Chandigarh, located in India’s far north, near the foothills of the mighty Himalaya, is a city that has the pleasing habit of upending all expectations. Thanks to a quirk of history, it was created as a kind of Modernist calling card, consisting of a grid of civic precincts, large parks and long roads. How this marvel of urban development became the showpiece city of post-partition India is a tale worth telling.
The origins of Chandigarh can be traced back to 1947, when the partition of British India divided Punjab between India and Pakistan. With Lahore, the existing state capital, ceded to Pakistan, the Indian half required a replacement. To that end, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of Independent India, commissioned the creation of a brand-new ‘planned city’, one that would leave behind all colonial baggage and become a symbol of India’s emergence as a modern, democratic, progressive nation.
To build his bold metropolis, Nehru tapped up American architect-planner Albert Mayer and Polish architect Matthew Nowicki in 1949. The duo’s plan involved designing superblocks
