Corbusier through models
After touring 19 countries, an exhibition of 150 models of the architect-planner’s works has come to Chandigarh
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A unique exhibition of nearly 150 models of the legendary architect-planner Le Corbusier’s complete works is on display at the Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh. It’s an exhibition of great significance, as Corbusier is considered among the greatest architect-planners of the 20th century, with 17 of his works across seven countries having been accorded the UNESCO heritage tag. Chandigarh is home to some of his best works at the Capitol Complex, comprising the Secretariat, the Assembly and the High Court, besides enigmatic monuments dotting the main plaza.
The exhibition is a unique initiative by Rene Tin, a Singapore-based architect who runs the well-known firm RT+Q. The travelling exhibition has already toured 19 countries, stopping now in Chandigarh for nearly a month. A collaborative initiative of the A3 Foundation run by Sangeet Sharma, along with the Government Museum and Art Gallery, it will be on view till January 31.
The special exhibition — displayed befittingly in the main foyer of the museum building that Corbusier himself designed — is a sort of homecoming. Nearly the entire body of his lifetime’s prodigious work is visible at a glance, manifesting its formidable diversity and scale. The experience of soaking in architecture through the medium of models is far more enriching than the usual photographs and computer-generated perspective views displayed these days. While they do have their advantage as quick and low cost means of presentation, it’s the laborious, gentle and patient art of making models that holds the key to true architectural insights. It’s a medium that reveals conceptualising of ideas, evolving designs and understanding the scale of the building, far more authentically than the deceptive digital images.
No wonder, most architectural exhibitions at iconic venues always showcase models of key works, besides photographs and documents. The MoMA at New York, when it celebrated the 125th birth anniversary of Corbusier in 2013, too, displayed numerous models of his key projects, like the Assembly at Chandigarh, Villa Savoye, Ronchamp chapel and the Unite d’Habitation in France (which PL Varma and PN Thapar saw before selecting Corbusier for the Chandigarh Project) — among many others across the world.
It’s for nothing that the most legendary architects first test their pencil scribbles and think-sketches through study models, adding refinements and details later in an ongoing creative process.
A fascinating tradition that Rene follows is that each new intern is first asked to produce a model of one of Corbusier’s works, thus adding something to the model bank of the office that eventually finds its place in the travelling exhibition.
This tradition made me recall my own initiation in the office of the famous American architect Joseph Allen Stein, who designed some of Delhi’s famous buildings like the India International Centre and Habitat Centre, among many others across the country. I was also asked to spend the first few weeks in the model-making room of the office and not seated in the main studio. Initially, I was disheartened by the ‘discriminatory treatment’, but later realised the immense importance of this immersive process. Rough sketches and doodles from his sheaves of notebooks were given to us with broad dimensions that were to be converted into quick study models. Stein himself would be hovering around impatiently, waiting to see the results of his imaginations — shaping up from pencil scribbles to tangible three-dimensional solids and voids in varied forms, shapes and juxtapositions.
But what explains Rene’s magnificent obsession with Corbusier? It all started quite early, while studying architecture at Yale and Princeton in America. Then, as a young teacher at Syracuse University, he was deeply drawn to Corbusier, influenced by one of his distinguished seniors. Ever since, the impulse to do something unique to disseminate knowledge about the greatness and vastness of Corbusier’s work has turned into a lifelong passion and a mission. Besides personal admiration, there’s another reason for choosing Corbusier’s works for model-making. “With the earlier handmade models, his Purist works of the 1920s were rectilinear in form and therefore easier to make models of; and I have always believed that Corbusier is the most encyclopaedic of 20th century architects, and his works in a variety of forms, shapes, materials and clientele hold great lessons for architects across the world,” he says.
The models were earlier made with handcrafted cardboard but have now been fabricated in plastic with a 3-D printing machine. Each takes about a week of first sketching and then printing.
The travelling exhibition was born in October 2021 in Singapore, when Rene’s office was asked to contribute some models for display at an event hosted by Alliance Francaise and the Singapore Institute of Architects. “We rummaged through the ‘graveyard of models’ in the office store and came up with some for display. They were liked so much that soon we started getting flooded with similar requests from other countries,” he says.
So popular has been this grand ‘open book’ of the master’s repertoire that the exhibition is constantly in demand and on the road travelling from one location to another, with a one- month halt at each station. “While we are happy to share our models for display free of cost, we encounter challenges when it comes to guiding the hosts on transport logistics and managing a schedule that is geographically sensible to avoid zigzag travel,” adds Rene.
On plans to expand the exhibition, Rene says, “The plan is ‘unlimited growth’, much like Corbusier’s infinite museum project called the Mundaneum. But there is an idea to create a book at some point.”
— The writer is former principal, Chandigarh College of Architecture
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