urbanism, eventually publishing them
in La Ville radieuse (The Radiant City) of 1935. Perhaps the most significant difference between the
Contemporary City and the Radiant City is that the latter abandons the class-based stratification of the
former; housing is now assigned according to family size, not economic position.[5] La Ville radieuse also

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marks Le Corbusier's increasing dissatisfaction with capitalism and his turn to the right-wing syndicalism of
Hubert Lagardelle. During the Vichy regime, Le Corbusier received a position on a planning committee and
made designs for Algiers and other cities. The central government ultimately rejected his plans, and after
1942 Le Corbusier withdrew from political activity.[6]

After World War II, Le Corbusier attempted to realize his urban planning schemes on a small scale by
constructing a series of "unités" (the housing block unit of the Radiant City) around France. The most
famous of these was the Unité d'Habitation of Marseilles (1946–1952). In the 1950s, a unique opportunity
to translate the Radiant City on a grand scale presented itself in the construction of Chandigarh, the new
capital for the Indian states of Punjab and Haryana. Le Corbusier was brought on to develop the plan of
Albert Mayer.

CIAM ( Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne ). At the request of a rich patron of architects,
Madame Hélène de Mandrot(1867–1948), in 1928, Sigfried Giedion organized a meeting of leading Modern
architects including Berlage , Le Corbusier , El Lissitzky , Rietveld , and Stam . Karl Moser was elected as
the first president of CIAM, which became the arbiter and disseminator of the theory and dogma of
International Modernism until its dissolution in 1959. It promoted Functionalism , standardization, and
rationalization in the 1930s, when it was dominated first by the Germans, and then by Le Corbusier.

The organization was hugely influential. It was not only engaged in formalizing the architectural principles of
the Modern Movement, but also saw architecture as an economic and political tool that could be used to
improve the world through the design of buildings and through urban planning.

The fourth CIAM meeting in 1933 was to have been held in Moscow. The rejection of Le Corbusier's
competition entry for the Palace of the Soviets, a watershed moment and an indication that the Soviets had
abandoned CIAM's principles, changed those plans. Instead it was held onboard ship, the SS Patris II,
which sailed from Marseilles to Athens.

Here the group discussed concentrated on principles of "The Functional City", which broadened CIAM's
scope from architecture into urban planning. Based on an analysis of thirty-three cities, CIAM proposed that
the social problems faced by cities could be resolved by strict functional segregation, and the distribution of
the population into tall apartment blocks at widely spaced intervals. These proceedings went unpublished
from 1933 until 1942, when Le Corbusier, acting alone, published them in heavily edited form as the
"Athens Charter."

As CIAM members traveled worldwide after the war, many of its ideas spread outside Europe, notably to
the USA. The city planning ideas were adopted in the rebuilding of Europe following World War II, although
by then some CIAM members had their doubts. Alison and Peter Smithson were chief among the
dissenters. When implemented in the postwar period, many of these ideas were compromised by tight
financial constraints, poor understanding of the concepts, or popular resistance. Mart Stam's replanning of
postwar Dresden in the CIAM formula was rejected by its citizens as an "all-out attack on the city."

The CIAM organisation disbanded in 1959 as the views of the members diverged. Le Corbusier had left in
1955, objecting to the increasing use of English during meetings.

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C.I.A.M. (CONGRESS INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURE MODERNE) 1928 –FRANCE

 The international congress of modern architects subjected the city to re-examination and
posed four basic elements of the urban biology :
1. Sun
2. Space
3. Vegetation
4. Steel and concrete
 Le Corbusier assumed a leading role
 It affirmed that town planning is the organizations of functions of collective life – this applies to
both rural and urban settlements
 four functions of any settlement
1. dwelling
2. work
3. recreation
4. transportation, which connects the first three with one another.
 Le Corbusier organized in CIAM assembly of constructors, for an Architectural renovation
 ASCORAL (Assembly of Constructors for an Architectural Renewal) OF CIAM systematically
studied the problems of construction, architecture and city planning. It resulted in the
publication of ‘The Three Human Establishments’. The examination of working conditions in
a mechanistic society led to the recognition of the utility and necessity of three unit
establishments indispensable for human activity :
1. The Farming unit – the cooperative village : a unit for agricultural production
2. The linear industrial city
3. The radio concentric city - same as Radiant city (Ville Radieuse) for the exchange of goods
and services.

LINEAR INDUSTRIAL CITY – THE LINEAR TOWN ; UNIT FOR INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION
 Leaving the ‘evils of the sprawling town’, the new industrial communities are located along the
main arteries of transportation – water, rail and highway connecting the existing cities.
 Factories are placed along the main arteries, separated from the residential section by the
highway and a green strip
 The residential areas include the ‘horizontal garden town’ of single houses and vertical
apartment buildings with civic center. Sports, entertainments, shopping and office facilities are
distributed in this district and all community facilities are placed within ample open space.
 Industries are placed at intervals along the highway and railway. The existing cities so
connected remain as administrative, commercial and cultural centers.

LA VILLE RADIEUSE 1930 – THE RADIANT CITY

The plan for the Radiant city was first displayed at Brussels meeting of CIAM in 1930 although it was not
available in published form until 1935. it retained, but rearranged, the key features of the Ville
Contemporaine. The basic ideas of free circulation and greenery were still present, but the juxtaposition of

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different land-uses had changed. For example, the central area was now residential instead of a skyscraper
office core.

The plan was no longer a mandala of centralized power. Instead it spliced together an extendible linear
city with the abstract image of a man: head, spine, arms and body. The skyscrapers of the Ville
Contemporaine were rearranged away from the city center at the ‘head’…[The] ‘body’ was made up of
acres of housing strips laid out in a stepping plan to generate semi-courts and harbours of greenery
containing tennis courts, playing fields and paths. These all faced south…[and] were raised on pilotis so
that the entire surface of the city was a co-extensive, fully public space.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of the Ville Radieuse was its conscious reworking of the design of
housing. The idea of segregation of housing by social class was abandoned, replacing the different types of
housing by high-rise dwelling units for 2700 people. These would have services that included communal
kitchens, crèches, shops and gymnasia supplied. Family size was now the guiding rule for housing
allocationh, without regard to the worker’s place in the industrial hierarchy. These housing units were
envisaged as an essential ingredient in constructing a ‘classless society’

In addition, there was conscious effort to sketch the lifestyle of inhabitants of the future city. Unlike soviet
architects, Le Corbusier believed in the power of architecture to bring social change without necessarily
requiring the transformation in the economic base of society.

 The previous concentric plan is considerably revised to allow a normal organic growth for the
city
 Now Le Corbusier comes to the belief that ‘the essence of the city is the dwelling area’
 Residential area occupies the most central location, with possible expansions to the right and
left toward the open country. The civic center is on the main axis. The business area on the top
 Light manufacturing, freight yards and heavy industries at the bottom
 Traffic pattern – an orthogonal system with super imposed diagonals
 Subway system shows an equal simplicity
 The density is here 400 people per acre
 Each residential block is 1300 ft. x 1300 ft. or about
 40 acres 16000 people = one neighbourhood. Each block has stadium, swimming pool, tennis
courts, schools and playgrounds

The radiant city grew out of new conception of capitalist authority and a pseudo-appreciation for workers’
individual freedoms. The plan had much in common with the Contemporary City - clearance of the historic
cityscape and rebuilding utilizing modern methods of production. In the Radiant City, however, the pre-
fabricated apartment houses, les unites, were at the center of “urban” life. Les unites were available to
everyone (not just the elite) based upon the size and needs of each particular family. Sunlight and
recirculating air were provided as part of the design. The scale of the apartment houses was fifty meters
high, which would accommodate, according to Corbusier, 2,700 inhabitants with fourteen square meters of
space per person. The building would be placed upon pilotis, five meters off the ground, so that more land
could be given over to nature. Each apartment block was equipped with a catering section in the basement,
which would prepare daily meals (if wanted) for every family and would complete each families’ laundry
chores. The time saved would enable the individual to think, write, or utilize the play and sports grounds

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which covered much of the city’s land. Directly on top of the apartment houses were the roof top gardens
and beaches, where residents sun themselves in A natural” surroundings - fifty meters in the air. Children
were to be dropped off at les unites’ day care center and raised by scientifically trained professionals. The
workday, so as to avoid the crisis of overproduction, was lowered to five hours a day. Women were
enjoined to stay at home and perform household chores, if necessary, for five hours daily. Transportation
systems were also formulated to save the individual time. Corbusier bitterly reproaches advocates of the
horizontal garden city (suburbs) for the time wasted commuting to the city. Because of its compact and
separated nature, transportation in the Radiant City was to move quickly and efficiently. Corbusier called it
the vertical garden city.

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LA VILLE CONTEMPORAINE (CONCENTRIC CITY)

‘The city of Tomorrow’ for 30,00,000 people was proposed by Le Corbusier in 1922, which was based on
four principles :

1. Decongestion of the centers of cities

2. Augmentation of the density
3. Enlargement of the means of circulation
4. Increase in the number of parks and open spaces

The ville contemporaine consisted of three zones: the central city, a protected green belt and the periphery
containing factories and the satellite towns where their workers lived.

The central city featured a rectangle containing two cross axial super-highways. At its heart was a six-level
transport interchange, a meeting place of underground and main-line railways, road networks and at the
top, a landing platform for ‘aero-taxis’. Around that point were 24 cruciform skyscrapers made from steel
and glass, serving the city’s civic and commercial needs.

These building cover less than 15 percent of the central area’s ground space, would be raised on stilts
(pilotis) so as to leave panoramas of unbroken greenery at ground level. The general impression was less
that of parkland in the city than of a city in a park.

The ville contemporaine generated considerable interest as a holistic conception of the future city, but
equally attracted critical comment. Fierce criticisms were directed at the class based conception of life that
it embodied, since Le Corbusier envisaged different classes being separately housed. Doubts were
expressed about the ville contemporaine’s scale and degree of centralization.

The city espoused space, speed, mass production and efficient organization, but also offered a potentially
sterile combination of natural and urban environments.

 Gross FAR = 60x 5% = 3

 Net FAR excluding roads = 4
 Average floor space = 100 sq. ft/person
 This scheme was a city of magnificent skyscraper towers surrounded by broad and sweeping
open space.
 The city was a huge park. Sixty-story office buildings accommodating 1,200 people per acre
and covering only 5% of the ground area were grouped in the heart of the city
 The hub of the plan is the transportation centre for motor, and rail lines, the roof of which is the
air – field. Main highways are elevated.
 Surrounding the skyscrapers was the apartment district, eight-story buildings arranged in
zigzag rows with broad open spaces about them, the density of population being 120 persons
per acre.
 Lying about the outskirts were the garden cities of single-family houses.
 The residential zone contains schools, shopping centers, and recreational facilities.

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The background of ville contemporaine: philosophy of Le Corbusier

 No matter how open and green, cities should be frankly urban, urban surroundings are to be
definitely contrasting with rural surroundings
 Densities are in themselves not a problem. Congestion and slum conditions in the cities are
due to excessive coverage, persistence of old street patterns and unrestricted land speculation
 Slums exist because of the failure to provide the proper surrounding for high density living still
providing for classified street system, parking areas, adequate open spaces for parks, sport
fields, and community services
 He protests against strict functionalism : ‘Human creations that survive are those which
produce emotions, and not those which are only useful”

Ville contemporaine is primarily a revolt against the irrational growth of contemporary cities. It is a plan for
concentric city in which orderly, controlled elements replace the traditional pattern of the old metropolis

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PLAN VOISIN 1925

It reworked certain elements of the Ville Contemporaine. Le Corbusier proposed the construction of 18
double cruciform 60 – storey skyscrapers, surrounded by green open spaces. These buildings were
intended to attract international corporations so that a modern Paris could act as a world center for
administration. There would be three clusters of luxury apartments, intended to keep the cultural elite in the
city.

Particular attention centred on the road network. Le Corbusier wanted to destroy the street in order to save
it. He was fully aware of the significance of the street in the drama of urban life, but believed that the
traditional rue corridor (Corridor Street) with its rigid line of buildings and intermingling of traffic and
pedestrians, was an impossible setting for that drama.

The new street system would have each functionally distinct traffic type occupying its own dedicated
channel placed at different levels. Heavy traffic would proceed at basement level, lighter at ground level,
and fast traffic should flow along limited-access arterial roads that supplied rapid and unobstructed cross-
city movement. There would also be pedestrianised streets, wholly separate from vehicular traffic and
placed at a raised level. The number of existing streets would be diminished by two-thirds due to the new
arrangements of housing, leisure facilities and workplaces, with same-level crossing points eliminated
wherever possible.

Critics attacked its focus on the central city, where land values were highest and dislocations most difficult;
the creation of vast empty spaces in place of close-knit streets with their varied civic life and the proposed
obliteration of much of the city’s architectural heritage. Although intended seriously, the plan had immediate
shock value, particularly for its determined approach to reshaping the central districts – the area’s most
resist to change.

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CHANDIGARH

INDRODUCTION
The city of Chandigarh was the culmination of Le corbusier’s life. This city is like the man. It is not gentle. It
is hard and assertive. It is not practical; it is riddled with mistakes made not in error but in arrogance. It is
disliked by small minds, but not by big ones. It is unforgettable. The man who adored the Mediterranean
has here found fulfillment, in the scorching heat of India.
Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, inspired the planners and builders of Chandigarh with
the words. “This shall be the new city of free India, totally fresh and wholly responsive to the aspirations of
the future generations of this great country, and that the city shall be free from all shackles and shall be
unfettered by the traditions of the past – the city shall be so built and nurtured that it shall be a model for
our glorious future growth of the country.”

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION
It was bound by two seasonal choes, or rivulets, the patiali Rao and the Sukhna in the northwest and the
south east respectively. It extends in the northeast right up to the foothills of the shivaliks. The region
experiences extremes in the climate. The temperature could rise to 45 degrees in summer and drop to
freezing point in winter. The direction of the prevalent winds is southeast to the northwest in summer and
northwest to the southeast in winter.

THE SITE
After an extensive aerial survey, then the Capital Project Administrator, P.N. Thapar and Chief Engineer,
P.L. Verma selected the site—a sub-mountainous area of the then Ambala district about 240 km north of
New Delhi, the capital of the republic. The area was a flat, gently sloping plain of agricultural land dotted
with groves of mango trees which marked the sites of 24 villages or hamlets—one of which was named
Chandigarh on account of its temple dedicated to the goddess.

The general ground level of the site ranges from 305 to 366 meters with a 1 per cent grade giving adequate
drainage. To the northeast are the foothills of the Himalayas—the Shivalik Range—rising abruptly to about
1524 meters and a dramatic natural backdrop. One seasonal stream, the Patiali ki Rao, lies on the
western side of the city and another, the Sukhna Choe, on the eastern side. A third, smaller seasonal
stream flows through the very center of Chandigarh. The area along this streambed has been turned into a
series of public gardens called the Leisure Valley.

THE AMERICAN ARCHITECTS AND PLANNERS

Although the city is now forever linked with the name of Le Corbusier, he was not the Government of India’s
“first choice”. In the late 1940’s very few Indian architects were professionally trained in town planning so it
was necessary to look abroad for a man to carry out the Chandigarh scheme. The search led to the USA
and Albert Mayer. Graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and founder of the large New
York architectural firm of Mayer, Whittlesey and Glass, he was highly qualified for the job. Not only was he
experienced, he was associated with American architects and thinkers Lewis Mumford and Clarence Stein.

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Mayer wasn’t new to India. In December, 1949, when the Punjab government approached him for the
Chandigarh project, he was already associated with a rural development project at Etawah (Uttar Pradesh),
and preparation of master plans for Greater Bombay and Kanpur.

Mayer was thrilled with the prospect of planning a brand-new city, and he accepted the assignment
although it offered him a modest fee of $30,000 for the entire project. His brief was to prepare a master
plan for a city of half a million people, showing the location of major roads and areas for residence,
business, industry, recreation and allied uses. He was also to prepare detailed building plans for the Capitol
Complex, City Centre, and important government facilities and architectural controls for other areas.

On the advice of his friend Stein, Mayer inducted Matthew Nowicki. Nowicki was the head of the North
Carolina State College School of Architecture. Soon, Mayer and Nowicki became the key American
planners for Chandigarh.

Mayer drew his inspiration for Chandigarh from a number of American residential projects, such as Steins
Baldwin Hills, in Los Angeles, California, which were in turn influenced by the 19 th century Garden City
Movement of English architect Ebenezer Howard.

The master plan as conceived by Mayer and Nowicki assumed a fan-shaped outline spreading gently to fill
the site between two seasonal riverbeds. At the head of the plan was the Capitol , the seat of the state
government, and the City Centre was located in the heart of the city. Two linear parklands could also be
noticed running continuously from the northeast head of the plain to its southwestern tip. A curving network
of main roads surrounded the neighborhood units called Super blocks. The first phase of the city was to be
developed on the north-eastern side to accommodate 1,50,000 residents and the second phase on the
South-western side for another 350,000 people.

The proposed Super blocks were to be graded income wise in three density categories: 10, 30 and 40
persons per hectare. Mayer wanted a more democratic mix of housing types, and felt that the old practice
of providing palatial bungalows for the elite needed rethinking as the services and open space provided to
them would be at the expense of the have-nots living in the smaller houses. He also desired that most
houses in the neighbourhood units should be located on the periphery, so that the central areas were left
for playgrounds, parks and recreational areas.

Mayer liked “the variation of [Indian] streets, offsetting and breaking from narrow into wider and back” and
thought that they were appropriate to a land of strong sunlight, At the narrow points, his house design
involved an inner courtyard for ventilation with small openings on the street side to protect privacy. “We
loved this little inner courtyard,” Mayer wrote, “for it seemed to us to bring the advantages of coolness and
dignity into a quite small house.” Another element in planning was “to place a group of houses around a not
very large court, with the ends somewhat narrowing, which could serve as a social unit—i.e. a group of
relatives or friends or people from the same locality might live there, with the central area for play, gossip,
etc.” The neighbourhood units were to contain schools and local shopping centres.

The multi-mode transportation system was a major problem. Mayer tackled it by creating a “three-fold-
system” that segregated land use in the master plan; there were neighbourhoods and areas for business,
industry and cultural activities. He also planned separate roads for incompatible types of traffic. Separate
provisions were to be made for slow animal-drawn carts, for bicycles and pedestrians.
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Also he proposed to have a configuration of fast-traffic arterial roads with at least 400 meters distance
between the two. He also favoured use of cul-de-sacs so that pedestrians and cyclists could move on paths
through parks and green areas. Land was also to be reserved for future expansion of roads, parking areas
etc.

Although Mayer’s contract did not stipulate detailed architectural schemes, he felt that they could not isolate
two-dimensional planning of the city from its architectural character. And it was left mainly to Nowicki his
talented younger partner to sketch out conceptual schemes for the image of the city. For the legislative
assembly, he evolved a form that took the shape of a parabolic dome inspired by the Indian stupa, symbolic
motif of the sacred mountain. Nowicki was keen to end all his modern architectural creations with the Indian
idiom of built form. He even endorsed the idea of the traditional home-cum-workplace of a small
entrepreneur or artisan. His sketches indicate typical Indian features such as shops with platforms to sit on
the floor, and overhanging balconies or awnings, with separate areas for hawkers. This house-cum-
workplace had typical traditional features like brickwork jalis and screens to shield the windows from the hot
Summer winds.

His conceptual sketches indicate curving streets, courtyards, and a delightful sequence of open and closed
spaces - with ample use of water and greenery to soften the built forms. Quite appropriately the building
materials of his choice was the good old brick, as it was the cheapest medium - a conclusion that holds true
even now

Providence had different designs. On August 31, 1950, Nowicki died in a plane crash. Mayer felt that he
could not handle the monumental project alone and withdrew, severing the American connection with
Chandigarh.

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LE CORBUSIERS MASTER PLAN

The city was still entirely on paper. To translate this dream into brick and cement, the government would
have to find another architect. The choice fell on Le Corbusier, an architect and urban theorist, many of
whose ideas were at variance with those of Mayer and Nowicki. The other important members of his team
were Pierre Jeanerette, Maxwell Fry, Jane Drew- and among the Indians notably U.E.Chowhury,
N.S.Lamba, A.R.Prabhawalkar, Jeet Malhotra, B.P.Mathur and Aditya Prakash.

Unlike Mayer, Le Corbusier had never set foot in India until the Chandigarh project first brought him to the
country in 1951. In February of that year Le Corbusier and his colleagues camped in a rest house at what is
now called Chandimandir. In four days of feverish activity, they redesigned the city. The leaf-like outline of
Mayer’s plan was squared up into a mesh of rectangles.

Although Le Corbusier made many radical changes in the Americans’ master plan, incorporating his own
architectural and city planning ideas, it is a tribute to Mayer and Nowicki’s vision that he incorporated
several of their seminal ideas. For example, the basic framework of the master plan and its components -
the Capitol , City Centre, university, industrial area, and a linear parkland - as conceived by Mayer and
Nowicki were retained by Le Corbusier. The restructured master plan almost covered the same site and
the neighbourhood unit was retained as the main module of the plan. The Super block was replaced by
now what is called the Sector covering an area of 91 hectares, approximately that of the three-block
neighbourhood unit planned by Mayer. The City Centre, the railway station and the industrial areas by and
large retained their original locations. However, the Capitol , though still sited at the prime location of the
northeastern tip of the plan, was shifted slightly to the northwest.

The neighbourhood unit, so important to Mayer, retained its importance in Le Corbusier’s plan. But the
opposing viewpoints lay in the configuration of the neighbourhood units. While the former preferred a
naturalistic, curving street pattern without the rigidity of a sterile geometric grid—the latter was adverse to
“solidification of the accidental”. For Le Corbusier the straight line was the logical connecting path
between two points, and any “forced naturalness” was superfluous. Moreover, Le Corbusier always
looked at the city plan in terms of a single cohesive monumental composition—with major axes linking the
focal points of the city. The emphasis on visual cohesion between the various city components was an
essential feature of his somewhat rigid gridiron plan. (Evenson, Normal 1966)

BASIC PLANNING COMPONENTS

Le Corbusier’s plan was based on the gridiron defined by a system of seven types of roads, which Le
Corbusier called the 7 Vs (from the French word ‘voie’) and their expected functions around and within the
neighbourhood. The neighbourhood itself is surrounded by the fast-traffic road called V3 intersecting at the
junctions of the neighbourhood unit called sector with a dimension of 800 meters by 1200 meters. The
entrance of cars into the sectors of 800 meters by 1200m, which are exclusively reserved to family life, can
take place on four points only; in the middle of the 1200 m. in the middle of the 800 meters. All stoppage of
circulation shall be prohibited at the four circuses, at the angles of the Sectors. The bus stops are provided
each time at 200 meters from the circus so as to serve the four pedestrian entrances into a sector. Thus,
the transit traffic takes place out of the sectors: the sectors being surrounded by four wall-bound car roads
without openings (the V3s). And this (a novelty in town-planning and decisive) was applied at Chandigarh:
no house (or building) door opens on the thoroughfare of rapid traffic.

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THE BIOLOGICAL ANALOGY

Le Corbusier liked to compare the city he planned to a biological entity: the head was the Capitol, the
City Centre was the heart and work area of the institutional area and the university was limbs. Aside
from the Leisure Valley traversing almost the entire city, parks extended lengthwise through each sector to
enable every resident to lift their eyes to the changing panorama of hills and sky. Le Corbusier identified
four basic functions of a city: living, working, circulation and care of the body and spirit. Each sector was
provided with its own shopping and community facilities, schools and places of worship. “Circulation” was
of great importance to Le Corbusier and determined the other three basic functions. By creating a hierarchy
of roads, Le Corbusier sought to make every place in the city swiftly and easily accessible and at the same
time ensure tranquility and safety of living spaces.

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THE PERIPHERY CONTROL ACT

The Periphery Control Act of 1952 created a wide green belt around the entire union territory. It regulated
all development within 16 kilometers of the city limit, prohibited the establishment of any other town or
village and forbade commercial or industrial development. The idea was to guarantee that Chandigarh
would always be surrounded by countryside.

Le Corbusier regarded the sector as the “key of modern urbanism, the container of modern life”. The
population of individual sectors might be as low as 5,000 persons or as high as 25,000 -- and even much
more now.

The sectors are vertically integrated by green space oriented in the direction of the mountains. Le
Corbusier envisaged the construction of schools and playing fields in these green belts.

ADMINISTRATION & EDUCATION

Le Corbusier wanted Chandigarh to be devoted exclusively to administration and education; he firmly
believed that an industrial town did not mix with an administrative one. He supposed that the majority of the
inhabitants would spend their working hours in the Capitol, Estate Office or various other buildings
occupied by government departments , in the offices and shops of the City Centre or along Madhya Marg,
or on the campuses of the colleges and university, or in other research institutions

INDUSTRY
Despite his bias against industry, Le Corbusier was persuaded to set aside 235 hectares for non-Polluting,
light industry on the extreme southeastern side near the railway line as far away from the Educational
Sector and Capitol as possible. Of this, 136 hectares were to be developed during the first phase. In the
event of the city expanding southward, Le Corbusier suggested the creation of an additional industrial area
in the southern part of the city where a second railway station could be established. While the Industrial
Sector is directly connected to the civic centre by a V-3 road, a wide buffer of fruit trees was planted to
screen off this area from the rest of the city.

Plot sizes were laid out to accommodate both large and small establishments and were sold at auction,
subject to the restriction of industries considered obnoxious. Architectural controls were established
regarding the site coverage and materials of construction, ultimately requiring all plans to be formed in
consultation with the Capital Project Office. Maximum site coverage up to 50 per cent was allowed and in
this area, 2.5 per cent of the space is permitted for use as quarters for essential staff. Sneh Pandit explains
the rationale for this: “It will indirectly force the industrialists to provide accommodation for labour and staff
within the city which is more desirable than their living in an exclusive area. In Sector 30, which is
sufficiently close to the Industrial Sector yet within the city, multistoried buildings have gone up to provide
suitable tenements for the workers. Later controls enforce that structures be made mainly in brick, allowing
only 25 per cent area to be plastered. Sloping sheds or sloping roofs are not permitted, so that the
Industrial Sector conforms to the look of the rest of the town—although this in not adhered to in reality.”
Aside from Sector 30, eventually sectors 28 and 29 were also set aside for industrial housing.

COMMERCE
The Jan Marg, culminating at the Capitol , is the main north-south axis of the city; Madhya Marg,
culminating at the Educational Sector, is the main east-west axis. The City Centre was laid out immediately
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southeast of the intersection of these two axes. It is one complete sector of approximately 100 hectares
and broadly divided into a northern and southern zone. The Southern zone has been developed as a centre
of district administration, containing the district courts and police headquarters, the fire station and
interstate bus terminus, while major commercial and civic functions are carried out in the northern section.

Lack of elevators, and the fact that Chandigarh lies in a zone of moderate seismic activity and limitations of
building materials and methods dictated the four-storey height limit for all buildings of the City Centre. The
size of the buildings was determined by what the planners thought the owners could afford. The building
form emerged from architectural control based on a standardised, reinforced cement concrete frame of
columns, beams and slabs, with room for interior modification according to the needs of the owner.

Madhya Marg
While providing for a commercial heart—Sector 17, the City Centre—Le Corbusier also designated the
northeastern side of the V-2 road known as Madhya Marg as a commercial district. “ Initially, Le Corbusier
had proposed to house the wholesale establishments in buildings which would present to the street an
unbroken brick façade. This was to be pierced only by a central doorway leading to an interior courtyard on
which the offices and showrooms would face. These austere three-storey blocks are intended to line the
street as a terrace formation, on the northeastern side, giving the effect of an unbroken wall. To the
government officials charged with the responsibility of approving the plan, however, this appeared a
scheme not only lacking in visual appeal as urban design, but also one, which would fail to attract
commercial users. As a result, the Capital Project Office attempted a compromise design, in which the
ground floor would have display windows facing the street behind a verandah. To achieve something of Le
Corbusier’s completely blank façade, and still permit a measure of light and ventilation to a second level of
windows on the front façade, a brick screen was extended in front of the second floor at the outer edge of
the verandah and continued to the upper level masking an open terrace. The plan of this type of building
provided for ground-floor showrooms, offices at the mezzanine level, with a residence for the caretaker or
manager at the top floor. To the rear of the block would be a walled compound for storage and other
purposes. It was intended that advertising signs would be permitted on the exterior of these buildings. Their
size, form and colour were, however, to be controlled. However many deviations and changes have
occurred in the present from the initial concept.

Sector Markets
Le Corbusier wanted to make each sector self-contained with respect to the necessities of daily life and
accordingly each sector was provided with a mini-commercial district of its own. Each sector was to have its
maintenance organisation, fire brigade, police, library, market, and the necessary artisans. These services
were set up in a line of 800 meters on one side (facing north) to avoid dispersion and frequent road
crossings as well as the sun’s heat. Cars can take this road at a reduced speed and park there. This shop-
street continues into the neighbouring sectors on the right and left

OPEN SPACES
Some 800 hectares of green open space are spread over the approximately 114 square kilometers of the
Capital Project area. Major open areas include the Leisure Valley, Sukhna Lake, Rock Garden and many
other special gardens. In addition, the sectors are vertically integrated by green space oriented in the
direction of the mountains. Le Corbusier envisaged the construction of schools and playing fields in these
green bands.

BUILT-UP AREAS
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Various structures such as the Government Museum and Art Gallery, Museum of Evolution of Life and Fine
Arts College have come up in the Leisure Valley forming the cultural zone of the city. Le Corbusier also
allowed small nursery and primary schools and community buildings to be built in the green belt of the
sectors.

LANDSCAPING
Landscaping proceeded side by side with the construction of the city from the very inception. Three spaces
were identified for special plantation: the roadsides, spaces around important buildings, parks and special
features such as Sukhna Lake. In July, 1953, a Landscape Advisory Committee was set up under the
guidance of Dr M.S. Randhawa, later to be the City’s first Chief Commissioner
Le Corbusier’s contribution to landscaping was of categorising tree forms. He made a simple analysis of the
functional needs and aesthetic suitability for the various areas, devoting special attention to specific roads.

ROADSIDE PLANTATION

It was intended to have continuous, informally planted interior and exterior tree belts to give a sense of
direction and culminate dramatically at the Capitol. For the V-2 Avenue of the Capitol, Le Corbusier wrote:

”The Avenue of the Capitol consists of heavy traffic with a parallel band of parking, a large pavement on
each side and with shops and arcades and high-rise buildings. Also outside this and parallel will be the
eroded valley (which touches from time to time). On the one hand, it seems useful to demarcate the
highway by a border of high trees and on the other hand to unite with one glance the entire width of the
avenue.”

”The V-4 will be the street, which will give its own character to each sector. Consequently each V-4 will be
different from the others and furnished with special characteristics because it is indispensable to create a
great variety across the city and to furnish to inhabitants elements of classification. All the possibilities of
nature are at our disposal to give to each V-4 a personality which will maintain itself in the whole width of
the town and thus tie up five or six sectors traversed by a V-4.”
”To specialise the character of each V-4 will be planted with trees having different colour, or of a different
species. For example one V-4 will be yellow, one V-4 will be red, and one V-4 will be blue.”

At present, the prominent flowering trees are gulmohar (Delonix regia), amaltas (Cassia fistula), kachnar
(Bauhinea variegata), pink cassia (Cassia Javanica) and silver oak (Grevillea robusta). Among the
conspicuous non-flowering trees one finds kusum (Schleicheta trijuga) and pilkhan (Ficus infectoria) along
V3 roadsides. These trees, noted for their vast, thick spreading canopies form great vaulting shelters over
many of the city’s roads. In all, more than 100 different tree species have been planted in (Fieus religosa)
Chandigarh .

March and April are “autumn” in North India. Trees such as pikhan, pipal kusum and many more shed
their old leaves creating a thick golden carpet that crunches underfoot. This is also the time when the tall
silk-cotton (Bombax malabaricum) trees put forth their enormous red blossoms and the jacaranda appears
like a wispy plume of purple smoke. The mauve buds of the kachnar (Bauhinia variegata) attract not only
for their beauty but also for their subtle flavour—they are a traditional delicacy. Within a couple weeks, all
the bare boughs are adorned with tender, shiny new leaves in coppery, pale green. As weeks pass, the

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colour matures to a dark green in preparation for the blistering temperatures of summer. When summer is
at its hottest one finds little colour in the flowerbeds, but the avenues of yellow amaltas (Cassia fistula) and
gulmohar more than make up for the lack.

The dry riverbeds of the Patiala ki Rao and Sukhna were the focus of the earliest tree plantations. Hardy
species were planted down the entire length to mitigate the severe dust storms that ravaged the site in
summer. The areas were declared Reserved City Forests.

In 1952 the Tree Preservation Act was passed which prohibited cutting down, lopping or willful destruction
of trees in Chandigarh. Thanks to this timely Act, a number of native venerable, groves of trees have been
retained in the city’s green belts.

CITY GARDENS
While evolving the iron grid layout of the city, Le Corbusier incorporated an integrated park system of
continuous green belts from one end of the city to the other, allowing an unobstructed view of the
mountains. Pedestrian paths and cycle-tracks were to be laid out through these irregularly shaped linear
parks to allow a person to travel the entire length of the city under a canopy of green. The valley of a
seasonal rivulet that ran through the city site for about 8 kilometers with a depth of about 6 meters and a
width extending to a maximum of 300 meters was imaginatively made use of. A series of special gardens
transformed the existing eroded area into what is now called the Leisure Valley. Aside from this large chain
of gardens there are many other gardens: some devoted to particular flowers or flowering trees, others
created as memorials and still others planned around topiary or fountains. (For details about individual
gardens, see CITY ATTRACTIONS, GARDENS)

SUKHNA LAKE
By making imaginative use of the waters of the seasonal rivulet, ‘Sukhna’, a large lake has been created
and named Sukhna Lake. The following dedication has been inscribed on the concrete cube especially
constructed for this purpose.

”The founders of Chandigarh have offered this lake and dam to the citizens of the new city so that they may
escape the humdrum of the city life and enjoy the beauty of nature in peace and silence.”

The lake club there provides facilities for water sports and other outdoor recreational activities.

An annual ‘Shramdan’ (voluntary labour) by the citizens is held to desilt the lake during the summer
months, when parts of it are parched dry.

HOUSING
Lower category residential buildings are governed by a mechanism known as “frame control” to control
their facades. This fixes the building line and height and the use of building materials. Certain standard

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sizes of doors and windows are specified and all the gates and boundary walls must conform to standard
design. This particularly applies to houses built on small plots of 250 square metres or less. All these
houses are built on a terrace pattern and while they are allowed a certain individual character, the idea is to
ensure that the view from the street, which belongs to the community, is one of order and discipline.
Individuals are given the freedom to create the interiors to suit their requirements for dwelling, working,
relaxing. All buildings along the major axes of the city are brought under architectural control. A person
building a house in Chandigarh must employ a qualified architect and the design is submitted to the Chief
Architect for approval. Particular scrutiny was applied to residential buildings constructed along Uttar Marg
(the northernmost avenue of the city at the very foot of the mountains), those abutting on Leisure Valley
and along certain V-3 roads.

COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS

All buildings located in the City Centre and commercial or institutional buildings located along V-2 roads are
subjected to controls. The system of the City Centre is based on a grid of columns, fixed 5.26 meters
shuttering pattern on concrete and a system of glazing or screen walls behind the line of columns. The
interior planning is left to the owners, and in the exterior, certain variations are permitted to give variety to
the architectural composition. Along the V-2 roads, other types of treatments have been evolved for
facades. All commercial buildings and all buildings constructed along the V-4 roads in other sectors are
also under strict control. For shops, complete designs have been provided from the inception of the city.

SCHEMATIC DESIGN CONTROL

In cases where special types of buildings occur in the architectural control areas, a schematic design is
prepared on the basis of which the developer prepares the final designs in consultation with the Chief
Architect. This has been so far applied to the design of cinema theatres in the City Centre and to petrol
stations.

Aditya Prakash, one of the architects who worked with Le Corbusier, observes: “It has always been realised
that Chandigarh must be well planned both in the private as well as in the public sector. From the very
beginning, all the commercial buildings of Chandigarh are under architectural control, but private housing
by and large had been left to its fate (of course, under the normal bye-laws and zoning) hoping that good
taste engendered by the government buildings will prevail and good architects will settle in Chandigarh and
fulfill the needs of private builders. [Now, many years later] Having introduced so many controls, the
process is still continuing. The existing controls are being refined or new controls introduced. In all these
controls, whereas restrictions are imposed on things which are generally unsightly, provision is always
made to permit a good architect to use his skill to provide the otherwise prohibited things on the exterior so
that they enhance the aesthetic appeal of the building or at any rate do not mar its beauty.”

Functional distributions and placement of different activities within the city was based on human analogy so
as to enable the city to function as an organic entity. The industrial area was placed on the southeast to
eliminate entry of heavy traffic into the city. A 150 meters belt of trees thickly planted with trees provided an
organic seal around residential sectors to eliminate noise and industrial pollution

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Along with the Periphery Control Act and the Tree Protection Act, the more obtrusive types of
signboards and advertisements were banned. These three measures were intended to check
environmental and visual pollution and thereby protect the city’s character and safeguard its quality of life.

CIRCULATION
Le Corbusier’s traffic system followed Mayer’s lines but was more elaborate; he called it Les Sept Voies
de Circulation, or Seven Vs. The rationale of his planning was the motorcar. “From his early studies in
urbanism, Le Corbusier had identified the motor car as the central factor of modern town planning. His
initial, primarily aesthetic, quasi-Futurist response to the motor car and to rapid movement in the cities had,
by 1950, metamorphosed into a theoretical solution to the problems of modern traffic—a graded system of
circulation, from crossing continents to walking to the front door. [As Le Corbusier put it] ‘The 7 Vs act in the
town plan as the bloodstream, the lymph system and the respiratory system act in biology. These systems
are quite rational, they are different from each other, there is no confusion between them, yet they are in
harmony ... It is for us to learn from them when we are organising the ground that lies beneath our feet. The
7Vs are no longer the sinister instruments of death, but become an organised hierarchy of roads which can
bring modern traffic circulation under control’.”

The 7Vs establishes a hierarchy of traffic circulation ranging from: arterial roads (V1), major boulevards
(V2) sector definers (V3), shopping streets (V4), neighbourhood streets (V5), access lanes (V6) and
pedestrian paths and cycle tracks (V7s and V8s). The essence of his plan for Chandigarh rests on
preserving intact the true functions of these seven types of roads. For details see Le Corbusier’s Statue of
Land]

The entrance of cars into the sectors, which are exclusively reserved to family life, can take place on four
points only; in the middle of the 1,200 meters; in the middle of the 800 meters. All stoppage of circulation
shall be prohibited at the four circuses, at the angles of the sectors. The bus stops are provided each time
at 200 meters from the circus so as to serve the four pedestrian entrances into a sector. Thus the transit
traffic takes place out of the sectors, the sectors being surrounded by four wall-bound car roads without
openings (the V3s).

The road system was so designed that “never a door will open on the surrounding V3s: precisely the four
surrounding V3s must be separated from the sector by a blind wall all along.” Buses can ply on the V4s, the
horizontal connection between contiguous sectors, but not within the sector interiors.

Notes on Town planning and Human settlements Compiled by CT.LAKSHMANAN B.Arch., M.C.P.