Le Corbusier & Pierre Jeanneret

432 pages, engl.

This beautiful, comprehensive volume documents Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret's massive Chandigarh project―the buildings and the furniture (today considered masterpieces of twentieth-century architecture and design), the plans, sketches and maquettes as well as reproducing both archival and contemporary photographs. In 1947, shortly after India gained independence, the Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru initiated a vast plan of modernization throughout the country, during which Chandigarh became the administrative capital of the Punjab province. Nehru commissioned Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret to construct this capital from scratch, with the sole instruction that they should be expressive and experimental and should not let themselves be hindered by tradition. Illustrated with photographs dating from the time period to the present, this book documents the architectural project and the production of the furniture, offering a definitive summary of this epic modernist enterprise. A further chapter is dedicated to the work of Lucien Hervé, the famous architectural photographer who depicted the city extensively.