CHANDIGARH: Do you think Chandigarh is changing? Anil Singh Thakur, an architect and city planner who is now settled in Australia, says it has transformed and that too beyond the Le Corbusier model. Thakur was in the city to share the details of the research work done by him over seven years at The University of Melbourne, Australia. During the time of his research, he made 14 trips to Chandigarh.
In a pivotal finding, the incontestable centrality of the city as perceived by Le Corbusier has been either capitalized on or diffused and interfered with by the unsynchronized and in a way opportune townships. Thakur said, "On the surface, Chandigarh may look stoic and a pretty stable city due to its well-defined sector geometric configuration. However, in reality it is now a multi-layered city comprising many worlds, such as of the affluent and poor, and metamorphosing cultures." The report says that evidently Le Corbusier's grand designs and ideas were thwarted by the realities of place and times.
"The studied villages turned out to be quite self organized without or with little help from the corporation or administration. Land was sold here by original owners and gradually hundreds of rooms were created for migrants under different regional and caste groups. All these were not planned," he said.
"The studied villages turned out to be quite self organized without or with little help from the corporation or administration. Land was sold here by original owners and gradually hundreds of rooms were created for migrants under different regional and caste groups. All these were not planned," he said.