Highlight the contribution of the following foreign architects to the development of architecture in the

Indian post-independence era:

Le Corbusier
Louis Kahn
Otto Koenigsberger

VIDHISHA BHARGAVA
16001006069
POST INDEPENDENCE ARCHITECTURE IN INDIA
Post-independence architecture in India was basically a search of identity in modernism. There was a
tremendous sense of urgency to build. As India was a new independent country therefore new
infrastructure was needed to build. The partitions after the independence leads to faster and greater
infrastructure.
The post-independence period saw the emergence of three schools of thought in architecture-
1. The Revivalist on a smaller scale
2. The Constructivist Russia
3. The Modernist on a larger scale.
The Revivalists, who advocated “continuity with the past”, could not break the shackles of the
colonial legacy and left no significant impact on the neo-Indian architecture. The Modernists too
depended heavily on the European and American models and tried to adopt them in India without
taking into consideration the regional aspirations, diversities and requirements. The contemporary
Indian architecture was also beset with problems like population explosion, lack of vision among the
planners, lack of support from the government and a less than satisfactory standard of architecture
education. The result was that during the initial years after the Independence, foreign architects
continued to play a leading role in Indian architecture.
Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of the independent India is widely known for his far vision,
he was a modernist who favoured state intervention. Nehru was the one to take the initiative of
betterment and development of art and architecture in India. He was the one behind the brilliant idea
of suggesting that one percent of cost of a public building should go towards its decoration with
painting, murals and sculptures.
A number of foreign architects like Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn and Otto Koenigsberger were invited
for the development of architecture in the Indian post-independence era. They contributed a lot in the
newly build India. Some of their works are illustrated in the coming eassy.

LE CORBUSIER
Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (6 October 1887 – 27 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier was a Swiss-
French architect, designer, painter, urban planner writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now
called modern architecture. He was born in 1930. His career spanned five decades, and he designed
buildings in Europe, Japan, India, and North and South America.
A new era of architecture began when the very famous architect Le Corbusier was invited to design
the capital of the Punjab state, Chandigarh. Le Corbusier’s uncompromising functionalism
consciously broke with the past ‘historicism’ of imperial architecture.

CHANDIGARH
Built in three stages, Corbusier divided the city into three sections. The 'head' consisted of political,
bureaucratic and judicial buildings, the administrative parts of the city. The 'body' housed the
university and residential complexes in the heart of the city. The 'feet' consisted of industrial sectors
and the railway station.
Apart from the initial layout of the city, Corbusier also designed several buildings in Chandigarh.

ASSEMBLY BUILDING
Palace of Assembly is a legislative assembly designed by noted architect Le Corbusier and located in
Chandigarh, built around the 1950s in India. The assembly is a squarish structure topped with a huge I
industrial chimney.
 Figure 1 Palace of Assembly, Chandigarh

HIGH COURT
High Court of Punjab and Haryana is the common High court for Indian states of Haryana and Punjab.
The court building is known as the Palace of Justice. The High Court building has a sloping roof,
supported by concrete walls which allow air to pass through them.

Figure 2 High Court, Chandigarh

SECRETARIAT BUILDING
Secretariat Building is a Le Corbusier designed government building built in 1953, located inside
the Chandigarh Capitol Complex. It is made up of hundreds of rooms with an airy exterior.

Figure 3 Secretariat Building, Chandigarh

LOUIS KAHN
Louis Isadore Kahn was an American architect based in Philadelphia. The very notable Louis Kahn
created the avant-garde architecture with the little spice of the ‘Mughal’, in Ahmedabad.
Through the use of brick and poured-in place concrete masonry, he developed a contemporary and
monumental architecture that maintained a sympathy for the site. Some of the notable works of Kahn
are as under:
INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT, AHEMDABAD
It is an exponent of exposed-brick architecture. The most distinctive feature of the plan was the
numerous arches and square brick structures with. The huge open spaces in the building depicts the
freedom thought, the principle that this institute stands for. The dorms are connected to the main
complex by a series of arched corridors and landscaped courts. The 132 feet long underpass connects
the old campus to the new.

Figure 4 Indian Institute of Management, Ahemdabad

OTTO KOENIGSBERGER
Otto H. Konigsberger (13 October 1908 – 3 January 1999) was a German architect, who worked
mainly in urban development planning in Africa, Asia and Latin America, with the United Nations.
He had done a lot of work after the post-independence period. His buildings during this period
include some buildings in the Indian Institute of Science (1943–44), the Tata Institute of Fundamental
Research (TIFR) in Bombay (Mumbai), the bus station, Serum Institute and Victory Hall (1946,
renamed as Town Hall) in Bangalore, the town plan for Bhubaneswar, and some town planning
for Jamshedpur with the vision of J.R.D.
TOWN PLAN FOR NEW BHUBANESWAR
The master plan for the new township was prepared by the famous architect Otto Koenigsberger in
1948 to shape the city in serving as an administrative centre for the state, on the basis of the concept
of NEIGHBOURHOOD UNIT PLANNING.
Koenigsberger’s design laid the city out in a linear pattern with a central artery forming a main spine
to which neighbourhood units were attached. It was designed for the population of 40,000. It had a
clear social agenda in accordance to Nehru’s Policies: neither cast nor socio-economic were to exist
and gender equality and education were to be stressed.

Figure 5 Plan for new Bhubaneswar

TOWN PLANNING FOR JAMSHEDPUR
The primary motive of Koenigsberger was to implement GARDEN CITY concepts in his master plan
for Jamshedpur, but his motive was partially satisfied. His contention was that linear growth along
transportation arteries was the best solution to the problems posed by the concentric growth around
the place of employment.
Massive urban surgery was untenable, so Keonigsberger proposed for a garden suburb on the forested
slopes of Dalma Hills for 200 medium income families who could do the daily commute 7 miles to
the Steel Plant. This was All the bungalows and cottages disappeared behind tree foliage and gardens.
The only public building besides the club/rest house would be the Inspection Bungalow overlooking
the Dam on one side and terraced hill-garden with a bandstand on the other. Intention was to build a
leafy suburb at a suitable distance from industrial pollution and haphazard urban growth. This unbuilt
proposal represented what Tata Steel desired all of Jamshedpur to be.

Figure 6 Plan for new Jamshedpur

REFRENCES-
• https://www.zingyhomes.com/latest-trends/indian-architecture-after-independence-history/
• file:///C:/Users/Vidhisha%20Bhargava/Downloads/Post-independencearchitecture-
identityinmodernism.pdf
• https://www.slideshare.net/kollirajesh75/bhubaneswar-an-ideal-capital-city
• https://www.slideshare.net/sbhui1/tata-upload?from_action=save
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretariat_Building_(Chandigarh)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Assembly_(Chandigarh)
• https://www.slideshare.net/PratibhaMohan/le-corbusier-and-louis-i-kahn-history-of-
architecture