Chandigarh - referred to locally as The City Beautiful

I was not excited about my scheduled business trip to Delhi (a noisy, dirty and chaotic city) last month but then I remembered this Le Corbusier planned city project from the 1950s was a 3 hour train ride to the north, it exceeded my expectations.

There are several train stations in Delhi, use the one closest to your hotel and buy a 1st Class seat. My train experience was quite good.

Le Corbusier basically never had any higher education and no formal training as an architect, he was first an artist. Chandigarh was a planned city with tree-lined boulevards and Modernist / Minimalist style architecture.

There were excellent examples of raw concrete (Beton Brut [the origin of the buzzword brutalist]) building architecture at the fabulous Architecture and City Art Museum, the Capitol Complex and the Le Corbusier Centre.

I have visited over 10 major cities in India, this was without question the nicest with a cool local art scene and lots of building designs that were influenced by the French, Swiss, British and American architects working there in the 1950-60s.

The Nek Chand Rock Gardens was also fascinating but go early, as it was quite crowded later in the day.

Uber works quite well there and I stayed on the outskirts at the fairly new Radisson Red. There are some excellent restaurants and breweries around town.

When India was partitioned in 1947, half of the Punjab region became Pakistan and the former capital (Lahore) was lost, Chandigarh was built to replace it.

I was also able to catch a direct flight to Dubai from the modern Chandigarh airport.

I've traveled several times in the area & wish I'd know what an interesting place Chandigarh is. Thanks for your report

Thanks for your TR.
Chandigarh now has a modern Int'l A/Port with one flight operating to & from Dubai. It is however, well connected with most of the significant Indian cities. As such it can be used for further connections in the north, east of India or the south. There are several very good hotels including the Taj, Marriott and the Oberois. You can catch the Toy Train from Kalka, some 30 min by road, to Simla or if you wish to go to Dharamsala it is about 5 hours by road.
There are several places of interest for a traveller. The Capitol Complex consists of the Secretariat, Legislative Assembly, the Open Hand monument and the High court. A govt. sponsored walking tour is held in the afternoon and takes you around - 2 hours or so. The sector-17 used to be the prime shopping area but has lost out much to the various malls that have sprung up on the outskirts. The Cultural zone for education includes a museum, Punjab university campus, an Art college and institute of Engineering etc.
Interestingly, there are some 15 graded categories of housing from the top ministerial / administrative levels of Govt to the lowest paid public sector employee! In that sense it still retains the Indian architectural tradition of segregation.
There are several fine eateries in sector 8 where the youngsters go for a bite.
There is an interesting Doll museum too.
One can go to the Sukhna Lake for an evening walk!
All in all a very interesting modern city to stay in for a couple of days.

Glad you had a good visit. Another interesting fact about Chandigarh is it is the capitol for two Indian states - both Punjab and Haryana.

we stayed there for a couple of days years ago. You arranged us a stay at the beautiful Marriott hotel. It was awesome!

Many thanks Jacketwatch. Yes I distinctly remember it.
How is Sumitra? Trust you are both keeping good health.
Very Best!

thank you. We are doing well, thank God. I hope you and your wife and family are very well too!