Through its urban planning and civic buildings, Chandigarh represents an iconic fragment of Modernist architecture. This economic and administrative centre was meant to showcase the progressiveness of the 1950s' newly independent India.
To plan the city, the state commissioned architects Albert Mayer and Matthew Nowicki, followed by the team comprising of Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Maxwell Fry, and Jane Drew. They were joined by several Indian colleagues, as the project was also an opportunity for local architects to experiment with the ideas and concepts of modern architecture. The final masterplan reflects the values of the garden city movement. It is defined by a grid-like network of roads, traffic segregation, and the sector as the basic module -- a self-sufficient neighbourhood unit.
This photo essay by architecture photographer Roberto Conte captures the variety of modernist structures across Chandigarh, a city that continues to act as a visual and architectural inspiration. Conte is a Milan-based photographer whose work focuses on the architecture of the twentieth century, documenting rationalist, constructivist and avant-garde projects, Brutalism and Soviet modernism.
