Corbusier’s artefacts on sale in US today

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 8

A day after the US returned 200 Indian artefacts valued at $100 million, news is that a precious cache of Le Corbusier and his associate Pierre Jeanneret’s design heritage will go up for sale in New York tomorrow.

The live auction by US-based house Phillips involves the sale of heritage furniture Corbusier and Jeanneret designed for Chandigarh, the city former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru assigned them to build as a symbol of modern India.

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The price quoted for these nine items is $2,70,000 to 4,01,000 which translates to Rs 1.8 crore to Rs 2.67 crore.

As for the pieces on sale, these include Le Corbusier’s and Jeanneret’s sofa model designed for the High Court and Assembly buildings and valued at $70,000 to one lakh; a set of four armchairs designed by Jeanneret for the Chandigarh College of Architecture priced at $40,000 to 60,000 and a pair of console tables Jeanneret designed for Chandigarh’s administrative buildings valued between $35,000 and 55,000.

Ahead of tomorrow’s auction, Chandigarh resident Ajay Jagga, who has been crusading since 2010 to preserve city’s heritage, has written to the Department of Homeland Security, US, to stop the auction and check if the sellers entered India on business or tourist visas and if they paid Indian customs for the items before taking these abroad.

Jagga, whose campaign, recently resulted in the establishment of the Heritage Protection Cell under the Chandigarh Administration, said he had written a complaint to CBI’s Interpol branch in New Delhi to enable inter-country cooperation for protecting Indian artefacts from being illegally taken out. CBI Interpol has now asked the Bureau’s Chandigarh branch director to investigate the matter and inform if any cooperation is needed in the case from the crime departments of the US and France. The Tribune is in possession of the CBI’s letter.

Jagga, a member of the Chandigarh’s Administration’s Heritage Cell, has shared with the CBI details of five previous auctions of Chandigarh’s iconic furniture and fixtures, including manholes, in the US and France. The last such auction took place in New York on March 5 and led to the sale of Chandigarh heritage worth $45,000. The items included two sets of chairs and student desks of the Central Library of Panjab University and a pair of round stools of Panjab University Science block.

“Even items as mundane as manholes designed under Corbusier’s charge have fetched Rs 11 lakh per manhole in auctions across the US and Europe, while these items are being sold in Chandigarh as scrap with each manhole going for Rs 300,” says Jagga, whose earlier PIL in this case had for the first time led to the Chandigarh Administration cataloguing 244 heritage items of Corbusier’s era and promising to the Punjab and Haryana High Court that these won’t be allowed to be squandered anymore.

Foreign auctions of Corbusier’s Indian creations have, however, continued unabated in the absence of law enforcing at the home front. The Swiss architect and his associate Jeanneret not only designed Chandigarh, but also designed the furniture that would occupy the city’s spaces. The heritage is going for a pittance today.