7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
1/26
High CourtChandigarh-sector 1
Completion 1955
.
Architect-Le Corbusier
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
2/26
Capitolcomplex
The Capitol Complex is the focal point if the city, both visually and symbolically .
The three major components of the Capitol are the Assembly (Legislation), theSecretariat (Administration) and the High Court (Judiciary).
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
3/26
Location
While the linear faade of the
Secretariat marks the edges of
the Complex on the left side,
the Assembly and the HighCourt are placed on the
opposite ends of the Cross
axis, facing each other across a
450 mtrs.
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
4/26
Project Brief
The program of the high court building specified provision for eight law courts and a high
court, together with necessary office space of many Administrative Branches such as
Registrar's Office, Establishment Branch, Gazette Branch and Copying Branch etc. TheOffices of Advocate-Generals of Punjab and Haryana
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
5/26
Project
In plan the building took the form of an
abbreviated L-shape with the long
facade facing the capitol plaza to contain
the courtrooms and the small rear
extension to accommodate offices.
The building has a rectilinear frame with
eight nos. courtrooms located on the
main faade, separated from the larger
Chief Justice Court by a monumental,
pillared entrance, extending to the full
height of the entrance.
The small Courts are 8x8x12 meters. The
dimensions of the over all design were
governed by the Modular combined
with triangular regulating lines.
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
6/26
ProjectPARASOL ROOF
FORMING ARCHES
DOUBLE ROOF
GAP LEFT BETWEEN
TWO ROOFS
FULL HT ENTRANCE
REAR VIEW
DOUBLE ROOF
[APPROACHED THROUGH ROADS]
ENTRANCE THROUGH THE PIAZZA
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
7/26
Project
. The three vertical piers,rising 60 feet from the floor and
painted in bright colours form the grand entrance to the
building
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
8/26
Project
ROUGH CONCRETE
FINISHED RAMP
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
9/26
Project
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
10/26
Project
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
11/26
Project
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
12/26
Concept
Early sketches for the building show a multiplicity of arch forms on the
facades, with the main courtroom floor raised above ground level on pilots
and approached by a ramp.
In the final version, however, the building rises directly from the earth, the
main facade defined by a fullheight concrete brise-soleil and the arch forms
restricted to the underside of the arasol roof.
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
13/26
Concepts
In the general plane of the building, which includes the development has the
shade from the sun of the bureaus and of course, the modular has made the unit in
all places textured.-Translated from French.
As Le Corbusier developed the design for the high court, it evolved toward an expression
increasingly massive, plastic, and abstract. The perhaps excessive horizontality of earlierschemes was countered by an increase in vertical dimension, while what were originally
narrow columns in the main entrance hall became three massive flattened piers leading
inward.
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
14/26
It is the visual drama of these piers rising sixty feet from the ground to meet the
heavy outward thrust of the roof which creates the focal emphasis of the present
plan. What in early drawings was expressed as a lightly framed pavilion,
horizontal in dimension, has become a vertically expanding space in which the
void is defined and dramatized by strongly assertive sculptural elements. Within
the simple and rather static outer frame, the building embodies a constantlyactive balance of tensions
Concepts
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
15/26
Concepts
An effort to shade the entire structure has
resulted in the use of a double roof, the
upper roof cantilevered out over the office
block in the manner of a parasol shading the
lower roof and also providing a trough from
which monsoon rain water spills through
heavy spouts at either end, falling sixty feet
to channels connected with the reflecting
pools.
The space between the two roofs is leftopen to enable currents of air to move
between the flat roof of the office block and
the underside of the parasol roof which
slopes toward the center in the form of a
row of arches.
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
16/26
Plans
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
17/26
Sections
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
18/26
Claustraus
On the main facade the deep (4 ft. 7 in.), fixed concrete brise-soleil
gives a strong and scale less pattern to the building, and only human
beings and the unobtrusive courtroom doors can be used as visual keys
for reading the dimensions of the surface.
Commented the architect, "here the brise-soleils take the place of the
weather-drips on a classical facade, but they cover not only the
windows but the entire facade, and influence the whole structure.
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
19/26
It is the concrete screen which gives the main facade its overall unity, so that it is perceived notas an assemblage of floor levels and courtroom chambers, but as a single entity of plastically
interwoven elements, in which the horizontal ground line, repeated in the two roof levels, is
countered buy the powerful upward thrust of the entrance piers and the pillars between the
courtrooms, whose vertical line is echoed in the roof supports.
Claustraus
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
20/26
Finish
Within sheet metal formwork one can
insert swan planks, cut more or less
according to ones wish.
When the pouring of concrete is
completed recessed moulding appear
in the face of the concrete.
This situation is similar to the
sculptured frescos in Egyptian temples
built some 5000 years ago. It is done so as to bring forth the
surface and volume, the materials,
their place of work, the meaning of
times and also the rigorous schedule of
the job site are also recognized.
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
21/26
Main Facade
Le Corbusier once described the complex of which the high courtformed a part as "a great architectural venture using very poor
materials and a labor force quite unused to modern building
techniques, with the tremendous obstacle of the sun and the
necessity of satisfying Indian ideas and needs, rather than to impose
Western ethics and aesthetics.
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
22/26
Main Facade
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
23/26
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
24/26
TapestriesThe counterbalance of complexities
and the tree as a symbol of
perfection. Air-conditioning ducts
puncture the tapestry
indiscriminately, mutilating motifs.
In the middle, top part, the sky with a starlit night
and a sun. The clouds around open on a blue sky. On
the left, the meander of the rivers that signifies that
its run may sometimes be very long, very agitated,
very unreasonable. It is the meander of complicationsand of complexities.
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
25/26
7/31/2019 High Court Chandigarh2
26/26