Standing Out: Remembering Eulie Chowdhury, the only Indian woman architect in Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh Project team
Sarika Sharma
As “the new city of free India” began taking shape, an entire generation of architects found itself in the barren land that they were to shape into what Jawaharlal Nehru called “a model for our glorious future growth of the country”. Among these men working on the city with Le Corbusier was Urmila ‘Eulie’ Chowdhury, her tiny frame belying the fact that she was the only Indian woman on the project. This year marks her birth centenary.
Born at Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh on October 4, 1923, Eulie’s father was a diplomat and she travelled the world with him — schooling in Japan, studying architecture in Sydney, ceramics in New Jersey — and that endowed her with a rare worldview. Eulie joined the Chandigarh Project along with her husband, Jugal Kishore Chowdhury, in 1951. In a tribute to Eulie in The Tribune a year after her death in 1995, former Chief Architect of Chandigarh Sumit Kaur wrote, “The site where the city of Chandigarh was to be built was a vast expanse of land without any infrastructure — roads, streetlights, housing and shopping facilities. She braved the heat and rain, sacrificed the comforts which she was so accustomed to, and worked with a missionary zeal…” Eulie was to make history — crafting modernist buildings in a new India, exposed brick structures with concrete accentuating the facades marking her presence in the city’s architectural legacy.
Involved with the project since the beginning, Eulie worked on the High Court building, the first structure that Corbusier designed in the city. “She worked with him on the Capitol Complex, helping him with drawings of Tower of Shadows, Geometric Hill, Martyrs’ Memorial and extension of the HC,” says architect-author Sarbjit Bahga. With Pierre Jeanneret, Corbusier’s cousin and collaborator, she worked on the design of ministers’ houses and educational institutions.
In a profile of the architect in her book ‘Women Architects and Modernism in India: Narratives and Contemporary Practices’, author-architect Madhavi Desai writes that Eulie “followed Corbusier’s concepts and scale in her designs, exemplifying the principles of geometric compositions and honesty of materials”. Bahga, on the other hand, sees her architecture bearing more of Jeanneret’s footprints. “Unlike Corbusier, who designed buildings in exposed concrete, Eulie was more fascinated with the use of brick on external surfaces,” he says. For architect Sangeet Sharma, son of Eulie’s friend and colleague SD Sharma, her greatest ability was to abide by the values Corbusier had propagated, primarily the exposed brick and concrete facade, which she abided by. “I learnt from Eulie how to cherish the values of good architecture and respect the edicts that the master had set for the city,” he adds.
Eulie knew French and instantly connected with Corbusier and Jeanneret, for both of whom English was a second language. Madhavi writes that Eulie became Corbusier’s interpreter and also took care of his correspondence with Nehru. Sangeet says Corbusier would write to her directly regarding issues pertaining to the projects under construction, for conveying to the administration or to the engineers in charge. “She would also accompany Corbusier to meetings where he felt the need for an interpreter,” says Sangeet.
Eulie also worked closely with British architect Jane Drew, who had been roped in by Corbusier. Sangita Bagga, principal of Chandigarh College of Architecture (CCA), says what Jane was to the European scene, Eulie was to the Indian. “Earlier, UT’s Department of Urban Planning and the college had common resource persons. Eulie was working as well as taking classes on the theory of design. Classrooms would be full of boys, but she made her presence felt even among them,” she adds.
Eulie’s fetish for detail and perfection was legendary. In the children’s book ‘Unstoppable’, which carries profiles of trailblazing Indian women, Gayathri Ponvannan writes: “Eulie carried with her a magnifying glass at all times, in order to verify the designs and the measurements, and to make sure there were no errors in diagrams.” Bagga says there was a method and discipline in the way she went about things. “Perhaps that explains the volume of work she did,” she adds.
After Corbusier and Jeanneret left, it was a new beginning for the Indian architects at Chandigarh. Along with others, Eulie was responsible for the second phase of planning. Among the buildings she designed are the Government Polytechnic College for Women in Sector 10; hostel block of the Home Science College, also in Sector 10; St John’s High School and the government schools in sectors 20, 37 and 38. Madhavi calls the polytechnic building a fine example of early modern architecture. Of the hostel block, she writes, “This project is also an excellent example of a modernist expression, with the concrete staircase element being juxtaposed with large volumes of brickwork. It has the same emphasis on horizontality with recessed windows that are framed by concrete bands. Most important, Chowdhury was precise in detailing, which is illustrated in the use of Le Corbusier’s ‘the modular’ in the framing of the windows that resulted in breaking up the monotony of the geometrical facade of the Home Science campus buildings.”
As Chief Architect of Punjab and Haryana, she designed buildings as well as the new townships in Punjab, such as the ones at Pandoh, Sundernagar (both now in Himachal Pradesh) and Talwara. Renu Saigal, former Chief Architect of Chandigarh, recalls how she, as a first-year student at CCA, went to the Talwara township office. “People were scared of her. The only girl in that group, I was apprehensive. What if I did something wrong, I feared. When I actually got to meet her, she was so nice to me. She inspired me to be like her,” she says.
Eulie’s expertise wasn’t just limited to buildings. Like Jeanneret, she too was designing wooden furniture for government buildings. And ever since Chandigarh chairs became a sought-after item on the auction market, her name has been cropping up. Chandigarh-based architect Eashan Chaufla, who is a keen student of the city’s history, including Eulie’s work in the region, says it is well known — albeit poorly documented — that she was involved in the designing of at least some of the furniture. “However, unlike Corbusier, the Indian architects were apparently not as keen on claiming authorship. As a result, their work continues to be overshadowed by the Western architects who worked here. In the absence of archival documentation, it is difficult to ascertain the extent of her involvement but we know that the Chandigarh team had a highly collaborative structure and that several Indian architects were involved in the making of the furniture.” In an interview to Wall Street Journal, Jeanneret expert Maristella Casciato says Eulie was “managing” the furniture production. “…she was extremely important in creating that network and supporting the production and all the detailing,” she has been quoted as saying.
However, despite being an important figure of the Chandigarh Project, Eulie, who became a fellow of the Indian Institute of Architects and the Royal Institute of British Architects (the first Indian woman to be elected), isn’t celebrated even nationally. “A bohemian and an unconventional personality, Chowdhury lived life on her own terms. She smoked, drank and had a bold lifestyle… She made a great contribution to the landscape of modernity in Chandigarh. She deserves an immense acknowledgement, missing so far in history,” writes Madhavi, who hadn’t heard of Eulie until she started working on the book.
For Vikramaditya Prakash, who is Professor of Architecture at the University of Washington in Seattle and son of Aditya Prakash from the Chandigarh Project’s original team of Indian architects, Eulie’s story is much more than that of a professional woman working in a male-dominated culture much ahead of her time. “Her story is really that of a feisty, multi-dimensional woman, who took life by the horns, and made something special out of it without fuss or grandstanding,” says Vikramaditya, who is working on a book on Eulie, to be released next year.
As hordes of young women come out of the Polytechnic College every evening, they wouldn’t perhaps care to give a thought to the woman who designed the institute. But how does it matter? The trailblazer had shaped the cityscape for all times to come.
Chandigarh’s cultural star
It wasn’t just the architectural landscape of Chandigarh that Eulie Chowdhury shaped, her contribution to the city’s cultural firmament was equally important. Lawyer Mac Sarin, who knew her well, says she was a Francophile and was instrumental in establishing the Alliance Francaise in Chandigarh in 1983. She became its first president, but resigned after a year because she felt her job was done. “She was active in dramatics and set up the Chandigarh Amateur Dramatics Club, which performed Agatha Christie’s ‘Murder on the Nile’ at Tagore Theatre, which I acted in, too. Eulie was an advocate of voluntary euthanasia, which wasn’t allowed, and during her last days, she refused to take life support.”
