Two Chandigarh heritage items to go under hammer in US today

A set of a desk and a chair from the city will go under the hammer in the US tomorrow. The reserve price of the heritage items, designed by Pierre Jeanneret, a Swiss architect, has been fixed at Rs 2.05 lakh.

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Los Angeles Modern Auctions would conduct the auction in California on May 30, said Ajay Jagga, a member of the Heritage Items Protection Cell of the Chandigarh Administration.

Jagga has requested Dr K Srikar Reddy, Consul General, San Francisco, USA, to stop the auction of the artefacts.

Giving reference of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mantra of ‘Vikas Bhi, Virasat Bhi’, he stated that a set of the desk and chair was being auctioned for a minimum bid of Rs 2,05,021. He said recently, the PM had stated that “Heritage is not only history, rather it is a shared consciousness of humanity. Whenever we look at historical sites, it lifts our mind from the current geo-political factors.” In view of the PM’s statement, he requested Reddy to ask the auction house to suspend the event till the matter was examined by India. “Legal frameworks such as the UNESCO 1970 Convention and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act in the US facilitate the repatriation process,” he added.