Walking through the vibrant streets of Bogota, Colombia’s capital, the place instantly felt a lot like home, Chandigarh, in my case. There is ample greenery despite tall skyscrapers, designated walking paths for pedestrians, and although the beautiful art deco buildings remind me of both Mumbai and New York, Bogota has an aura that is hard to describe with mere words.
On a whim, I try Googling the relationship between Chandigarh and Bogota, only to discover a remarkable coincidence: Le Corbusier, the Swiss-French architect who designed Chandigarh, also drew the original master plan for Bogota. The plan never saw the light of day in its entirety, but at many levels, architects refer to it as a Corbusier city. A month ago, on October 6, was the legendary architect’s 135th birthday, and my adventures in Colombia take me to the very rich heritage that Le Corbusier left behind, even if he isn’t credited for it directly.
A Land of Promise
Le Corbusier, born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, first set foot in Bogota in June 1947, falling in love with the city almost instantly. Despite some of his previous ideas having been rejected, most notably his plan for the United Nations headquarters in New York, Le Corbusier landed in Bogota with optimism and grand plans for the city. In his travels across the city, Corbusier found the elements that defined a lot of his work: sunlight, open spaces, greenery, and abundant natural beauty.
Later, these very elements would come to define Chandigarh. But for the moment, Corbusier devoted himself to Bogota, finding it perfect for a modern makeover. And it was a serendipitous arrival. With the recent conclusion of World War II, the World Bank supported modernisation in Latin America to prevent the spread of communism. Bogota, with a population of six lakh -- almost half of Chandigarh’s current population -- had started showing signs of disorder, and its mayor was ecstatic at Corbusier’s arrival.
With the World Bank’s blessing, Town Planning Associates (TPA), a New York-based firm, was directed to lead the project, and sought submission of two design plans: the Pilot Plan, designed by Le Corbusier; and the Regulatory Plan, designed by two of his former students -- Jose Luis Sert, a Spanish architect, and Paul Lester Wiener, a German American architect. Sert and Wiener later went on to design many cities, each with a flavour of Corbusier’s trademark style.
Le Corbusier was assumed to be in charge of Bogota’s planning from the beginning, and in March 1949, he left for Paris with the scope, objectives, and responsibilities he needed to look into. Returning to Bogota in 1950 with the Pilot Plan, however, Corbusier lost out to the more conservative Regulatory Plan proposed by Sert and Winer. But this did not mean that Corbusier’s contribution to Bogota amounted to nothing. He worked as an advisor to Sert and Winer, who themselves had drawn inspiration from their earlier work with Corbusier. In that sense, Bogota is very much a Corbusier City, even though it does not have the Swiss-French architect’s official stamp on it.
Today, Corbusier’s mark remains in the city, not just in the form of buildings and clearly demarcated areas that resemble the well-planned sectors of Chandigarh, India’s first planned city, but also in the form of large, green spaces that were first mentioned in his Pilot Plan.
The tall skyscrapers surrounding these green patches, too, were Corbusier’s brainchild. Experts say that but for Corbusier’s “radical” plan that aimed to provide “silence and peace,” Bogota might have espoused the chaotic madness that is so characteristic of other Latin American capitals like Brasilia, which, too, was designed by one of Corbusier’s students. Fortunately for Chandigarh, Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, shared Corbusier’s vision for silence and peace, which can now be found in every corner of Chandigarh.
On the other hand, some experts felt Corbusier’s plans that separated vehicles from pedestrians were too ‘utopian and overwhelming’ for Bogota.
Today, this can be seen in Chandigarh, where pedestrians walk almost independently of vehicles in most places. Bogota, too, is very pedestrian-friendly, although how much of it can be attributed to Le Corbusier might never be known. Because of Corbusier’s radical views of cities, just 1 out of 21 of his plans for cities ever saw the light of day. But that city vindicated him and his ideology.
Corbusier’s Moment of Glory
After India’s partition, India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, wanted to create a city that defined modern India. And along came Corbusier, finally getting a clean slate, quite literally, for his dream of designing a capital city. Unlike the other cities that Corbusier planned, Chandigarh did not require redesigning any part of the city or bulldozing historical elements. And so, in 1953, Chandigarh became modern India’s first planned -- incidentally at the exact spot where the Indus Valley Civilisation, one of the earliest planned civilisations in human history -- existed millennia ago.
Interestingly, Chandigarh doesn’t boast of a single art deco building, unlike Bogota, even though the two can be called distant cousins. By the time Corbusier reached Chandigarh, art deco had started fading away, and a lot of it was due to Corbusier’s personal distaste for art deco. Despite this, the master plans of Bogota and Chandigarh have a lot in common. For this reason, Bogota immediately feels like home, despite the agonising lack of salt in Colombian food.
But Chandigarh’s creation, too, did not come without obstacles. The Le Corbusier Centre in Chandigarh, formerly the Chief Architect’s building and Corbusier’s headquarters for Chandigarh’s planning, houses several pieces of correspondence that the architect exchanged with the state ministers and bureaucrats. These letters show how Corbusier almost never got his way. The government wanted to build houses in areas that Corbusier had designated as green patches; and the buildings’ heights were often a point of contention between Corbusier and the state government. These exact issues had troubled Corbusier in Bogota too. Fortunately, whenever things looked down for Corbusier, a personal request to Prime Minister Nehru would find him getting his way. Not that he needed it, but Corbusier’s “utopian” and “radical” plans were finally vindicated by the BBC in 2015, when they described Chandigarh as “a perfect city.”
Colombians have spent a considerable amount of effort researching Corbusier’s contributions to Bogota. They cannot help but wonder what would have happened had Corbusier been given a free hand in planning Bogota.
Interestingly, Corbusier’s influence can also be seen in the city of Medellin, which he often visited as a distraction from Bogota. In 2010, a 3-D exhibition in Bogota showed the contrast between the urban development proposal by Corbusier vis-à-vis the then city of Bogota. Aptly titled Le Corbusier in Bogota, 1947–1951, the exhibition drew large crowds, some of whom had no idea of Corbusier’s contribution to the city.
One wonders if it is to be lamented or celebrated that the only official Corbusier City is in India. A man misunderstood by his peers as too radical, utopian, and far removed from reality, Le Corbusier left his mark across the world in many different ways and is celebrated as a visionary today.
(The writer is a management consultant and freelance writer)
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