Le Corbusier in Chandigarh

Postcoloniality, Preservation and the Future of the Mid-century Modern
1. Auflage 2027
ISBN: 978-1-041-23830-0
Verlag: Taylor & Francis

Buch, Englisch, 368 Seiten, Format (B × H): 210 mm x 280 mm

Chandigarh was more than Le Corbusier’s largest built work. Conceived between 1948 and 1967 to embody the nationalist and internationalist ambitions of Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India’s first Prime Minister, it was meant to announce a new nation to the world. Today it stands at the center of urgent questions about climate, globalization, neo-nationalism and the digital age.

Drawing on original archival and field research, this book reevaluates Le Corbusier’s city both as a product of the 1950s and as a challenge for the present. How did Le Corbusier come to lead a team assembled to design a “modern” city for a newly independent nation? How did the politics of the post-war world and the Cold War set Chandigarh’s agenda? And what does it mean to preserve a city whose architects, state, citizens and markets have each shaped it differently from what was intended?

Prakash’s answer is that Chandigarh is an “open” work, designed to be continued by others in times yet to come. Chapters explore the logic of water that organizes the master plan, the Edenic, porous spaces of the Capitol Complex, the layered symbolism of its buildings, the many meanings of the Open Hand Monument, and the archaeology of the unbuilt Museum of Knowledge. Together they make the case for preserving the city’s future as well as its past.

Bringing together two decades of research, including new material, this volume consolidates and extends the author’s earlier books on Chandigarh. It is the definitive scholarly text on this iconic mid-century city.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate, Undergraduate Advanced, and Undergraduate Core

Autoren/Hrsg.

Prakash, Vikramaditya

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Architektur Geschichte der Architektur, Baugeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Architektur Architektur: Berufspraxis
• Geisteswissenschaften Architektur Architekten & Architekturbüros
• Technische Wissenschaften Technik Allgemein Technik: Berufe & Ausbildung
• Geisteswissenschaften Architektur Garten- und Landschaftsarchitektur
• Geisteswissenschaften Architektur Gebäudetypen Öffentliche Gebäude, Gewerbliche Bauten
• Geisteswissenschaften Architektur Gestaltung, Darstellung, Bautechnik
• Geisteswissenschaften Architektur Gebäudetypen Sakralbauten
• Geisteswissenschaften Architektur Architektur: Restaurierung, Instandhaltung
• Geisteswissenschaften Architektur Architektur: Allgemeines
• Technische Wissenschaften Bauingenieurwesen Gebäudesanierung, Instandhaltung
• Geisteswissenschaften Architektur Gebäudetypen Wohngebäude

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction 1. Master Planning: Contesting Conceptions of the Postcolonial Modern 2. Water Ecology and the Modernist Master Plan 3. The Capitol Complex as a Rousseauesque Garden of Eden 4. Democratic Ideals and the Capitol Buildings 5. With Open Hands: Architectural Symbolism and the Vagaries of Political Claim 6. The Museum of Knowledge: Genealogy and Incompletion Conclusion: Epistemologies for Planetary Time

Über Autor(innen)

Vikramaditya Prakash (BArch, Panjab University, India; MA, Phd, Cornell University, USA) is Professor of Architecture at the University of Washington, Seattle with Adjunct appointments in Urban Design and Planning and in Digital Arts and Experimental Media. Vikram is host of the ArchitectureTalk podcast, and co-design lead of the conceptual design practice O(U)R: Office of Uncertainty Research. His books include Chandigarh’s Le Corbusier: The Struggle for Modernity in Postcolonial India, Colonial Modernities (co-edited with Peter Scriver), A Global History of Architecture (co-authored with Frank Ching and Mark Jarzombek), The Architecture of Shivdatt Sharma, Chandigarh: An Architectural Guide, One Continuous Line: Art, Architecture and Urbanism of Aditya Prakash, Rethinking Global Modernism: Architectural Historiography and the Postcolonial (co-edited with Maristella Casciato and Daniel Coslett) and A House Deconstructed (co-authored with Mark Jarzombek). Death of a Modernist is his first novella. Vikram was recognized as ACSA Distinguished Professor in 2021.