In 1950, the State of Punjab sent M.M. Thapar, State Administrator, and Varma, Chief Engineer, to Europe in order to choose a team to build the new capital at Chandigarh. After numerous interviews with important architectural firms, they selected Le Corbusier together with Pierre Jeanneret his cousin and former associate, as well as the British architects Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry. Le Corbusier became the chief Architectural Adviser to the Government of Punjab in charge of the master plan of Chandigarh and Architect of the Capitol buildings. By selecting, for the construction of a State capital in their country, the personality who symbolised best the "New Spirit" (/'Esprit nouveau), the Punjabi and Indian Authorities showed to the world a high sense of' 'values''. Le Corbusier, who had been fighting for years against the blindness of the French authorities before receiving a rather modest commission in 1947 for a single "experimental Housing Unit" of 1500 inhabitants, with the difficulties and disapproval which followed, was given the task of designing the capital of a State, which today has well over 200 000 inhabitants, and its major government buildings. To the master plan of Chandigarh, he applied the results of thirty years of research, carried out alone or with the C.I. A.M., left and abandoned as writings or preliminary studies, the most recent of which constituted the first applications of the Athens Charter on specific sites: Marseilles-South in France, 1950, and Bogota, Colombia, 1951. Chandigarh is, together with Brasilia, one of the very rare examples of major town plans of the 20th century, entirely realised on a totally empty site. There Le Corbusier made his first application of:
— The 7V rule, from inter-urban highways (VI) to pedestrian paths (V7).
— The distribution of habitat into autonomous sectors.
— The climatic grid by sectors of operation, to respond to severe climatic conditions prevailing in the area.
— The phasing and programming of the tree and bush
planting for the entire town plan.
The Capitol is the most important element of Chandigarh.
A vast area of nearly eighty hectares, reserved for governmental and administrative buildings. There the genius of Le Corbusier expressed itself entirely : the harmony of the volumes, the sense of space, the control of sun and rain, the magnificent mastery of natural lighting, the unity of the overall site plan and the diversity of its elements, the adaptation to the site, the human scale and respect for the individual.
Thirty years after the creation of Chandigarh, twenty years after the death of Le Corbusier, the pride of the Indian authorities is such that they now undertake the completion of the Capitol project, by actually building other monuments planned by the Architect along the vast space between the Parliament and the High Court buildings: the "Tower of Shadows", the "Depth of Consideration", the "Open Hand".
' 'Le Corbusier in India'' also means Ahmedabad : the Museum (1955), the Millowners'Association building (1954), the Shodhan (1954) and Sarabhai (1955) villas. Those realisations, even if they cannot be compared to those of Chandigarh, as they are of a much smaller scale, illustrate magnificently the search of Le Corbusier for an "exact"' architecture, as he used to say. He provides comfort despite severe climatic conditions, is respectful of Indian traditions and does so without complex technologies, by using proper orientation, openings, sun-breakers, sun-shades and parasol roofs sometimes turned into a planted pool — a true suspended garden "swept by an orchestration of appropriate drafts of cool air'' !
The Year of India opens on the eve of the twentieth anniversary of the death of Le Corbusier. It precedes the manifestations which will be organised in 1987 the world over for the centenary of his birth. It gives us the opportunity to be twice grateful: to Le Corbusier for his genius, to India for having given him the exceptional chance to carry it out**.