The unlikely story of Le Corbusier and Chandigarh has proven itself to be one of modernism’s boldest experiments. Born of a vision of a modern India, Chandigarh—designed by Le Corbusier—was created as a statement for an emerging modern nation–state. Its Capitol Complex, considered by many as Le Corbusier’s masterpiece, was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016.

 

Like all visionaries, Le Corbusier was adept at taking the iconic and symbolic and using them to fashion his own unique vocabulary. This volume explores the way in which his ideas created fertile grounds for architecture and urban planning

in Chandigarh, and in India, that encapsulated the visions of the post-war and post-colonial era.

 

With insightful analyses of buildings across Chandigarh, the author illuminates the compositional poetry evident in Le Corbusier’s structures and the ways in which the patina of time has changed the city. A visceral journey through a remarkable modernist landscape using the photographic medium, Chandigarh Revealed pays homage to the works of a master with reflective observations of a living city.

 

UK–born Shaun Fynn is a designer and photographer who resides in New York and Chandigarh. A graduate of Central Saint Martins in London, he is the founder of StudioFYNN, a design and communication agency. Fynn's award-winning work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art and the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons School of Design in New York, the Chicago Athenaeum, and Weserburg in Bremen, Germany. It has also appeared in Fast Company, the Atlantic, the Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, Graphis, International Design Yearbook, and Repertorio del Design Italiano, 1950–2000. Fynn is a visiting lecturer at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai, ArtCenter College of Design in Los Angeles, and Parsons School of Design. He is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

 

Vikramāditya Prakāsh, an authority on modernism and Indian architecture, teaches at the University of Washington, Seattle, and is the Director of the Chandigarh Urban Lab.