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Assembly, Chandigarh.

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Report From Chandigarh

'He flies through the air with the greatest of ease

That daring old man on the flying trapeze.

Ancient Occidental Folk-song

C. M. CORREA

One arrives at Chandigarh. One travels throughthe town, past the houses spread out in the dust likeendless rows of confidence-tricks; and down thesurrealistic roads--V 1s and V 2's--running betweenbrick walls to infinity. Chandigarh, brave new Chandi-garh, born in the harsh plains of the Punjab withoutumbilical cord.

Then in the distance, like an aircraft carrier float-ing above the flotsam and jetsam of some harbour

town, appears the Secretariat. From miles away onesees it, white in the sunlight, racing along with the car,riding high above the rows of gimcrack houses thatmake up the foreground. Gradually this prosceniumclears, and the other two elements of the Capitol ap-pear: the Assembly and the High Court: and the threebuildings ride together against the grey-blue foot-hillsof the Himalayas.

Ride together, swinging sometimes in front of eachother and sometimes behind enormous banks of earth.One approaches closer and closer to the complex, and

the bleached whiteness deepens slowly into the grey-green of concrete, the simple outlines of the massesdissolve into an astonishing, voluptuous complexity ofshadow and substance.

Incredible, evocative architecture! Stones are deadthings sleeping in the quarry, but the apses of St. Peterare a passion!' Throughout his life, Corb has sought tocreate an architecture of passion. His buildings both

in concept and visual languagehave always been presented at a certain decibel level. No soffo voce, npoliteness, butlike Wagnerthunder in the concerhall. This is probably the single most important facabout Corb because it necessitates his discarding anysolutions which cannot be projected at the decibel levehe favours. (It is interesting to note that when Corsometimes intentionally lowers the volume, as foinstance in the new extensions to the High Court, hachieves an architecture not unlike that of Louis Kahn.

How does one project architecture at this decibelevel? As an intelligent architect, Corb immediatelyperceived the necessity for a strong concept ('the plais the generator'); but concept alone is not enough, anas an artist he has become more and more aware othe importance of developing an impassioned visualanguage that would project these concepts. Thus eacof Corb's buildings has been a consecutive step in hisearch to develop the power and further thboundaries--of his vocabulary and syntax. Othearchitects from Brazil to Tokyo have created buildingwhich can be termed 'applied Corb'; Corb himself hanever applied what is safe and proven. He has alwaysought to demonstrate something we did not know.

In 1922, Cocteau wrote in Vanity Fair:---Geniuin art, consists in knowing how far we may go too far"Don't touch it any more" cries the amateur. It is thenthat the true artist takes his chance.

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Concept and language; in his work up to the United'Habitation at Marseilles Corb gave weight to boththese aspects of architecture. (In fact, the Unite is an

astonishing complex of spatial, structural, economic.and perhaps sociological, relevance.) Since then--andespecially in his buildings in India---Corb has becomemore and more absorbed in his visual language; andhowever masterful this language may have become, itis still only one aspect of any great architecture. So wehave the High Court: a building where large areas wereill-planned and badly lit, but with a spell-bindingentrance where a whole new aesthetic world came intobeing; and the Secretariat: a structure with a magnifi-cent facade, almost like a stage-set. Did not the earlierCorb promise something less skin-deep, something

more conceptual?The third building in the complex, the new Assem-

bly, is--in this sense--a return to the earlier Corb, forin this Assembly he has produced an architecture thatis not restricted to an entrance, nor to a facade, but tothe functions of the programme and to the very spaceswithin the building itself.

The idea behind the Assembly is extremely simplealong three sides of the building, 300 ft. square, arelocated offices and conference rooms; the fourth sideis an enormous portico which 'orients' the building

towards the High Court. In the centre is an interiorcourt, 200 ft. across, ranging from 35 ft. to 45 ft. inheight, where are located the hyperbolic form of theassembly chamber, the rectangle (surmounted by askew pyramidal roof) of the council chamber and theextraordinary collection of spaces, ramps and platformlevels that make up the forum. (Corb has providedthe principal users of the building--the legislators, theoffice workers, the press and the visiting public--eachwith their own system of entrances, lobbies, stairs, etc.,thus ensuring their separation.)

The drama of the building starts with its skylineCorb has always placed the greatest emphasis on thtotal volume of a building and its silhouette against thsky; as, for instance, the ramp on the roof of the Secretariat which acts like an immense spine holding thmarvellously long, fractured, ungainly facade together(Eliminate the ramp and the facade disintegrates intseveral different buildings.) So also the Assemblythe three elements on the roof: the hyperboloid, thpyramid and the life-tower play out a dance-dramagainst the sky. The hyperboloid is inexpressiblbeautiful from a distance--white in the sunlight, yesoft as snow. The three elements pirouette arouneach other as we approach the building, exchangingpositions and crossing back and forth. Finally therecede behind the enormous sweep of the portico.

The other three facades (which form the base othis 'stage') are simple; necessarily so, for they musalso provide counterpoint to the facade of the Secre

tariat next door. And so it is the gargantuan porticwhich gives the building direction, turning it to facthe High Court. One enters under the 50 ft. higcanopy and through the pivoting door (25 ft. square!and the drama of the interior spaces commences. (Corbcertainly knows how to provide an entrance; one thinkof the mill-owner's building in Ahmedabad with itramp reaching out like a long hand to pick passers-boff the road.)

How can one begin to convey a sense of so complex an interior? Study the sections and plans. Eve

a cursory glance will illustrate how very cunning ansensitive is Corb's handling of spaces; e.g. his continuous use of the L-shape (the leg of which forms anescape-valve to what would otherwise be a statisquare). In other words, Corb, like Frank LloyWright, is keenly aware of the distances that can bseen from any given point. By never defining the limitof this vision (the sections and plans are co-ordinatedso that the eye can always see beyond and around thcorner), the spaces remain dynamic and uncontainedAs one traverses the ramps and platform levels of thforum one builds up a series of images which ar

superimposed on the brain, creating an overall patterof incredible richness.

This is a fundamental technique of Corb's. Thcomplexity of his architecture is not due to the creatioof one single intricate pattern but is rather due to thcreation of several different patterns which, throughsuperimposition, generate an indescribable complexityThis can be illustrated by the river facade of the millowners' building in Ahmedabad (four separate patternplaying together like instruments in a band), and by thfacade of the Secretariat, where, a complete landscap

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And Corb himself has written in Acrobat:

An acrobat is no puppet.

He devotes his life to activities

in which, in perpetual danger of death,

he performs extraordinary movements

of infinite difficulty, with disciplined

exactitude and precision . . .. free

to break his neck and his bones and

be crushed.

Nobody asked him to do this.

Nobody owes him any thanks.

He lives in an extraordinary world, of the acrobat

Results: most certainly ! He does things

which others cannot.

Results: why does he do them?

others ask. He is showing off;

he's a freak; he scares us, we pity him;

he's a bore.

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is created by juxtaposing brisesoleil grilles of variouspatterns and scales. (This technique is often used inthe marble grilles of Fatehpur Sikri and the shojiscreens of Japan.) This is not to say that Corb couldreally have calculated all these effects. What he hasdone is this: he has been shrewd enough to establish asituation where different patterns can interact. Themiracles follow of their own accord, and a complete

landscape is generated.

And the finest landscape of all lies within theforum. Here all the major elements are self-support-ing. thus necessitating a great many columns rising to agreat many different heights. Yet this articulation ofthe structural system never borders on mannerism, forCorb is working at a vast scale, and he knows just whathe can and cannot do. The columns give rhythm andscale, rising like a great forest in the dulcet light. Andit is this light, filtering from above, washing the con-crete surfaces, that draws us upward into the higher

reaches of the building.

Here the light gets dimmer, the spaces morediffuse. One is walking across large desolate areas, anddown strange alleyways, between giant concrete forms.Where are we? At the top of the Duormo? It is astrange moment, an eclectic moment, deeply evocativeof an architecture past. Then we emerge on to theroof level and into the dazzling sunlight. Here we areon an immense cobbled piazza, the landscape ofChandigarh lying all around; and like monsters risingabove the surface of the sea, emerge the hyperboloid,

the pyramid and the lift-tower. The last act of thedrama--like the opening of the dramais played outhere against the sky.

How does so complex a building hold visuallytogether? Primarily through the near-exclusive use ofa single material: concrete. Much has been writtenabout the brutality of Corb's architecture and, as evi-dence, is usually cited his handling of concrete. ButCorb's brutality is, in fact, only one side of the coin;lie is much more than that. Any ape can be brutal,and Corb could never be exclusively brutal any more

than he could be exclusively elegant. It is essential tohis temperament that he expresses both qualities atthe same time. (A glance at: the Jaoul houses in Pariswill illustrate this.) It has been said that one under-stands the hardness of rock only if one knows the soft-ness of silk, and Corb himself reputedly sprinkles hisbiftekwith large granules of kitchen salt. ('This wayI know what salt is and I know what meat is.') Thuswe find that at certain levels of the Assemblyas forinstance in the bridge connecting the lift-tower to thetop of the hyperboloid--the physical protection provid-

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ed is completely inadequate. A sense of danger alsoexists in some portions of Shodan's house in Ahmedabad, and the question is asked: Why has Corb donethis? Yet try to imagine the same architecture with asafe three-foot-high parapet providing uniform protection all around! Danger, perhaps is the necessaryconcomitant of safety. (And danger has its own rewards: crossing the jungle at night may be a fearsome

experience, but it gets you to keep your eyes openyour ears flapping, your senses alert. Corb, cunning ahe is, has probably observed this.)

The use of contrast, then, to heighten meaning, ian essential technique of Corb's, and it results in anarchitecture of great flexibility, making many simultaneous statements, thus covering a wide spectrum ohuman emotions. Mies--who may himself be broughin at this point to provide contrastis an architect whoplays a very limited range of the spectrum: and if hemay, for the purpose of analogy, be described as anartist who can take a potato and boil it perfectly, then

Corb is certainly the man for a really first-class curryA Miesian plan brines the simplest elements togethein an atmosphere of Olympian calm; it is a space arest, devoid of any too particular orientation (unfortunately, through vulgarization, this has popularized aneffete symmetry that has swept America like diarrhoea)But Corb's elements are seldom simple and crystalclear; they are usually ambiguous with a myriad overtones; and his buildings, like those of Wright, arenever non-directional; they always emphasize theisense of orientation and therefore their sense of life(The exception perhaps is the museum at Ahmedabad

which is his blandest, and weakest, building.)

The Chandigarh Assembly has, in a very largemeasure, this sense of life. It is an exuberant buildingand its impact--its decibel level--is perfectly gaugedin scale to its size. In fact, throughout the buildingthe sense of spatial control is so masterful that it isperplexing that at the climax of the composition, theAssembly chamber itself, Corb falters.

One enters this chamber and one is at the bottomof a gigantic well. The walls swerve upward to aheight of over 100 ft. In an attempt to kill this heigh

Corb has painted the walls in three horizontal bands -red, yellow and white. In an attempt to increase theamount of light reaching the floor (the natural light inthe chamber is painfully inadequate), he has usedyellow wool carpets, and further, to break up the monumental space, he has installed green and brown seatalternately in a sort of checker-board pattern. But towhat avail? Even what Mumford has called the 'oveingenious' mind of Corb cannot gainsay these facts: theAssembly chamber is an unhappy place to step intoand it is a near impossible Parliament to deliberate in.

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What is the reason for this seeming failure? Thefluid shape of the hyperboloid is hardly to blame. Onthe contrary it is a surprisingly sensible choice andperhaps the only static space which could climax thedynamic images of the forum areas. Instead, a likelyreason for the unhappy state of affairs is the light;Corb has inserted only three openings in the circularroof, and they are supposed to let in direct sunlight only

on particular daysi.e. the equinox, the solstice,etc. While this surely will make a charming story fora guidebook a hundred years hence, it makes impossibleconditions for those using the chamber right here andnow. One thinks of Steen Eiler Rasmussen saying thatCorb's buildings are sometimes like games childrenplay with chairs and boxes. The children set these upin a certain way, and then they cry: Look at the motorcar? If you say: How can it be a motor car? Doesit move? They do not understand. To them it is amotor car.

This analogy becomes even more pertinent if weconsider Corb's buildings and their relevance to theIndian climate. In spite of the double roofs and brise-soleil and umbrellas, Corb's buildings in India areparticularly ill-ventilated (the exception is the Sarabhaihouse in Ahmedabad). Yet an architect of Corb'sinventiveness could have made considerable progress indeveloping a modern vocabulary that could deal withIndia's climate (as was done by the great architects ofthe past), if only he had wanted to actually solve theproblem of climate rather than play at solving it.

So Corb has his failures; yet somehow, in soglorious an architecture, they do not seem to matter.Like any major artist, his idiosyncrasies and his mis-takes are part of his character. Thus one derives asmuch pleasure from the minor houses of Wright, thelesser plays of Shakespeare and the earlier quartetsof Beethoven as one does from any of their master-works. It is a curious point, worth a text of its own,that in art at this level a certain amount of ambiguityand error makes for realityreality being the antithesisof slickness. The great buildings (and cities) of thepast were a collection of a good many decisions--some

right and some wrong; this is what makes them sohuman. And in India there is a saying: 'An architectshould complete only 60 per cent of his building andleave 40 per cent to God.'

The muses of architecture ride the centuries on apendulum. In the West the pendulum swung all theway to functionalism and now it is swinging back. Thisputs it exactly 100 per cent out of phase with the stateof events in India. Here the majority of older archi-tects practise an architecture that seems a cross bet-

ween the Beaux-Arts and Ajanta. Yet Corb, whoshould have come along loaded with twentieth-centurytype logic (like the domes of Buckminster Fuller), canactually be used to vindicate them all the way downthe line. The younger architects are not much betterMany of them imitate Corb as though his visual language was an entity in itself, like General Motor styling. These architects are perhaps more dangerous, fo

they exploit Corb's photogenic mannerisms withoueven beginning to understand either his sense of spaceor his control of light.

The result of all this is that the public is antagonistic to Corb. They dislike his lack of climate control. They dislike his concrete. But more than anything else, they dislike his aesthetics. Recently a NewDelhi housewife said to me: 'Those buildings inChandigarh! They are huge, clumsy, awful athletes.And an American photographer cried angrily of theAssembly: 'It's just a very fancy jungle gym.' (Ocourse these are both, unwrittingly, compliments.) Moreimportant, perhaps, is the fact that the Governor'Palace will never be built--the Governor having rejected the design. He says he would rather stay on in hiJeanneret-designed bungalow.

Yet, in spite of these antagonisms and misunderstandings, there is no doubt that Corb's work has beenof considerable benefit to India. It has stimulated whole generation of architects. And it has given thema sense of their past, because in some inexplicable wayCorb is tuned to this country. It is alleged that EdwardStone's embassy in Delhi is 'Indian'if it is, then it is

the fake India of the Taj Mahal and Hollywood. Corbhas evoked a much deeper image. His is a more reaIndia, and India of the bazaars, sprawling, cruelraucous in colour, with a grandeur all its own. Hiaesthetic evokes our history, and Chandigarh findechoes in Fatehpur Sikri, in Jaiselmer, in Mandu. Surely this is why a building of Corb's sits so well in Indiansoil, whereas at Harvard it seems an affection.

Perhaps Chandigarh is the last great work of CorbIn some of his other projects since, as for instance thaat Harvard, one cannot avoid feeling that he is strain-

ing his visual language without extending it. Yet againat other times, as in the Unite at Berlin, he seems merely to have produced a work of 'applied Corb.' Is thegreat period, the golden age, over? There will, fosure, be those who do not agree, those eyes that wilnot see. In Boston, in Berlin, in Tokyo, they wilcontinue to search the sky, stubbornly seeking the tension-wire and the lonely figure of the balancing acrobatWhere has he gone? Perhaps he is old; perhaps his acis over, perhaps he is on earth again, among us.

(Reprinted from " The Architectural Review" London, june 1964.)