The Rock Garden is one of Chandigarh’s most unique attractions – a vast fantasy landscape of waterfalls, courtyards and thousands of human and animal figures made entirely from waste materials like broken ceramics, glass bangles and industrial scrap. Created by Nek Chand in a hidden gorge near Sukhna Lake, it feels like stepping into another world: narrow passages, mosaic walls, little bridges and an endless army of recycled sculptures. It remains one of the region’s top tourist draws, with over a million visitors in many recent years.
About this place
History & highlights
Government roads and demolition in post-Partition Chandigarh produced huge amounts of construction waste. Starting in 1957, Nek Chand, a roads inspector, began secretly collecting discarded material and building an illegal sculpture garden in a forest buffer zone. When authorities discovered it around 1975, they were so impressed that they regularised and later expanded it, turning it into an officially supported public park. Today the Rock Garden covers about 40 acres and is run by a society, celebrating Chand’s outsider art and Chandigarh’s experiment with modern urban design.
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