Architect BV Doshi first came to Chandigarh in 1955. It was early morning, around 4 o’ clock. He asked a rickshaw-puller about his views for the place. The light — coming from a dhaba nearby — was dim. The man told him this was going to be the world’s newest place. Sixty years later, as he comes here to talk about his guru Le Corbusier, he says it feels like a pilgrimage.

Doshi, a celebrated urban planner, is in the city for a series of talks on architecture and Le Corbusier, organised by the Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi. As he stood beneath the Open Hand on Wednesday evening, discussing Le Corbusier’s vision of the Capitol Complex, Doshi said he was thrilled that the Capitol Complex had been recognised by UNESCO.

He asks his audience, which mostly comprises architects, students and teachers, what does heritage mean? “Does it mean they are ruins or do they have a message in their art, culture, literature?” He says the latter makes history, which makes heritage. ... Doshi met Corbusier in 1951 in France. “From him I learned about breaking rules – traditional and new ones. Break a wall and make an opening. It is only then you see something new. Inner awareness begins to take place in architecture,” Doshi said.

He says it is only then that sketches manifest as buildings. “A constant dialogue goes on. Stories come about. Legends, mysteries and tales happen. That is how they become a heritage,” he signs off.