Contents
- 1 Brief History
- 2 Chandigarh's Plan and Architecture
- 3 Social Life and Patterns
- 4 External links
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Brief History
Chandigarh is a city in India that serves as the capital of two states: Punjab and Haryana. However, the city does not belong to either state. Rather, the city is administered by the federal government and hence classified as a union territory. Chandigarh was due to transfer to Punjab alone in 1986, accompanied by the creation of a new capital for Haryana, but the transfer has been delayed while agreement is sought on the districts of Punjab that should be transferred to Haryana in exchange.
The city was commissioned by Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India, to reflect the new nation's modern, progressive outlook. Nehru famously proclaimed Chandigarh to be "unfettered by the traditions of the past, a symbol of the nation's faith in the future." Several buildings in Chandigarh were designed by the Swiss-born French architect and planner,Le Corbusier in the 1950s. Le Corbusier was in fact the second architect of the city, after the initial master plan was prepared by the American architect-planner Albert Mayer who was working with the Polish-born architect Matthew Nowicki. It was only after Nowicki's untimely death in 1950 that Le Corbusier was pulled into the project.
Chandigarh's Plan and Architecture
Taking over from Albert Mayer, Le Corbusier produced a plan for Chandigarh that conformed to the modern city planning principles of CIAM,in terms of division of urban functions, an anthropomorphic plan form, and a hierarchy of road and pedestrian networks.
While leaving the bulk of the city's architecture to other members of his team, Le Corbusier took responsibility for the overall master plan of the city, and the design of some of the major public buildings including the High Court, Assembly, Secretariat, the Museum and Art Gallery, School of Art and the Lake Club. Most of the other housing was done by Le Corbusier's cousin Pierre Jeanneret, the English husband and wife team of Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew, along with a team of nine Indian architects -- M. N. Sharma, A. Ar. Prabhawalkar, B. P. Mathur, Piloo Moody, U. E. Chowdhury, N. S. Lamba, J. L. Malhotra, J. S. Dethe and Aditya Prakash.
The city in its final form, while not resembling his previous city projects like the Ville Contemporaine or the Ville Radieuse, was an important and iconic landmark in the history of town planning. It continues to be an object of interest for architects, planners, historians and social scientists.
In more detail, the city plan is laid down in a grid pattern. Divided into identical looking sectors, each sector measures 800m x 1200m. The sectors were to act as self-sufficient neighborhoods, each with its own market, places of worship, schools and colleges - all within 10 minutes walking distance from within the sector. The original two phases of the plan delineated sectors from 1 to 47, with the exception of 13.
Social Life and Patterns
Sector 17 is the city's heart and retail centre. It is a favourite haunt for the city inhabitants for an evening out and has many restaurants and hotels. Sector 17 is also renowned for its many shops which carry a huge diversity of goods including most Indian and foreign brands.
Chandigarh is known for its high literacy rate (97%). Its popular schools and colleges include St. Anne's Convent School, St.John's High School, St.Xavier's, Sacred Heart Convent High School, Carmel Convent High School, St. Kabir High School, St. Stephens High School, DAV School, GCG (girls), GCM (Boys), Home Science College for Girls, Guru Gobind Singh College, Govt. Teacher Training College and DAV College.
Chandigarh also has outlets of worldwide chain restaurants like McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), Pizza Hut, Dominos and Ruby Tuesday. Chandigarh has one multiplex, Fun Republic, which is 10Km from sector 17. Chandigarh has a number of movie theatres, viz. Batra (Sector 37), Kiran (Sector 22), Piccadilly (Sector 34), Nirman (Sector 32), Neelam (Sector 17), Jagat (Sector 17) & KC (Sector 17).
Chandigarh also houses many institutes of higher learning, such as the Punjab Engineering College which has a 146 acre campus in Sector 12, and the Panjab University in sector 14.
Chandigarh started out with 2 major hospitals - the PGI in Sector 12, and the General Hospital in Sector 16. Recently, major health groups have built private hospitals in Chandigarh, such as Fortis in neighboring Mohali and Max Healthcare.
One of the unusual and popular features of Chandigarh is the Rock Garden of Chandigarh, built over 30 years by Nek Chand, a former road supervisor, from items discarded during the construction of Chandigarh. Other popular tourist places are 'The Rose Garden' in Sector 16, and 'Sukhana Lake' in Sector 6.
Sukhna Lake is an artificially created lake, extremely popular among the locals and tourists.
Chandigarh IT Park (also called Kishangarh IT Park) is the city's attempt to break into the IT world. Chandigarh's infrastructure, proximity to Delhi and Punjab, and the IT talent pool attracts IT businesses looking for office space in the area. Major Indian firms and multinational corporations including Dell, Infosys, Quark, Ranbaxy, Reliance and Satyam have offices in the park.
Chandigarh is 78.6% Hindu, 16.1% Sikh, and about 4% Muslim.
External links
- Official Chandigarh Administration Website
- Information on CTP
- Nek Chand Foundation
- Chandigarh4u
- Government Museum and Art Gallery
- Official Website of PEC - Deemed University
- PEC Students' Web Portal
- PEC Alumni Society
- Official website of Estate Office, Chandigarh
| Indian states and territories |
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| Andhra Pradesh | Arunachal Pradesh | Assam | Bihar | Chhattisgarh | Goa | Gujarat | Haryana | Himachal Pradesh | Jammu and Kashmir | Jharkhand | Karnataka | Kerala | Madhya Pradesh | Maharashtra | Manipur | Meghalaya | Mizoram | Nagaland | Orissa | Punjab | Rajasthan | Sikkim | Tamil Nadu | Tripura | Uttaranchal | Uttar Pradesh | West Bengal
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| Union territories: Andaman and Nicobar Islands | Chandigarh | Dadra and Nagar Haveli | Daman and Diu | Lakshadweep | Pondicherry
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| National Capital Territory: Delhi
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