Re: on the block: Avant-garde city of Chandigarh, India, loses overlooked treasure

Anand Bhatt wrote:
> I asked about this last year at Millowners, thought it was just moved 
> away for some reason (picture attached):
> http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lfsearch/LotDescription.aspx?intObjectId=4928014 

Every working day for the past 20 years, Suresh Kanwar, a civil engineer 
in Chandigarh's forestry department, has been sitting on the same 
battered wooden chair, an object which he said had "no beauty," even if 
it was, "for office use, very comfortable."

Hazarding a guess as to its value, he suggested 400 rupees, or $10, 
"perhaps, at a junkyard."

A pair of identical chairs, instantly recognizable to collectors as 
Pierre Jeanneret teak "V-chairs," will go on sale at the auction house 
Christie's in New York this month with a reserve of $8,000 to $12,000.

A handful of antique dealers from around the world have become regular 
visitors to government junkyards in Chandigarh, the experimental 
modernist city 250 kilometers, or 155 miles, north of New Delhi, 
conceived by the architect Le Corbusier in the 1950s. They buy up 
disused stocks of furniture that was specially created by Corbusier's 
colleagues to fit out the new city.

cont'd....
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/29/asia/letter.1-231395.php