Tuesday 18th August 2015

The second day opened with two papers addressing the architectural development and planning of Chandigarh. Iain Jackson (Senior Lecturer, School of Architecture, University of Liverpool) explored the overlooked and quotidian portions of the city in his paper, ‘Chandigarh Dwellings: Ghastly Good Taste or Flamboyant Modernism’. Departing from the over-cited work on the city by Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew, he detailed his early research into private developments which have avoided similar ossification. 

His documentation of these private dwellings showed idiosyncratic modification contra to the city’s founding vision. Discussing this independence from the Government’s arbitration of taste and aesthetic agenda, Jackson proposed a series of classifications including Punjabi Baroque. He stated that this peacock flamboyancy and non-utilitarian adaptation showed Chandigarh remained open, unresolved and signalled the failure of modernist notions of ‘home’. 

New Chandigarh villa

Melissa Smith (Banduksmith Studio/Visiting Faculty, CEPT…