Chandigarh, named after the Hindu goddess of power Chandi, was one of Le Corbusier’s greatest achievements and among the most important experiments in urban planning and modern architecture of the twentieth century. On the edge of the Punjab plain near the foothills of the Himalayas, the city was built from the ground up between 1951 and 1966 to embody the modern and progressive aspirations of a newly independent India. While Le Corbusier was the chief architectural consultant for the city and solely responsible for the famous designs of the capital complex buildings, Chandigarh would not be what it is without the dedication of his cousin, the architect Pierre Jeanneret, who transformed a utopian vision into an architectural and design reality. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, wanted his post-colonial capital for the state of Punjab (the old one, Lahore, had been lost to the newly created Pakistan in the 1947 Partition) to be “unfettered by the traditions of the past, a symbol of the nation’s faith in the future,” and, to fulfill his vision, in December of 1949 he appointed the American planner Albert Mayer and his partner Matthew Nowicki. However, after Nowicki died in a plane crash, he turned to the Swiss-born architect Le Corbusier and his team which included Pierre Jeanneret, as well as the British architects Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry, to revise the plan and design the entire capital. Le Corbusier, as exclusive designer of the capital buildings (the Parliament Building, the High Court and the Secretariat) had to remain in India only two months of the year. Jeanneret moved permanently to India and was entrusted with the wide-ranging work of the Chandigarh architectural office. He supervised numerous construction sites and he, Fry and Drew were the principle architects for almost all civic and private structures: housing, administrative buildings, education facilities, libraries, shops and even, among other buildings, a movie cinema. In order to furnish the various private and public buildings of Chandigarh, Jeanneret developed, with the help of his young Indian assistants, a complete range of minimalist, elegant and seemingly simple interior pieces. For these utilitarian furnishings Jeanneret used local, readily available materials, primarily teak, either left in its natural color or dyed, and occasionally sisso (an Indian rosewood). He also used cane, cotton fabric, moleskin and even leather, sometimes in vibrant shades of red, blue, green or yellow. Respecting Hindu beliefs, this material came only from cattle that had died a natural death. Jeanneret’s designs effectively conjoin the inspiration of local craftsmanship with the design approach he had developed in France while working with Le Corbusier, Charlotte Perriand and Jean Prouvé. The many and various models of chairs, benches, sofa, desks, tables, bookcases, shelving and storage units created and fabricated by teams of Indian craftsmen in numerous workshops, all reflected Chandigarh’s bold modern architecture and were an indispensable component in the creation of a complete utopian city symbolizing the new, progressive India. He remained for fifteen years, during which time he was appointed Chief Architect of the State of Punjab and director of the Chandigarh School of Architecture. He became a beloved member of the community and when, in 1965 he left India for health reasons, he told the people, “I am leaving my home and going to a foreign country.” He died in Geneva two years later and, according to his wishes, his ashes were brought back to Chandigarh and scattered over Lake Shukhna.

PIERRE JEANNERET (1896-1967) WITH EULIE CHOWDURY

A SET OF EIGHT LIBRARY CHAIRS, CIRCA 1959-60

Details

PIERRE JEANNERET (1896-1967) WITH EULIE CHOWDURY
A SET OF EIGHT LIBRARY CHAIRS, CIRCA 1959-60

model PJ-SI-51-A; teak, caning
each 30 ¾ in. (78.2 cm.) high

Lot Essay

cf. E. Touchaleaume and G. Moreau, Le Corbusier Pierre Jeanneret: The Indian Adventure Design Art Architecture, Montreal, 2010, pp. 111-112, 368 and 374 for examples of chairs of this model;
Galerie Patrick Seguin, Le Corbusier Pierre Jeanneret Chandigarh, India, 1951-66, Paris, 2014, pp. 182-186, 219, 221 and 265 for examples of this model and p. 187 for a drawing of a chair of this model.

These chairs appeared in Chandigarh at the library of the University of Punjab and also in the High Court.

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