Making of Chandigarh: A Vintage History

Chandigarh is a giant experiment in town planning and architecture in India and the world. Being one of the best cities planned and built afresh on virgin land, Chandigarh attracted the global community of architects, planners, and historians. Resultantly, copious works have been written on Chandigarh, and much literature exists on the subject.

"Making of Chandigarh: A Vintage History" is the latest addition to the number of books written by various authors on this subject. Of all the treatises published earlier, this book is unique in its approach, contents, and presentation. The book focuses on recording the process of making a city through 575 black-and-white photographs. Several photographers have clicked these photographs since the city's inception in 1950 till the 1990s. This book is a tribute to the numerous known and unknown photographers who recorded the history of Chandigarh through their photographs.

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and photographers are worth a million. Imagine, if we glance through hundreds of pictures clicked on a particular subject over a period of 40 years beginning in 1950, how easy it will be to grasp the historical aspect of that subject! With this aim, the "Making of Chandigarh: A Vintage History" has been conceived and presented as a pictorial journey of the city.

Apart from the rich collection of vintage photos, the book includes more than 50 drawings of important city buildings and campuses. An elaborated essay, 'Making of Chandigarh', explains the whole story of the capital city and throws light on the essential campuses, complexes and buildings designed by master architects like Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Maxwell Fry, Jane Drew, and their Indian colleagues.