Chandigarh, the Silver City

Chandigarh
The silver city

Chandigarh, the "Silver City" is a settlement built in the Indian state of Punjab, at the foot of the Himalayas, in a vast desert plateau. In Chandigarh the Indian crowds, traffic jams of cars, bikes, wagons and sacred cows are absent or barely perceptible. The city, built between 1950 and 1965, was commissioned by Nehru after the split between India and Pakistan as the capital of that part of the state of Punjab does not have an administrative center (Lahore over beyond the border had become the capital Pakistani Punjab). The project was entrusted modernist architect Le Corbusier was asking for "a new city, a symbol of India's freedom, freed from the tradition of the past, the nation's affirmation of faith in the future."
The city was designed by the design of a giant human body, Modulor that represents the proportions of the various living spaces to divide and urban and came straight away with claiming to be functional to the different needs of its inhabitants. Chandigarh is divided into 45 sectors, each intended to accommodate different cultural and productive activities. The Capitol Complex, all the administrative buildings located in a green area but isolated from the rest of the city. This area, which looks more like a military base with enclosed buildings and austere form, dominates the Open Hand, a giant hand in the shape of a dove. The monument, a symbol of peace and friendship was designed as the architect said, "to give and receive."
Developed according to the design of Le Corbusier, Chandigarh is a city landscape. Within the areas of the buildings are all "democratically" and claustrophobic equal. The apartments of different cutting according to the family, are designed to ensure the minimum amount of space for private activities while outside the spaces are organized by common tasks.
The three projects in the world of "perfect city", Brasilia, Chandigarh and Dhaka, because of their realization among architects enliven the debate on the optimal composition of the city.
The conclusion is the acknowledgment of failure. No city can be the result of a project of a single architect unless one accepts the lack of historical layering and complexity dictated by the urban collective needs.