Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret

Especially in India, Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret are well-known figures in the architectural world. Le Corbusier was born in Switzerland and was formally known as Charles Ediovard Jeanneret. He did, however, live and work in his country of citizenship, France. On the other side, Le Corbusier’s cousin Pierre Jeanneret worked closely with him to complete architectural projects. The latter frequently helped Le Corbusier with his architectural projects in India. The works of the partnership are particularly well-known in the construction of Chandigarh, where they made a significant contribution to the Indian leadership’s request to help with the city’s growth, particularly in innovations linked to architecture. Strong teak tables, stick seats, rockers in wood, cowhide and Indian cotton among other additional stunning things are examples drawn by Le Corbusier in 1951. These things show the cutting edge soul that drove the plan of the new city, totally drawn by Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and their groups. They resemble bits of an aggregate masterpiece on an urban scale.

The furniture pieces likewise demonstrate outstanding workmanship. After independence, India was dispossessed of modern foundation, everything used to be foreign made from Great Britain. Pierre Jeanneret – instigator of a sort of supportable infrastructure before the idea even existed – chose to handle the issue from an alternate edge. He chose to utilize neighborhood materials and mastery to create, based on his illustrations, furniture fabricated by neighborhood skilled workers - by Indians, in this way freeing them from their reliance on the West.

The underrated cousin, artisan of Chandigarh

From 1923 onwards, the Geneva-based architect Pierre Jeanneret (1896 – 1967) turned into a partner of his cousin Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, alias Le Corbusier (1887 – 1965). In Paris, they made the Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret hone. Together, they designed the most astounding works of the twentieth century: Villa Savoye, the «Clarté» working in Geneva and with Charlotte Perriand in 1927; famous furniture, for example, the LC2 easy chair and the B306 chaise longue. In spite of the fact that the two cousins shared a comparable structural vision, they differed on their duties amid the war. Le Corbusier is profoundly condemned today for choosing to open a training in Vichy amid the occupation, while Pierre Jeanneret left to join the French Resistance. After the war, they rejoined to chip away at the stupendous development task of the new capital for the Punjab State, brainchild of Leader Nehru. While Le Corbusier considered Chandigarh to be the chance to at long last execute his progressive skills, Pierre Jeanneret would be the lynchpin for the venture’s implementation.

While Le Corbusier sought after other extensive scale projects in the meantime, Pierre Jeanneret moved to India, where he lived for a long time while drawing the gigantic plans of the parliament, the college and the Chandigarh court specifically. He just came back to a few years before his demise, after finishing illustrations for the vast majority of the city, preparing upcoming architects and creating aptitude.

As the principal show in Switzerland devoted to the work by Pierre Jeanneret and Le Corbusier, and a follow up to «Pierre Jeanneret: Chandigarh Project. Cheap Furniture» in 2007, this show is a one of a kind chance to return to what the two cousins epitomized from 1950 onwards.

The Chandigarh Project

Chandigarh city was the brainchild of Jewahar Lal Nehru, who was the founding prime minister in India. The premier invited Le Corbusier having learned about the exemplary work of the architect, especially in his home country, France. The invitation by the prime minister was the point of departure in the architect’s involvement in the planning and subsequent development of the Chandigarh city. In particular, Le Corbusier designed the master plan of the city. The road network in the city was planned to produce the rectangular shape. The roads were straight to facilitate driving at high speeds. In the development of the plan, Le Corbusier ensured that it reflected his principles that included light, space, and greenery. The plan of the city reflected the human body with capitol complex being the head; the heart was represented by the city center while the lungs were denoted by the leisure valley and gardens.

In 1948, the area of Punjab was separated by the segment of India and Pakistan when India picked up freedom from Britain. The overwhelmingly Sikh and Hindu Punjabi Indians lost their capital, the lofty Mogul city of Lahore, to the Moslem Punjabis who joined Pakistan.

In 1948, the Indian Prime Minister, Nehru, started considering building another capital for the Indian Punjab. Nehru needed a cutting edge city, liberated by the customs of the past and which would turn into the image of Modern India. He picked Chandigarh, a little cultivating town in the center of the State. First, two American engineers, advocates of the hypotheses of Garden Cities, were ordered to draw the ground breaking strategy of the city. The inadvertent passing of one of them, Matthew Nowicki, in a plane crash, put a stop to the task. Le Corbusier was then chosen by the Indians, to proceed the venture.

Chandigarh: birth of a new city

The Swiss-born architect, local of La Chaux-de- Fonds, could finally understand his fantasy of an advanced city, theorized in 1922. His progressive idea of aggregate lodging had as of now been attempted and tried in the Marseille United’ Habitation (housing block unit), after the war. He at that point conceived, together with Pierre Jeanneret, his accomplice amid the major Paris years - 1920 to 1940 - , an extremely striking arrangement for the Indian city. Le Corbusier connected the imagery of the human body to the city design. The «head» of the city, the seat of official, authoritative and legal power, was set in the north. The «heart» of the city, a business region with business sectors, theater houses what’s more, open territories, and was set in the center. The city was separated into rectangular lattices associated by a system of streets and vegetation, comparable to the human veins and lungs. Inside the matrices, the houses were laid out along the natural lanes with adaptable shapes. A counterfeit lake at the «head» of the city provided water to a stream coursing through a progression of parks.

Le Corbusier drew some of his most prominent masterpieces in Chandigarh. The High Court of Justice, the General Secretariat, the 250m-long building for Ministers, and the Parliament with its hyperboloid tower displayed on the cooling towers of electrical power plants. On top of these structures, Le Corbusier planned embroidered works of art for inside outfitting and a painted veneer covered grand entryway for the Parliament house. The open hand giant figure has turned into the image of the city and of Le Corbusier.

In spite of the fact that it might appear to be grim at first sight, the abundance of subtle elements has made in Chandigarh a compassionate, natural and lively engineering that has increased overall acknowledgment. In the whole history of humankind, Chandigarh is just equaled by Brasilia - the new capital of Brazil in 1956, brought about by the splendid engineer, Oscar Niemeyer. In fact, Niemeyer relates how his meeting with Le Corbusier in the 1930s affected his engineering vision.

Jeanneret: prime contractor of this organic architecture

The city’s development crossed the 1950s and 1960s. Right from the earliest starting point, Le Corbusier allotted the duty of executing his illustrations to Pierre Jeanneret. A couple of British architects, Edwin Maxwell Frey and Jane Beverly Drew, perceived for their work on tropical design, joined the group and were in control of the lodging units. The four at that point worked with Indian architects nearby.

Jeanneret moved to India, made the city’s school of design and turned into a government advisor. He designed different structures for the city, for example, the estates and the college but the Gandhi Bhavan landmark is considered as his perfect work of art. The structures are in block or cement. Brilliant sun-breaking gadgets are utilized to make shade inside the structures and permit interaction of shapes on the façades of structures.

The Chandigarh furniture, pieces of a complete work of art

Everything in Chandigarh is present day. From transport stops to government structures, street signs to the cruising club, sewer vent of clinics, stadiums to nursery schools, everything was outlined by the draftsmen. The same goes for the furniture, for the mostly designed by Pierre Jeanneret for people in general structures. In 1927, he met Charlotte Perriand, and outlined with her the furniture for the Le Corbusier-Pierre Jeanneret work on, including the well-known LC2 seat and the B306 chaise longue.

For Chandigarh, Pierre Jeanneret drew an exceptionally broad arrangement of furniture utilizing nearby skill and materials. Determined from Indian craftsmanship and a progressive plan, the bits of Chandigarh furniture were hand crafted for each work. The Government structures were outfitted with strong teak or Indian rosewood furniture upholstered with calfskin from officially dead dairy animals, as required by Sikh and Hindu customs.

Each household item was intended to be completely useful. The work areas had capacity gaps, the easy chairs had very much cushioned, comfortable seats, and the caned seats of seats were comfortable notwithstanding the extremely hot seasons.

Different pieces were made with less extravagant materials, for example, bamboo, press poles, cotton. The shrewd shapes permitted all sorts of mix. A few work areas were composed as corner pieces to offer all the more working space. V-shaped legs, reminiscent of the wooden trestle tables of engineers, were frequently utilized. Geometrical lines joined with the natural viewpoint of shapes and materials straightforwardly resounded the states of the city. In fact, the city’s master plan, which was hand drawn by Le Corbusier, was repeated on a roundabout cast press sewer vent cover. In Chandigarh, each protest is a piece that fits into the embroidered artwork of the aggregate craftsmanship represented by the city.

From Chandigarh to Paris

In the 1990s, the occupants of Chandigarh looked to reestablish their furniture for more contemporary pieces. The pieces were along these lines sold in parts regularly containing specialized pieces and scrap.

A couple of specialists, for example, Paris-based Eric Touchaleaume, purchased the parcels, dealt with the pieces and had them precisely reestablished in France. Writer of an original book on Chandigarh distributed in 2010, Eric Touchaleaume was at that point at the wellspring of the Anton Meier giving a presentation about the Chandigarh furniture in 2007. Finally, the endeavors of these enthusiasts to pick up acknowledgment for the significance of these pieces are at last paying off.

Over the previous years, bits of Chandigarh furniture marked by Pierre Jeanneret have been routinely shown in Europe and in the United States, and at significant public exhibitions around the world. The enthusiasm of universal authorities for the Geneva-born engineer has been expanding as the general population turns out to be progressively mindful of the vital part he played close by Le Corbusier. The cheap furniture designed by Pierre Jeanneret for Chandigarh has for instance, fueled a lot of enthusiasm among collectors around the world, offering at record costs in barters by popular houses, for example, Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Artcurial in Paris and Wright in Chicago. However, aside from Anton Meier’s 2007 presentation, Jeanneret is as yet uncommon in his local nation. The wealth of the present presentation «Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret: The Chandigarh Project – Low Cost Furniture and other works» is decisively to enable the general population to find the full significance of the work crafted by these pioneers.

Biographies of the architects

Charles-Edouard Jeanneret alias Le Corbusier

Born in 1887 at La Chaux-de-Fonds and passed on in 1965 at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin (France). He studied carving, engraving and decorative arts under Charles L’Eplattenier at the La Chaux-de-Fonds Art School, Charles-Edouard Jeanneret voyaged widely and met an extensive number of present day darchitects. He worked with Auguste and Gustave Perret in Paris, and later with Subside Behrens in Berlin. From 1909 onwards, he built houses at La Chaux-de-Fonds and educated at the Workmanship School. In 1917, he moved to Paris and established the «L’Esprit Nouveau» magazine in 1919 with the painter Amédée Ozenfant. He received the name Le Corbusier in 1920. His cousin Pierre Jeanneret later joined him in Paris in 1922. Le Corbusier painted, distributed books and finished an expansive number of compositional undertakings in Europe. These incorporated the Soyouz Center in Moscow in 1928 and the Manor Savoye in Poissy in 1929. He established the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) in 1928 in La Sarraz. In the 1930s, he travelled widely, finished numerous distributions furthermore, developments and banded together with different architects, for example, Oscar Niemeyer and Lucio Costa for the Ministry of National Education and Health at Rio. He received French citizenship in 1930.

In 1940 he shut his Paris rehearse and went to live in Vichy. In 1944, he began inquire about on the Unités d’Habitation, the first was worked in 1947 and 1952 in Marseille. In 1951, he started the development of Chandigarh, another city in India. The High Court of Justice planned by Le Corbusier was introduced by Prime Minister Nehru in 1955. In the 1950s, he handled different activities in Japan, in the United States and In Europe, for example, the Notre-Dame du Haut church in Ronchamp. In 1961 he started dealing with a progression of illustrations for the city of Friminy in France for countless structures including a Unité d’habitation, a stadium and a congregation which were finished in 2006.

He drowned in the Mediterranean in 1965 at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, close to Menton where he had a summer home. All through his vocation, Le Corbusier delivered furniture (with Charlotte Perriand and Pierre Jeanneret), models, divider artistic creations and woven artworks. He frequently showed his works of art, for case in 1938 at the Kunsthaus Zurich. In 1962, the Paris Museum of Modern Art held a review of his work. 2012 marked the 125th commemoration of his introduction to the world and was broadly celebrated in Switzerland.

Pierre Jeanneret

Born in 1896 in Geneva and died in 1967 in Geneva. Pierre Jeanneret studied at the Geneva Ecole des Beaux-Arts where he graduated. He worked with Auguste and Gustave Perret in Paris in 1921, later started his 20-year partnership with Le Corbusier in 1922. From 1927 onwards, he drew furniture pieces with Charlotte Perriand who turned into his friend.

The Le Corbusier– Pierre Jeanneret rehearse shut in 1940 and the organization finished when Pierre Jeanneret joined the French Resistance and Le Corbusier did not. After the war, they continued their cooperation with the Chandigarh development venture. Pierre Jeanneret, with Edwin Maxwell Broil and his wife Jane Beverly Drew, was in charge of an extensive piece of the building manifestations of the new city. He generally planned and built the University, the Ghandi Bhawan Memorial and the College library. After the development of Chandigarh, Jeanneret remained on in the city as boss engineer furthermore, counselor to the Punjab Government. He headed building and town arranging ventures for Indian urban communities, for example, Ahmedabad and Pandoh. He came back to Switzerland for health reasons and in 1965 and passed on in Geneva in 1967.

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Tittensor, Jeremy Harrison, Le Corbusier, and Pierre Jeanneret. 2014. Le Corbusier,

Pierre Jeanneret: Chandigarh, India, 1951-66. Paris: Galerie Patrick Seguin.

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