1. From Partition to Utopia: The Birth of Chandigarh

In our first episode, join us as we explore the origins of the modernist city of Chandigarh, with Dr. Vikramāditya Prakāsh. How did the partition of India and Pakistan lead to its creation? Who were the idealized inhabitants of this utopian city? How was the site selected? What was the Garden City movement, how does it relate to Nehruvian modernism?

TIMESTAMPS:

• 1:07 - Why Chandigarh? The need for a new capital city of Punjab in post partition India.
• 5:24 - Nehru, modernist and industrialisation;  modernism architecture as a global movement   
• 9:42 - British Colonialism and western industrialisation; transfer of wealth.
• 12:07 - Albert Mayer and Gandhi, Lewis Mumford and Mathew Nowicki.
• 15:12 - Partition and migration; utopian aspirations of the newly independent India; Chandigarh - imagined capital of Nehruvian India.
• 19:25 - Inventing a new, ideal citizen of the nation state; the imagined inhabitants of Chandigarh.
• 22:38 - AL Fletcher, the brief for Chandigarh. Ebenezer Howard and the new town movement; the “Garden City” movement
• 26:00 - The Mayer plan; site selection by PL Varma and PN Thapar by helicopter“
• 28:26 -  Land acquisition by “eminent domain”; displacement and relocation; the first buildings; architect’s office
• 32:32 - The search for Nowicki’s replacement; hiring Le Corbusier.

Hosted & Produced by Eashan Chaufla

storyofchandigarh@gmail.com