Word: chandigarh
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...Ville Verte. Le Corbusier envisions Chandigarh (pop. 150,000) as a magnificent ville verte (green city) - 14 square miles of gardens and buildings, with a center complex of government buildings surrounded by 25 self-sufficient residential sectors. Each sector will have its own bazaar, clinic, nursery school, police station, bank, cinema and swimming pool, will include 128 houses built according to 13 different designs...
Architect Le Corbusier, who drives his 20-year-old Fiat at a nervous, bucking 15 m.p.h., treats traffic in Chandigarh like a dangerous beast. He has seven different types of roads criss-crossing his dream city like a waffle grid. There will be separate roads for children, for bicycles, pedestrians and cars. All fast, cross-city arteries are sunk 14 feet below ground level to hide the traffic and reduce noise, will have bridges for pedestrians to cross safely. Says Le Corbusier, peering happily through his thick spectacles: "The system will restore to the pedestrian the dignity and peace...
Eggs & Blocks. In Chandigarh's government complex, Le Corbusier shows off more of his latest architectural tricks. He plans a long, slablike Secretariat of nine stories, resting on thin, concrete columns and topped by an enormous, egg-shaped water-storage tank. Chandigarh will also have a High Court and an Assembly building, both under immense parasol roofs-huge, butterfly-shaped affairs supported by concrete columns, which will act as shields against the sun eight months of the year, umbrellas against monsoon rains for the other four...
...feet square, for official receptions; atop it is a smaller, two-story block for executive offices. Placed above both is the governor's residence, with a roof garden above it, sheltered by an enormous crescent of concrete. A short distance away, with the Himalayas as a background, Chandigarh will have its crowning edifice: a simple, saucer-shaped amphitheater with a huge, free-swinging mobile at one end cast in the shape of an open hand, a traditional Indian symbol of friendship and welcome...
...finished next winter. The main road system has been carved out, the parks are marked off and trees are being planted. The basement and first floor of the High Court are finished; work on the Secretariat is expected to begin next month. By 1956, says Le Corbusier, Chandigarh should be complete to the last detail...