Chandigarh Ahmedabad – Le Corbusier - Vereniging van ...

Although Le Corbusier made many radical changes in the Americans' master plan, incorporating his own
architectural and city planning ideas, it is a tribute to Mayer and Nowicki's vision that he incorporated several
of their seminal ideas. For example, the basic framework of the master plan and its components - the Capitol ,
City Centre, university, industrial area, and a linear parkland - as conceived by Mayer and Nowicki were
retained by Le Corbusier. The restructured master plan almost covered the same site and the neighbourhood
unit was retained as the main module of the plan. The Superblock was replaced by now what is called the
Sector covering an area of 91 hectares, approximately that of the three-block neighbourhood unit planned by
Mayer. The City Centre, the railway station and the industrial areas by and large retained their original
locations. However, the Capitol , though still sited at the prime location of the north-eastern tip of the plan, was
shifted slightly to the north-west.
The neighbourhood unit, so important to Mayer, retained its importance in Le Corbusier's plan. But the
opposing viewpoints lay in the configuration of the neighbourhood units. While the former preferred a
naturalistic, curving street pattern without the rigidity of a sterile geometric grid -- the latter was adverse to
"solidification of the accidental". For Le Corbusier the straight line was the logical connecting path between
two points, and any "forced naturalness" was superfluous. Moreover, Le Corbusier always looked at the city
plan in terms of a single cohesive monumental composition -- with major axes linking the focal points of the
city. The emphasis on visual cohesion between the various city components was an essential feature of his
somewhat rigid grid iron plan. (Evenson, Normal 1966)
BASIC PLANNING COMPONENTS
Le Corbusier's plan was based on the gridiron defined by a system of seven types of roads, which Le
Corbusier called the 7 Vs (from the French word 'voie') and their expected functions around and within the
neighbourhood. The neighbourhood itself is surrounded by the fast-traffic road called V3 intersecting at the
junctions of the neighbourhood unit called sector with a dimension of 800 meters by 1200 meters. The
dimensions of the sector and its creation are best explained in Le Corbusier's own words: "Its dimensions are
an outcome of studies made between 1929 and 1949 of the Spanish 'Cuadra' of 100 to 110 meters. A useful
reclassification of the (Cuadras) led me to adopt a ratio of harmonious dimensions and productive
combinations: seven to eight 'cuadras' on one side, ten to twelve 'cuadras' on the other, that is to say 800
meters by 1200 meters." And this was the "Sector" issued from an ancestral and valid geometry established in
the past on the stride of a man, an ox or a horse, but now adopted to mechanical speeds... The entrance of
cars into the sectors of 800 meters by 1200m, which are exclusively reserved to family life, can take place on
four points only; in the middle of the 1200 m. in the middle of the 800 meters. All stoppage of circulation shall
be prohibited at the four circuses, at the angles of the Sectors. The bus stops are provided each time at 200
meters from the circus so as to serve the four pedestrian entrances into a sector. Thus, the transit traffic takes
place out of the sectors: the sectors being surrounded by four wall-bound car roads without openings (the
V3s). And this (a novelty in town-planning and decisive) was applied at Chandigarh: no house (or building)
door opens on the thoroughfare of rapid traffic.
THE BIOLOGICAL ANALOGY
Le Corbusier liked to compare the city he planned to a biological entity: the head was the Capitol, the City
Centre was the heart and work areas of the institutional area and the university were limbs. Aside from the
Leisure Valley traversing almost the entire city, parks extended lengthwise through each sector to enable
every resident to lift their eyes to the changing panorama of hills and sky. Le Corbusier identified four basic
functions of a city: living, working, circulation and care of the body and spirit. Each sector was provided with its
own shopping and community facilities, schools and places of worship. "Circulation" was of great importance
to Le Corbusier and determined the other three basic functions. By creating a hierarchy of roads, Le Corbusier
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