Chandigarh is a union territory of India, that serves as the capital of two states, Haryana and Punjab. The name translates to English as “The Fort of Chandi”. The name was coined from an ancient temple called ChandiMandir, devoted to the Hindu Goddess Chandi, present in the city’s vicinity. It is occasionally referred to as The City Beautiful. Chandigarh is located near the foothills of the Shivalik range of theHimalayas in Northwest India. Known internationally for its architecture and urban planning, It is the first planned city of India.Chandigarh is home to numerous architectural projects of Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Matthew Nowicki, and Albert Mayer. Chandigarh is home to numerous intra country sporting teams in tournaments like PHL and IPL. The city has built upon this achievements a network of sound infrastructure ranging from stadium to training camps. This include the entire gamut from cricket stadiums, swimming pools, shooting ranges to skating rinks and hockey stadiums. Chandigarh also has gardens across the entire city. The most famous being the Rose Garden.
Taking over from Albert Mayer, Le Corbusier produced a plan for Chandigarh that conformed to the modern city planning principles of Congrès International d’ArchitectureModerne CIAM, in terms of division of urban functions, an anthropomorphic plan form, and a hierarchy of road and pedestrian networks. This vision of Chandigarh, contained in the innumerable conceptual maps on the drawing board together with notes and sketches had to be translated into brick and mortar. Le Corbusier retained many of the seminal ideas of Mayer and Nowicki, like the basic framework of the master plan and its components: The Capitol, City Center, besides the University, Industrial area, and linear parkland. Even the neighborhood unit was retained as the basic module of planning. However, the curving outline of Mayer and Nowicki was reorganized into a mesh of rectangles, and the buildings were characterized by an “honesty of materials”. Exposed brick and boulder stone masonry in its rough form produced unfinished concrete surfaces, in geometrical structures. This became the architectural form characteristic of Chandigarh, set amidst landscaped gardens and parks.
