Don of Design

Let's go back 50 years. To the time of wilderness, greenery and patches of agricultural land.

‘First Resident Engineer of Chandigarh’, Mahendra Raj, takes us through the making of this city

Let’s go back 50 years. To the time of wilderness, greenery and patches of agricultural land. No concrete structures, no roads and no sectors. “Chandigarh was what a virgin land would look like,” Mahendra Raj, the “First Resident Engineer of Chandigarh” and Structural Engineer for projects like The Punjab and Haryana High Court and UT Secretariat, rewinds to ‘49, when he first stepped on the land, which was to be the capital of Punjab. To the first “experiment” that Le Corbusier conducted and to the project that Raj was to spearhead as the Structural Engineer.

“Resources were limited and constraints many,” he recalls how strategies and plans were chalked out to get a simple thing like cement and the way they got construction material rationed. Technology, a far-fetched word, here he stayed in Chandimandir and in tents to give shape to structures that now give the city its very character. “Open, peaceful and green,” he defines the thought that went into the conceptualization.

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The designs once decided on, the feasibility was for him and the Chief Engineer Gulzar Singh to check upon. “Unlike the way we can solve thousands of equations with a computer now, we could only analyze about eight to ten permutations and combinations,’’ Raj, who is here from Delhi for Le Corbusier Memorial lecture at Chandigarh College of Architecture, tells us, as he heads to the all-new Le Corbusier centre and stops to give a long look to the sketches. “The modular dimensions developed by Corbusier were derived from the fully grown human body,” he explains the drawings and reels how tough the making of sun breakers in front of the rooms of judges and the Chief Justice was.

Bringing about slight changes where required, Raj says, “Canopy parasol of the High Court was one such instance. The initial design of flying, cantilever shell roof had to be replaced by the present cantilever beam and slab structure on our insistence.” Raj tells us those were the times when engineering took an independent turn and developed into full blown structuralism evident in several buildings of the ‘70s and ‘80s.

Ensuring that designs satisfy given design criteria, predicated on safety, serviceability and performance, “Creative manipulation of materials and forms, mass, space, volume, texture and light saw the inception of Chandigarh,” Raj smiles and walks towards where his first office was in Sector 19 (now the PWD building), satisfied with the way the city has grown and progressed. “Despite all the pressure of population, politicians, bureaucrats, commerce and industry, it’s holding well and will do so for many years to come.” You heard him!