50 Years After Le Corbusier: A tapestry of light and colour

Presented by Alliance Francaise, the exhibition showcases 25 photographs of Corbusier’s architectural masterpieces in the city, and a few in Ahmedabad.

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Ajay Bhatia at Alliance Francaise in Sector 36, Chandigarh. (Source: Express photo by Kamleshwar Singh)

Living in Chandigarh for three decades now, documentary photographer Ajay Bhatia constantly finds new forms and meanings in the city’s buildings designed by master architect Le Corbusier. There’s a new angle and facet his camera discovers about the city, which Bhatia describes as tranquil, beautiful, well-ordered, where humanity, architecture and nature exist in close harmony. So, Bhatia’s third exhibition on Chandigarh, titled ‘Le Corbusier, the Play of Light’, is a photographic tribute to the master architect on his 50th death anniversary. Presented by Alliance Francaise, the exhibition showcases 25 photographs of Corbusier’s architectural masterpieces in the city, and a few in Ahmedabad.

The work, explains Bhatia, who is engaged in travel, event and architectural photography, is inspired by Corbusier’s book, ‘Towards a New Architecture.’ “In this book Le Corbusier speaks about the great primary forms of geometry: cubes, cones, spheres, cylinders and pyramids. He says in the book that architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of masses brought together in light. Our eyes are made to see forms in light. Light and shade reveal them. The image of these forms is distinct and tangible within us, without ambiguity. It is for this reason that they are the most beautiful forms.”

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So, keeping in mind this aspect, Bhatia has strived to capture the buildings imbibed in light, capturing how light filters in the buildings, shooting at different times of the day, to portray the rays of the sun, and their effect on the buildings. How Corbusier used colour to highlight textures and the play of light, Bhatia presents in his photographs of the High Court, capturing the blue, yellow and red colours that give the texture of the concrete a new meaning. Bhatia says he views the camera as a receptacle for light, the lens being an eye and sensor the soul of the camera. “Imagining a whole city as a receptacle of light, as Le Corbusier did, is an exhilarating vision.

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The complex interplay of shadows and highlights in the architecture of Chandigarh is particularly enthralling as a photographer,’’ says Bhatia.

On October 17, Bhatia took different perspectives of the Capitol Complex, capturing it in varied hues, when it was lighted at night. “I took about 100 photographs and the lights gave the buildings in the complex a new dimension. I also have innumerable pictures of the Open Hand, my favourite here being the one I captured with rays of the sun lighting the hand, and also the trench in the morning,’’ explains Bhatia.

The present exhibition differs from his earlier work, as Bhatia was previously working with ultra-wide-angle zoom lenses, but for the present exhibition, he has used only a single 50mm lens, as the focal range, explains Bhatia, offers almost the same field of view as the human eye and is, therefore, intriguing and challenging. Also on display are some photographs of the Mill Owners’ Association Building in Ahmedabad, which has no walls, “the exteriors are masculine, while the interiors are feminine,’’ points out Bhatia.

He has also made three slide films documenting the Capitol Complex, the Government Museum and Art Gallery and its art and architecture, and life on the lake, capturing nature and the people there. These will be screened as part of the exhibition.

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The exhibition is on at Alliance Francaise, Sector 36, till November 19.

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