It differs from most planned cities, where the ideal is projected with technocratic consistency onto a tabula rasa, and the old structure is disavowed (the most radical example being Le Corbusier’s ‘Plan Voisin’ [1922-1929], in which much of the centre of Paris would have made way for a system of skyscrapers, motorways and green spaces). Chandigarh has been designed with contextual empathy. Its Cartesian severity is toned down acceptably with meandering waterways and green spaces, and not all the sectors have the same infills. Because of this, and aided by the use of subtle, natural colours, the model gives the impression that a degree of organic growth is not entirely excluded in this ideal city.

The balance between rational and natural which the model radiates so convincingly makes it almost impossible not to be enthusiastic about the design. Le Corbusier appears to have made the seemingly impossible possible. Not only did he design a successful model city of apparently enduring character – Chandigarh has been there for over fifty years now and is still applying the original planning rules unchanged – but he also appears to have developed a solution to the extremely difficult task of finding a model for the future for the Indian city. Accordingly, in India as well as in the international architecture community, Chandigarh commands an admiration bordering on religious fervour that has the effect of stifling even the most carefully formulated criticism. Chandigarh-veneration peaked in 1999, at the international conference ‘Celebrating Chandigarh, 50 years of the idea’, where leading Indian and international architects, architecture critics and historians got together, primarily, it would seem, to discuss a strategy for safeguarding the ideal city from ‘desecration’.1 So much admiration and so much emphasis on maintaining the status quo arouses suspicion. Is Chandigarh really so ‘ideal’? And if it is such an ideal answer to the problem of the modern Indian city, why have no comparable cities been developed in India over the past fifty years?

As always, the model is more perfect than the reality. Indeed, stubborn reality is present even in the model. In sector 45, at the bottom edge of the model, there is a strange diagonal black square which seems to ignore the grid. That black spot proves to be a village sited on land that was not bought up for ‘Chandigarhization’. Unlike the villages which had been torn down at an earlier stage in the building of Chandigarh, this village was preserved in the southern second stage and is not covered by the building regulations of the surrounding Chandigarh. To visit this enclave is to experience the tremendous gap between the planned ideal and Indian urban reality in all its intensity. Only the mathematical contours recall the surrounding ideal. Inside, one encounters a building density that feels claustrophobic when compared with the low density of Chandigarh, but which nonetheless represents the reality of the Indian city. Here people live and wash in the streets, cows roam freely, illegal structures are built and the smells are overpowering.

Anybody who is familiar with India as a whole will be aware that it is not this enclave that is the exception, but Chandigarh itself. And in Chandigarh, too, the reality of the Indian city starts as soon as one crosses the boundaries of the outermost sectors. Despite the original prohibition on building within a sixteen-kilometre radius of the city, an unplanned, uncontrolled agglomeration of towns, villages, huddles of shacks, a military base, an airfield and several industrial zones has evolved around the Chandigarh of the model. This has generated an interdependence between Chandigarh and its environs. It is pointless, therefore, to consider Chandigarh (and its future) without taking into account this far larger area, yet that was, for the most part, the case at the Celebrating Chandigarh conference.

If Chandigarh is a success, it is largely owing to the denial (or repression) of Indian reality. What is more, the ‘ideal situation’ owes its continued existence to a number of unusual conditions and can only be maintained by strict adherence to the original development regulations. First of all, Chandigarh came about against the backdrop of the immediate post-Independence political situation. The partition of the Punjab region into a province of Muslim Pakistan and a Sikh-dominated Indian state, made it necessary to inject the ‘amputated’ Punjab with a powerful symbol and self-assured identity. The then prime minister, Pandit Nehru, not only hoped that the building of Chandigarh would constitute a forceful gesture promoting stability of the new state, but also saw Chandigarh as a model for the modernization of India. This politically charged background produced optimum conditions, in terms both of finance and government support. The building of Chandigarh succeeded because it had to succeed, for political reasons. In the meantime, the political situation has changed and the states have been repartitioned. Chandigarh now forms a separate administrative zone between the states of Punjab and Haryana, and is the capital of both. This has consequences mainly for the Capitol (sector 1), where the celebrated government buildings have now to be shared by three administrations: those of Punjab, Haryana and the central government. Needless to say, the elongated administration building has long been bursting at the seams and the process of ‘illegally’ enlarging offices with add-on loggias is in full swing. In addition, because of the explosive situation in Kashmir, there is a strong military presence in the zone, with barriers and entry restrictions to boot. These days you have to be a highly dedicated architecture aficionado to get any pleasure out of visiting this sector.

A second factor determining the success of Chandigarh is the fact that many of the inhabitants work for the government and much of the housing is rented. Anyone not working in Chandigarh has little chance of living there and the extension of houses to accommodate growing families – commonplace throughout India – is forbidden here. Many of the city’s residents are middle-class civil servants who, despite the fact that the houses are very small by Western standards, are clearly more affluent than the average Indian. New cars and scooters stand in front of the houses, gardens are neatly laid out, streets are clean and the neighbourhoods have plenty of green space. Transport by camel and other beasts of burden is not permitted and the network of streets (Le Corbusier provided the city with no fewer than seven different categories of road) is so extensive and the roads so wide that there is none of the normal Indian traffic chaos. Peace reigns in Chandigarh. Though it does not apply throughout the city, in a number of sectors the visitor has the impression of having landed in a typical West-European suburb.
Given this situation, it is hardly surprising that Chandigarh is a favourite location for new businesses. In recent years, for instance, new IT companies have settled in and around the city. To preserve the clean image, the influx of inhabitants had to be contained. The city has been ‘swept clean’ several times, illegal structures pulled down and ‘illegal’ street vending – a perfectly normal phenomenon in India and very important for the local economy – banned. Despite this restrictive policy, one to one-and-a-half million people currently live in Chandigarh (reliable figures are hard to obtain in India), whereas the city was designed to accommodate 500,000 inhabitants. Yet there is no sign of overpopulation. Quite the opposite. Apart from a few main streets, along which shops and businesses are permitted, the principal routes in Chandigarh are for the most part empty spaces. As you drive through the city, therefore, you get the impression that there is ample scope for increased building density. One might even question whether Chandigarh can rightly be termed a city at all. There is none of the bustle and congestion that – certainly in India – are part and parcel of the urban scene. Chandigarh could more properly be called a collection of villages. Each sector was designed as an introvert enclave, surrounded by a green belt and with only four points of entry.

Emptiness also prevails in the government sector. The buildings, in particular the Houses of Parliament and the High Court building, are undeniably masterly and are indeed among Le Corbusier’s best works. However, the urban design of the government sector is, to put it mildly, unimpressive. The large plaza lies, cheerless and deserted, in the scorching heat, and the distances between the buildings are far too great. Even ardent fans agree that this sector is no urban planning success. But the only problem in their eyes is the fact that it is unfinished. If the unbuilt Governor’s Palace were to be built for a different purpose, all would be well. It is a moot point. To my mind, Le Corbusier misjudged the scale, unlike Lutyens, who succeeded in New Delhi with an even more spacious and grandiose set-up. Proposals for densifying this sector2 are regarded with suspicion by the guardians of The Plan but in my opinion they offer the only chance of saving this sector, should the political situation ever change.

While the status quo can barely be maintained within the boundaries of the original plan, outside the customary chaos of India prevails. The pressure exerted on the empty space of Chandigarh by the growing agglomeration is increasing. In a sense, Chandigarh can even be seen as a well-kept Central Park within the rapidly growing metropolis. The suggestion that it can only exist thanks to this ‘free zone’ outside the city is no exaggeration. Only by virtue of the fact that industrialization, legal and illegal trade, rampant population growth courtesy of ‘uncontrolled’ house-building and large-scale transport facilities (goods stations, airports and the like) take place outside the city boundaries can the idyll inside be preserved. The Western ideal of a ‘clean’ Chandigarh can only be perpetuated by an infusion of ‘dirty’ Indian reality immediately outside the city limits. Economically, Chandigarh is partially supported by the government, by way of civil service wages, but, increasingly, also by input from the agglomeration. So despite its indisputable planning qualities, Chandigarh’s ‘success’ is largely artificial. It can be ascribed to the unusual conditions at its initiation, the exceptional political situation and the fact that it is possible to keep out ‘dirty’ economic and demographic reality thanks to those conditions. It is a unique, barely repeatable situation, which explains why the ideal Chandigarh, the model for a new Indian city, has never been copied, despite the admiration it engenders, in India as abroad.

One wonders if this situation can be maintained for much longer. In theory, it might be possible to start from the mutual advantages of the total agglomeration and work towards a sustainable development of the entire area capable of guaranteeing the longer-term preservation of Chandigarh. However, large-scale planning is almost inconceivable in India and, despite heroic efforts, is nearly always doomed to fall victim to the country’s well-nigh unmanageable demographic and economic dynamics. Moreover, mutual supervision and consultation are hampered by complex political relations and the concomitant empowerment.

Vastu Shilpa Consultants, the practice of Balkrishna Doshi, who once worked for Le Corbusier, has drawn up a plan for the region. Originally asked to come up with a proposal for sector 62, the centre of Mohali in the southern part of Chandigarh, the practice included the entire region in the plan. Conditions for business development are far better in Mohali, where the restrictive regulations do not apply, than in Chandigarh itself. Vastu Shilpa’s plan makes the most of these favourable conditions and proposes higher density and a greater economic and cultural thrust for Mohali, sufficient for it to compete with the northern parts. That would give rise to a bipolar city, putting the centre of Mohali on an equal footing with sector 17, the current centre of Chandigarh. Improvement of public transport and planning of transport facilities and business parks in the larger region would, at all events, acknowledge the interdependence of Chandigarh and the agglomeration. Moreover, this would be deployed in such a way that, ultimately, Chandigarh’s stagnation would gradually be halted and the differences in affluence between the central sectors and the agglomeration alleviated by degrees. If there is a future for the Ideal Chandigarh, it certainly does not lie in the meticulous ‘intensive care’ of The Plan by the international architecture community, but in intelligent regional planning of the entire agglomeration. It would be to the credit of the international architecture community if, instead of concentrating on conserving monumental Chandigarh, it were to contribute actively to the success of a careful plan for the agglomeration as a whole. That is the only way to ensure a sustainable future for Chandigarh.

Piet Vollaard