Concrete Consciousness

It all began with Barbara’s photographic documentary work on Le Corbusier in Chandigarh in 2005 and her city portrait ‘Living with Le Corbusier – Photographs from Chandigarh’ with a variety of photographs was displayed at the Frankfurt Book Fair. “We were so sceptical about it,but it was a huge success,as people saw a different India in these pictures,’’ the exhibition’s success led to the appointment as “artist-in-residence” by the residents’ welfare association in the Le Corbusier building in Berlin,which has around 500 flats in one block…”It was an absorbing experience that made me see the architect in a new light,’’ the pictures about life in the so-called “vertical village” were published as a book.

Chandigarh,says Barbara has its own Indianess,as well as a modernist setting,while the images taken in the Le Corbusier building in Berlin cover the unique architecture as well as the individually designed homes. The juxtaposition of two different worlds,both struggling with a certain monotony among Le Corbusier’s principles,reveals a human approach in developing “a sense of belonging.”

Presented by The Indian Institute of Architects,Chandigarh-Punjab Chapter in association with the Goethe Zentrum Max Mueller Bhawan,the exhibition is on at Government Museum and Art Gallery till December 2.