Nek Chand’s dream became a world-class, rocksolid work of art

Dr SS Bhatti

Mine was love at first sight with Rock Garden and its then-little-known creator Nek Chand when I first visited it in 1975. At that time, I had taught architecture and art for 14 years at the Chandigarh College of Architecture (CCA) which had been established on August 7, 1961, at Le Corbusier’s behest as the academic wing of the great Chandigarh experiment in modern urbanism he was then leading. My exposure to western education at the Sir JJ College of Architecture and subsequent teaching-learning experience at the CCA was enough to convince me that Nek Chand’s creativity was refreshing as nothing else was for its holistic approach to the making of an environment that loudly echoed the matchless Indian tradition in art, architecture, and culture.

As a commemorative symbol of Nek Chand’s world-renowned creativity, the subject obsessed me, so much so that I became the first qualified architect in the world to take up research on Rock Garden in 1975 before it was opened to the public. The University of Queensland, Australia, conferred on me the Master of Architecture degree in 1983 for my original research. With painstakingly collected data, studious documentation and illustrated analysis of several aspects, I had established that “Chandigarh was Le Corbusier’s gift to the people of Punjab, but Chandigarh’s gift to the world was Rock Garden”.

My well-reasoned evaluation showed how Nek Chand’s formidable genius had gone far beyond mere artistic creation to update and modernise India’s incomparable tradition of cultural holism. It would be very long before anyone of his calibre is born to create such “world heritage”. Therefore, as an iconic creation charged with aesthetic ambience, Rock Garden is not a club for revellers’ recreation but an idyllic retreat for reflection on aesthetic appreciation and artistic creation. It reveals spiritual realities embodied in everyday objects transformed into priceless works of art by Nek Chand’s magic touch. Putting it to commercial use would show our embarrassing ignorance and inexcusable insensitivity to marvels of human creativity that lie in the realm of historic significance.

Such being the truth, Rock Garden’s intrinsic merit as an art work of perennial global import is not because it has been built with waste material as is popularly believed and propagated by art-blind people worldwide. Its unique distinction lies in India’s great tradition of holism that Nek Chand as a rare self-taught genius had instinctively adopted in his multi-disciplinary approach to problems of significant creativity. Rock Garden inspires, encompassing as it does, environmental conservation, sculpture, landscape design, construction methods, planning, architecture, formal/informal design, thematic diversity, display methods, rainwater harvesting, recycling of urban and industrial waste, prevention of flooding, self-help construction strategies, and a host of other items and disciplines that together make life in cities comfortable, healthy and beautiful.

Le Corbusier had based his concept of the Chandigarh Master Plan on four classified city-functions: living, working, care of body and spirit, and circulation. Rock Garden belongs to the third function and falls under art and culture buildings such as museums, art galleries and libraries. Nek Chand has created an open-air museum which is a work of art in itself — something rarely achieved even by the greatest of architects. Its proper use is not for revellers but citizens and people from India and abroad, belonging to all age-groups and psycho-social backgrounds. In my assessment, it is a seat of perennial learning from kindergarten to post-doctoral university degrees in visual arts.

The authorities should not only spare Rock Garden from the soul-crippling influence of commerce but also set aside adequate maintenance and management budget in view of its exceptional universal value and heritage import. Schoolchildren, students and teachers of plastic arts should be mandated to visit it as part of their curriculum to awaken their innate creativity.

Rock Garden certainly deserves such reverence as great works of art command and enlightened nations generously give. Nek Chand was not an ordinary individual but a living force that inspired aspirations to an exalted life. Humility was the splendorous crown that he wore to furbish India’s pristine glory.