Re: on the block: Canny French dealers loot Le Corbusier's legacy in Chandigarh

| Outlook has an article on the sale. About two years too
| late. Anyone remember that 'taters' thread when the tendency
| was spotted?

ref: http://mail.architexturez.net/+/In-Enaction/archive/msg01471.shtml

| of interest, especially, are the academic-cons who seem
| to be opposing the very policy they helped foster.
| (anyone remember the 'inside-outside people' thread?)

ref: http://mail.architexturez.net/+/In-Enaction/archive/msg00903.shtml

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But oblivious to its worth, this rich heritage today lies carelessly 
strewn around in various offices, gathers dust in government storerooms, 
or is sold off at auctions. A lot has been replaced by newer, fancier 
furniture. "No one wants this plain furniture any more," says Balwinder 
Saini, a senior architect in the UT administration whose office is one 
of the few which still retains some of the original furniture. It was 
only when a pair of stools fetched ,23,400 at a Paris sale that 
Chandigarh woke up in absolute disbelief. "For sometime now I've seen 
those wood and cane benches being used by security guards outside some 
judge's houses," says an architect. "No one even gives them a second look."

Except for these collectors whose canny, covetous eyes readily spotted 
what the administration sat blindly on. Cashing in on ignorance in some 
cases and the connivance of corrupt officials in other cases, they made 
merry plundering the Le Corbusier-Pierre Jeanneret artefacts and 
whisking them away overseas. Till two senior professors from the 
Chandigarh College of Architecture drew attention to the "organised 
looting" of the city's heritage.
....
Particularly vulnerable now are the hundreds of sketches and drawings of 
various buildings as also the woollen tapestries in the high court and 
the assembly. Joshi points to the huge cache of documents and models 
lying in the storerooms of the chief architect and the chief engineer, 
almost as trash, which needs to be retrieved and taken care of. "Many of 
the things are now simply not there. For example, a model of the Open 
Hand monument (Chandigarh's symbol) and models of open air theatres are 
missing, although Corbusier's letter says he sent them to Chandigarh," 
she says. One such cedarwood model was of the Tower of Shadows in the 
capitol complex, which was auctioned for $33,600. It was executed by 
Giani Rattan Singh (his son is now an employee of the architecture 
department) who was then the official maker of architectural models of 
Corbusier's buildings.


cont'd....
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20070709&fname=Chandigarh+%28F%29&sid=1&pn=1

[attached image: Chandigarh, down the drain :-)]