The city’s creators designed several pieces of furniture that found its way out of Chandigarh and fetched high prices at auction houses abroad.

Sample this— A library table made of teak, designed by Jeanneret, sold for $144,000— the estimated price of this table was between $60,000 and $80,000.

A manhole cover was sold for $21,600. A painted cedar and teak drawing table was auctioned for $156,000. Even articles from Jeanneret’s house made its way to auction houses.

In his book, ‘Le Corbusier-Pierre Jeanneret – The Indian Adventure – Design – Art – Architecture’, co-authored with Gerald Moreau, Eric writes, “During our first visit to Chandigarh, the municipal warehouses and those of Panjab University were piled high with furniture reformed by the Administration to the extent that due to lack of space, enormous piles of scrapped furniture had been piled outside in different places of the city, university campus, terrace roofs of the High Court, balconies of Administrative buildings in the city centre”.

The book further mentions that the largest auction took place in 1999 at Panjab University and in 2001 at the High Court. In addition, a large number of auctions were organised at other places.

The UT Administration, over the years, has made several futile attempts to stall the auctions. However, with most of the material sold off by different departments of the administration and the receipts of the same being available, there was little that could be done.

In fact, it was only after a lot of hue and cry over the auctions that the administration wrote letters to the auction houses before the auctions were to take place. In one instance, when the administration wrote to Artcurial to stall an auction, the auction house sent records that highlighted that the items were bought from the city.

The administration had made another attempt at stalling an auction held at Bonhams in London. A letter was sent asking for details of where the items had been procured from. A similar exercise was repeated when the auction was held at Wright auction house in Chicago.

Several proposals have been mooted over the years about what can be done about the furniture that is lying in neglect at various locations, with not many government departments willing to use it.

Among the proposals was that the administration could collect all the pieces of furniture and keep them in a museum. Others opined that the furniture could be repaired and then auctioned.