Chandigarh

Chandigarh is unique in India because it is a completely planned modern city, created after Independence to serve as the new capital of Punjab. When Lahore went to Pakistan in 1947, India needed a replacement capital for the Indian side of Punjab. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wanted a city that would symbolise a “new India” – scientific, modern and forward-looking – not built on old medieval patterns.

In the early 1950s, the Swiss–French architect Le Corbusier, along with a team including Pierre Jeanneret, Jane Drew and Edwin Maxwell Fry, was invited to design the city. They created a masterplan with a grid of sectors, wide tree-lined roads, separate zones for government, housing, education and industry, and large green spaces like Leisure Valley and Sukhna Lake. The monumental Capitol Complex with the Secretariat, High Court and Legislative Assembly expressed the new Republic’s authority in bold concrete forms.

Chandigarh officially became the capital of Punjab in 1966 and, after the creation of Haryana, also serves as Haryana’s capital while being a Union Territory. Over time it has grown into the centre of a larger “Tricity” (with Mohali and Panchkula), known for its high quality of life, gardens, institutions, and its blend of modernist architecture with Punjabi–Haryanvi culture.