The Chandigarh Heritage Conservation Committee (CHCC) on Wednesday gave in-principle approval to the proposal of restoration of le Corbusier Centre, Sector 19 here.
The CHCC in its meeting on Wednesday deliberated upon the proposal for the renovation and restoration of Block ‘A’ of le Corbusier Centre (also known as Old Architect Office Sector 19) for its adaptive re-use as CHCC office as well as a Research Centre on various facets of Chandigarh’s city planning and architecture.
last year, structural auditing of the le Corbusier Centre was conducted by the UT Engineering Department. The Department in its assessment after structural auditing had submitted that the building has immense water seepage problem, cracks in three columns and there is a need to change the asbestos roof of the Block ‘A’.
At present, the le Corbusier Centre has around nine rooms which display archival records, documents, plans, maps, models, sketches, photographs, furniture etc. It also has a souvenir shop offering coloured reproductions of works of le Corbusier.While talking to The Pioneer, UT chief architect Kapil Setia said, “The CHCC gave in-principle approval to the proposal of restoration of le Corbusier Centre. A sub-committee of experts which was constituted earlier would look into the restoration work.”
Notably, a well-stocked digital library or Research Centre is also proposed to come up at le Corbusier Centre, which would be dedicated to city’s creator French Architect le Corbusier and the people who had worked with him. The Centre’s premises has two blocks out of which Block ‘B’ is used as le Corbusier Centre.
The Research Centre would come up in Block ‘A’ which was vacated by the UT Forest and Wildlife Department last year. The Centre was established to commemorate and preserve the work and legacy of le Corbusier. The Swiss-French architect had used the office while conceptualizing the city almost six decades ago and now this old office in Sector-19 houses le Corbusier Centre.
The CHCC also discussed the security arrangements proposed for Punjab and Haryana High Court, and proposal of construction of temporary accommodation for security personnel of Haryana Government behind Civil Secretariat among others issues. It has been decided to review the security arrangements again before taking a final call on this, said Setia.
He said, “During its meeting, the Committee approved the proposal of installation of solar photovoltaic panels on the roof top of buildings in the High Court campus.” The proposal of extension of Chandigarh College of Architecture Building — lighting laboratory and new M Arch. Block was also taken up at the meeting.