Archive for the 'Design' Category

The monk who makes a living out of fashion

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on February 16, 2010
in Design, Faith and Fashion
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Sarah Jacob in The Economic Times:

Swami Pranavananda Brahmendra Avadhuta is not exactly a name that you would expect on the attendance rolls of a fashion trade show. But then swamiji—as he is known—hates predictable patterns in life as much as in his fabrics.

Christian Fabre became Swami Pranavananda after the ups and downs of his business life landed him in the lap of vedanta. But instead of withdrawing to himself, the French man decided to apply the new wisdom of share-and-care in his business, spotting the potential of organised retail in India as early as 2006.

Today, his Christian Fabre Textiles Pvt Ltd caters to around 20 global brands, including Lee Cooper to Oxbow, and stands out in India’s fabric firmament with 25-30% annual growth. The Chennai-based garment buying house acts as a facilitator between these brands and local manufacturers, with a finger across the value chain, from design to manufacturing. More:

The Afghan leader’s hat

Published
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on January 27, 2010
in Af-Pak, Afghanistan, Culture, Design, Fashion, Leaders and Politics
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From the New York Times:

Known as a karakul hat, and made of the pelt of fetal or newborn lambs of the karakul breed of sheep, traditionally it was something worn by Tajiks and Uzbeks from northern Afghanistan. When Mr. Karzai, a Pashtun from the turban-wearing south, took office in 2002, the karakul hat was part of his attempt to devise a wardrobe that was Afghan rather than ethnic or regional.

It was a move widely praised at the time, in Afghanistan and abroad. The American designer Tom Ford called the Afghan president “the chicest man on the planet.” Afghans looking for national symbols after decades of ethnic strife inspired a brisk trade in the hats, made of lambskins from Mazar-i-Sharif in the north and fashioned by Kabul’s hatters, whose shops lined both sides of Shah-e-do Shamshera Wali Road.

Now, a tainted presidential election later, and with efforts to make a truly multiethnic government foundering, the sheen is off the shimmery fur headwear.

Young men no longer wear it; Mr. Karzai’s opponent in the aborted election runoff, Abdullah Abdullah, a northerner, preferred a hatless suit-and-tie ensemble. All but 12 of the hatters shops have closed on Shamshera Road, also famous for its shrine covered in pigeons. Those remaining say they are lucky to sell a hat a day. More:

Grains of truth

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on December 18, 2009
in Design, Food and India
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It feeds the world, provides a livelihood for 50 million Indian families, comes in an amazing variety of forms, is the ideal accompaniment for spicy food, and even the bags it is packed in are satisfyingly practical. Denise Roig rhapsodises about the humble staple, rice. In the National:

Rice bag / The National

Rice bag / The National

A smiling Mogul emperor. A bucolic scene of distant mountains and placid lakes. A Bengal tiger. The Taj Mahal. Strolling down the rice aisle at LuLu or Carrefour you can catch a glimpse of images lovely enough to frame. That these sweet illustrations appear on packaging for that most prosaic of staples – rice – only adds to their charm. The cotton bags in which rice is sold here are made beautiful with these vibrant illustrations but they are immensely practical too – a perfect illustration of form and function.

They are made from closely woven cotton, with a zippered opening, which keeps out insects and dust. They are sturdily sewn with strong handles, making them easy to carry (you often see them used as shopping bags or slung over the saddle of a bicycle as an impromptu pannier). The bags can be stacked – whether in 2kg family size or 40kg restaurant size – making them easy to store in homes where storage is scarce. In a throwaway world, they are almost infinitely reusable and can be used to store not only rice but other dried grains, beans and pulses. More:

Style over subdivision

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on October 22, 2009
in Design
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In the Washington Post, a story on Virginia designer Raji Radhakrishnan:

raji_radhakrishnanRadhakrishnan, a 37-year-old designer, has remade the standard open-plan living area into something more modern. She has added architectural heft with thick plaster moldings, steel brackets plus upgraded hardware and fixtures in the bathrooms and kitchen.

She dumped the standard tile fireplace surround for one she created of perforated steel and added a faux finish to the plain wood mantel.

In the master bedroom, Radhakrishnan turned a photo she snapped at Versailles into a giant sepia mural that serves as a headboard. It picks up on a passion of her husband’s: Murali Narasimhan, a 40-year-old software entrepreneur, is a collector of first-edition books. “It has an old-world feel, sort of like a library,” he says.

Radhakrishnan’s life in design and arts unfolded dramatically. Born in southern India, she traveled as a young girl while performing classical Indian dance. Her father’s Indian foreign-service job took the family abroad. More:

How many troops has each country sent to Afghanistan?

Published
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on October 16, 2009
in Art, Design and Media
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From www.informationisbeautiful.net

afghanistan_troops

Worried about swine flu?

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on October 16, 2009
in Art, Design and Media
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This brilliant chart gives the case fatality rates for well-known diseases. From Information Is Beautiful:

disease_fatalities

My Architect — A Son’s Journey

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on October 16, 2009
in Bangladesh and Design
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“Jatiyo Sangsad Bhaban” -- Parliamentary Building of Bangladeh or the National Assembly Building of Bangladesh, located in the capital Dhaka. The complex was created by architect Louis I. Kahn and is one of the largest legislative complexes in the world. The video clip is from the academy award nominee Documentary “My Architect — A Son’s Journey”.

Design Diary

Published
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on September 28, 2009
in Art and Design
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Aditya Dev Sood at 3quarksdaily:

I later talked with Ravi Naidoo, South African design curator of the Design Indaba Festival in Cape Town, about the state of design in his country. While it was clear that design was changing how people around the world perceived South Africa, was design doing anything to change how people actually lived in Africa? What stories could he share with me of designers showing people a better way of living? Naidoo tells me that design is about enthusiasm, and that that is the reigning zeitgeist of South Africa today. From that enthusiasm will come change. Abreu’s pan-African imagery, Nkosi’s contemporary African chic, these had never been possible before, and together with Nathan Reddy’s on-going rebranding of the country design was going to transform the country as an inclusive, multicultural creative society. Images and surfaces are important, because they can transform perceptions and lead to a better way of living.

Naidoo described how the South African economy had grown once the political poison of apartheid was removed in the mid-nineties. He compared that with India’s own growth since liberalization in 1991, and suggested that growth in the design industries was directly linked with the growth in the market as a whole. I found his theory pretty sound, and offered him one better: South Africa and India both represented countries experiencing informationalization under conditions of limited or partial industrialization. And for that reason, the disciplines of design that have flourished in both countries up until now have had more to do with the shaping of images, ideas and perhaps retail experiences than with the design and manufacture of things, they way they might do in places like Italy and China. More:

Air India’s smile high club

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on July 16, 2009
in Design
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Forget the bottomline and upaid salaries for the moment.  Forget also the dowdy sarkari image. India’s national air carrier, Air India has picked up a Silver  Outdoor Lion at Cannes for its tongue-in-cheek ads on the benefits of international travel (Bangalore-Dubai and Mumbai-New York). The campaign was developed by DDB Mudra (Bangalore) by chief creative officer Bobby Pawar. Clearly, a lot can happen during an international flight. Someone up there still has a sense of humour.

Bangalore-Dubai

Bangalore-Dubai

 

Mumbai-New York

Mumbai-New York

Another reason to be gay

Published
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on July 11, 2009
in Design, Heritage and India
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gaiety-theatre3

A cultural hub during the British Raj era, it’s curtains up once again at Shimla’s Gaeity Theatre, writes Chander Suta Dogra in Outlook

Way in May 1887, in the heyday of the Raj, Shimla’s Gaiety Theatre opened with the play Time Will Tell. Who would have known then what time really had in store for this splendid building which became a prime hub of cultural and social activity. Twenty-five years after it was built, Gaiety Theatre, nestling on the Mall below Shimla’s cedar-rimmed ridge, had become a crumbling edifice, and was destined for demolition. Its two top floors were lopped off as it struggled to retain some semblance of its former glory. But last week, a new act opened at Gaiety-one with a happy ending-with the completion of an ambitious and painstaking restoration project.

The restoration, which took five years, is the result of a rare mix of private effort and government support. It all began in the early ’80s, though, when Jennifer Kendal Kapoor, who had performed several times at the Gaiety along with her parents’ travelling theatre company, Shakespeariana, first took interest in its restoration. INTACH was roped in and Ved Segan, the Mumbai architect who built the new Prithvi Theatre, was sent to have a look. “It took us a good 15 years to decide whether something the British had condemned for demolition should be restored at all. But we have done it, and now it is up to those who run it to ensure it’s used for the purpose for which it has been restored,” Segan told Outlook. “Even though Jennifer is not alive to see it today, I am satisfied that I have kept my word to her,” he added. Jennifer and Shashi Kapoor’s daughter Sanjana visited the theatre after it was thrown open to the public in Shimla last week, and expressed keenness to develop an association between Prithvi and Gaiety. “The last time Laura and Jeffery Kendal (Jennifer’s parents) performed here was in 1984, and though I was a child, I remember managing the backstage and sound for them. I have an emotional bond with this place and would like to link the two institutions by holding summer workshops for children here,” she said. more

A monumental mistake

Published
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on July 4, 2009
in Design and India
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Instead of building meaningless bronze and stone statues of herself and other Dalit leaders, Mayawati could have made the leap in imagination to commission a world-class memorial that could have put Lucknow on the world map, writes Amrit Dhillon in the Times of India.

mayawatistatue_lucknow248Standing beside the dirty Gomti river in Lucknow, looking at the structures Mayawati on its bank in her quest for immortality, is enough to make you weep. Not over the hubris behind the self-aggrandisement. Nor over the idea of building memorials to honour Dalit leaders such as B R Ambedkar and Kanshi Ram. Nor even the colossal cost or the efforts of an army of poor workers labouring under a pitiless sun.

It is the way she has squandered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. With acres of land and billions of rupees at her disposal, this was Mayawati’s chance to go down in history as the woman who gave birth to a piece of architecture rivalling anything that has come up in the past 60 years. It was a chance to be bold and daring, to create something beautiful and unique. A chance to hold a nationwide competition of architects and order them to let their imaginations soar. The competition would have animated Lucknow residents. A lively debate would have ensued on what they desired for themselves and future generations. What did they want in the city? A stadium, a museum, a university, a hospital, a park or a monument?

more

Costuming the First Lady

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on June 6, 2009
in Design
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Pieter Erasmus, the New Delhi-based jewellery designer, has a new presidential fan. Melissa A. Bell in Mint Lounge:

At a London jewellery trade show last fall, a fast-rising star in the fashion industry purchased Pieter Erasmus’ spring line of intricately designed, crocheted and jewelled necklaces. The client, Ikram Goldman, a Chicago boutique owner, happens to have her own famous client: Michelle Obama. American newspapers credit Goldman as being Obama’s “closest fashion adviser”.

After Goldman placed her order, Erasmus joked to his friends, “Imagine if Michelle ever bought something!” They all laughed, he recalls.

But on 9 May, he got an email from a good friend, South African fashion journalist Emma Jordan. “You have to watch this!” she wrote, sending him a link to a YouTube video of the First Lady at the highly visible annual White House Correspondents Association Dinner. Obama smiled in a bright magenta Michael Kors dress paired with an elaborate bejewelled necklace: Erasmus’ own design. More:

A British classic, but it’s new (and it’s made in India)

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on May 17, 2009
in Design
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The Royal Enfield Bullet Classic C5 is all new, despite its vintage look.

The Royal Enfield Bullet Classic C5 is all new, despite its vintage look.

From the New York Times:

Chennai: Amid all the recent buzz over vehicles coming out of India, here is one model you may have missed: the Royal Enfield Bullet Classic C5.

In some circles, this introduction is bigger news than the debut of the Tata Nano; if the past is any guide, the next all-new Royal Enfield Bullet won’t arrive for another half-century. While a list of motorcycle brands predating Royal Enfield is short – Harley-Davidson, Triumph and a handful of others qualify – the tally of bike models that have lasted 54 years is pretty much limited to the Royal Enfield Bullet.

The Bullet Classic C5 (not to be confused with the Bullet Classic, a much older design, or the Bullet Classic G5, a model that uses the newest engine in an older chassis) went on sale in Europe late last year. The first production bikes destined for the United States began rolling off the assembly line here at the Thiruvottiyur factory, where Bullets have been made for more than 50 years, in mid-February and are expected in showrooms next month. More:

The ZooZoos

Published
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on May 1, 2009
in Art, Cricket, Design and Innovation
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It’s a series of TV commercials — the best we’ve seen in a long time. O&M created these ads for Vodafone to coincide with the Indian Premier League’s (IPL) Twenty20 cricket matches. These cute little creatures even have a fan following.

From Mint: “There’s also the curiosity factor piquing viewers who wonder, who are the Zoozoos really? Are they alien?” says Prasanth Mohanachandran, executive director (digital) at OgilvyOne Worldwide. On the Zoozoos Facebook page, people can view new commercials, download images and wallpapers, and participate in a “What kind of Zoozoo are you?” contest. In the pipeline are a spot, titled “A day in the life of Zoozoo” on Twitter, and merchandise such as key-chains, mugs, T-shirts, and mobile phone stands. More:

ps: “whoa! words fail. pure *&%#ing brilliance,” read a comment with one of the stories on the ad campaign. And by the way, they are real people in costume. You can see the ads on YouTube.

The fantasy of orientalism in Madras’s architecture

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on April 26, 2009
in Design and Heritage
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Malavika Karlekar in The Telegraph, Calcutta:

Around the same time, the sea wall around the heavily guarded Fort St George at Madras was built. Its construction, as well as that of the sewers in the Black Town, required knowledge of local conditions and materials – an expertise that was easily available with Indians enlisted for the job. A port city till well into the 19th century, Madras consisted of the walled Black Town of “native” settlements. To its south was the Fort and beyond stood Chepauk Palace, home to the Nawabs of Carnatic. They patronized a Muslim courtly culture and had well-known Sufi scholar-mystics as guests. While there were some feeble attempts at bringing about an interface between cultures through, for instance the Cosmopolitan Club, Jayewardene-Pillai argues that it was the dynamism of the governor, Francis Napier, that led to “a peculiar and unexpected hybrid imperial architectural style”. And Robert Chisholm was the man chosen to design and implement the construction of many of these buildings. In the 1860s, the government of Madras launched a competition for the best plans for Presidency College and the Senate House of the university and 17 proposals were received; the judges decided on the designs of Robert Chisholm, an executive engineer in Bengal’s public works’ department. More:

India seeks rupee status symbol

Published
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on April 20, 2009
in Design and Economy
. 1 Comment

India is looking to design a symbol to represent its currency, the rupee. Any suggestions? From BBC:

currenciesIt has billionaires and big ambitions. Now India wants something that no global economic powerhouse should be without: an international symbol for its currency.

The hope is that the rupee sign will become as ubiquitous as the US dollar ($), or that instant emblem of the digital age, the @ symbol.

But how easy is it to launch a symbol on the international stage and land a coveted place on keyboards the world over?

It doesn’t happen very often. One of the most recent symbols to make the leap, the € for euro, had a long and difficult birth.

Before that, in 1971, the @ symbol was assigned an important international role, as the critical connector in e-mail addresses.

A 30-year-old computer programmer named Ray Tomlinson, looking for coding to send the first ever e-mail, surveyed the keyboard on his Model-33 Teletype and chose @ – which is apparently centuries old and has served various different functions – because it was unlikely to appear in a person’s name.

More:

India’s $10 laptop a load of…

Published
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on February 4, 2009
in Design, Education, India, Innovation and Technology
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A few days ago a top Indian official proudly announced that the government would unveil a $10 educational laptop that will have 2GB of RAM, Wi-Fi, expandable hardware, and operate on just two watts of power. This, they added. would be India’s answer to Nicholas Negroponte’s $100 laptop. The promised “laptop” was to be unveiled in the temple town of Tirupathi on Tuesday, February 3. [Read that story here]

This photo of the "laptop" was projected on a screen. (Courtesy The Hindu)

This photo of the "laptop" was projected on a screen. (Courtesy The Hindu)

Now read the rest of the story:

The Times of India has called it a damp squib:

The much-touted laptop for the masses said to have been built by students of Vellore Institute of Technology that would cost a mere Rs 500 actually turned out to be only a computing device.

Fox News said it’s “as nearly useless brick“:

When is a laptop not a laptop? When it’s introduced by Indian education officials, apparently. The buzz and hype surrounding the Indian Education Ministry’s breathless announcement last week that it would be unveiling a $10 laptop aimed at the poor fizzled out like a wet firecracker Tuesday evening when officials finally debuted the device.

PC World said “it sounds like a bad joke“:

The rest of the laptop remains a mystery, however. Key tech specs such screen size, processor, storage, and battery life weren’t released, and we’ve yet to see an official photo of the vaporous hardware.

And Fast Company has reasons why “it is a load of hype“:

And by touting it as “the world’s cheapest laptop,” the Indian media stirred up a megaton of fuss. Is it even possible that “laptop” was an inappropriately misleading piece of translation?

The Hindu story was headlined “Ultra-low-cost access device introduced”:

The Ministry of Human Resource Development unveiled here on Tuesday what has been tagged as an “ultra low-cost” computing-cum-access device that can “make wonders” in the dissemination of education to the remotest corners of India.

Asian Window wonders who caused the hype, and why.

Indians on design revival quest

Published
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on September 9, 2008
in Design
. 1 Comment

Six Indians are on a design revival quest currently being showcased in Paris, reports AFP [via The Smart Set]

Six young Indian designers on a common quest to marry ancestral tradition with contemporary design are being showcased at Europe’s biggest home fair in Paris this week.

Chosen “to honor the flourishing creativity of India”, as the Maison and Objet trade fair put it, the designers from different parts of India said helping communities maintain crafts in today’s economic context too was key to their work.

Ayush Kasliwal from Jaipur, for instance, recounted in an interview how he had helped villagers — in Sultana, northern Rajasthan — who during centuries had made wire bird-cages, to survive and find new markets.

more

India plans its own colossus

Published
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on June 4, 2008
in Design and Leaders
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Mike Nizza in The Lede on the Maharashtra government’s grand plan to build a huge statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji (1674-1680) at an estimated cost of $4.5 million. When complete, it will be taller than the Statue of Liberty.

When a proposal emerged to build an immense statue on an island off the coast of one of India’s largest cities, there was no point in denying a nod to New York: “It is true that the Statue of Liberty was perhaps an inspiration a little bit,” one official told Reuters.

While the technical specifications differ just a little — the new statue is to be clad in bronze, not copper, and to rise about 4 feet higher — there are big differences in theme and posture.

Lady Liberty welcomes the tired, poor and huddled masses, but the new statue off Mumbai will feature Chhatrapati Shivaji, a 17th-century warrior king who has lately been embraced by nativist parties who oppose immigration. And where Liberty stands on her own feet, Shivaji will be depicted riding a horse, the International Business Times reports.

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The world’s costliest home? Mukesh Ambani’s Mumbai skyscraper

Published
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on May 2, 2008
in Business and Design
. 3 Comments

Mukesh Ambani’s 27-storey, $2 billion, vaastu-compliant skyscraper, Antilla in downtown Mumbai, when completed, will be the world’s costliest residence. Matt Woolsey has the story in Forbes.

While visiting New York in 2005, Nita Ambani was in the spa at the Mandarin Oriental New York, overlooking Central Park. The contemporary Asian interiors struck her just so, and prompted her to inquire about the designer.

Nita Ambani was no ordinary tourist. She is married to Mukesh Ambani, head of Mumbai-based petrochemical giant Reliance Industries, and the fifth richest man in the world. ( Lakshmi Mittal, ranked fourth, is an Indian citizen, but a resident of the U.K.)

more

Take a tour of the world’s costliest home in pictures here.

Beyond Bawa: Modern masterpieces of Monsoon Asia

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on March 26, 2008
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In Spectator, Christopher Ondaatje reviews David Robson’s book on Sri Lankan born architect Geoffrey Bawa (with photographs by Richard Powers, Thames & Hudson, 224pp, £39.95)

bawa.jpg

Although there have been many architectural books featuring the works of Geoffrey Bawa, the Sri Lankan born architect, most notably a first monograph authored by David Robson a year before Bawa died in 2003, a second book, Beyond Bawa, also by Robson, is a biographical and artistic revelation. What is surprising and different about this new edition is that it reveals an extraordinary biographical account of the talented younger son of a wealthy Moslem lawyer and his Dutch burgher wife; and also illustrates the legacy of perhaps one of the most influential architects in south Asia in the 20th century, by discussing how his inspiration has continued in a number of younger architects who worked with Bawa in his practice and who have continued his creative force today known globally as ‘tropical modernism’. Examples of his genius can be found in Sri Lanka, Singapore and Bali, as well as in resorts and residences throughout Asia.

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Oops, we did it again

Published
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on March 15, 2008
in Design and Fashion
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wardrobe_malfunction.jpgAnother wardrobe malfuntion at the ongoing Wills Lifestyle Fashion Week in Delhi. This time it’s Belgian model Debbie during a showing of designer Rajesh Pratap’s Fall-Winter collection.

Meanwhile, AFP has a report on the Asian influence on the show:

Models clad in kimono-inspired dresses and sarong skirts influenced by the Orient strut down the ramp at India’s premier fashion event in New Delhi.

It’s all about making a break from the West, says one of the maestros of Indian fashion at the country’s biggest style show, which began on Wednesday here in the national capital.

more

The state of Indian design

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on March 7, 2008
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India’s advertising industry is soaring, and a graphic design community is emerging. The country’s most exciting creative talents talk about what the future might hold. Eliza Williams in BusinessWeek:

fevicol.jpg

(A poster from Ogilvy India’s ongoing campaign for Fevicol glue.)

For a designer or advertising creative, India is a pretty exciting place to be right now. Rapid commercial growth has prompted an unprecedented client demand for design and advertising skills, while those creating the work find themselves in the exhilarating position of being able to shape and redefine India’s new identity, both within the country and internationally. All this change has occurred rapidly, however, at a pace that is perhaps too fast for an industry, in graphic design at least, that is still finding its feet. Design is still often misunderstood as a profession, and with a dearth of decent design schools in the country, graduates are finding that they often receive their real education on the job, a position that stretches already overloaded designers even thinner. The bounteous amount of work has also led the lines between advertising and design to blur, with ad agencies, which are far more established and recognised within the country, tackling aspects of assignments more traditionally found within the design domain. And, of course, overseas networks and companies are also edging in, keen to pick up a slice of the action.

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Body politic

Published
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on March 5, 2008
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Sri Lankan Kali Arulpragasam uses her dramatic jewellery to make political as well as personal statements.

jewelry1.jpg

jewelry3.jpg jewelry4.jpg

Images from her studio Super Fertile website:

Story in TIME:

Once upon a time in the East

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on March 1, 2008
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In Mint Lounge, Sumana Mukherjee visits the the creative hub of Virgin Comics in Bangalore to see how young Indian designers are redefining superheroes:

popart.jpg

In the eighth year of the new millennium, in a tall and forbidding white tower on Haudin Road, Jeevan J. Kang bends over his artwork with the diligence of an ascetic. In a corner niche of the great hall, with nothing before him but a blank white wall, Ram takes shape in 2B pencil, piercing eyes and muscled forearms, speed and strength seemingly evident in every gesture.

“That’s the thing: You imagine the studio like a Mario Miranda cartoon, with people and speech bubbles. But artists work in isolation,” Kang says. The star illustrator of Virgin Comics’ Bangalore studio has torn himself away from the gestating issue of Ramayan 3392 AD for a freewheeling chat on heroes and hero worship.

Spinning out of the heads of artists such as Kang is the defining look of the day’s superheroes: Devi, Snakewoman, Gamekeeper. Virgin Comics-the brainchild of spiritual guru Deepak Chopra, film director Shekhar Kapur and maverick billionaire Richard Branson-has taken the lead in introducing the stuff of Indian legends-as opposed to Chinese, Japanese and Korean myths-to an international audience, with high production values and cutting-edge artwork.

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Only in China

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on February 28, 2008
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Bangalore will have a new international airport in March. Delhi will have one in time for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Till then, take a look at Beijing Airport’s Terminal 3, designed by British Architect Lord Foster. The new terminal, said to be a modern representation of both the Chinese dragon and the Forbidden City, is 2.9 km (1.8 miles) from end to end and took just four years to build. It’s bigger than all Heathrow’s five terminals put together.

beijingterminal.jpg

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More in The Telegraph, UK:

Does Chandigarh deserve World Heritage status?

Published
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on February 6, 2008
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Jonathan Glancey in The Guardian.

chandigarh.jpg

Le Corbusier had long dreamed of building an ideal city. In the early 1920s, this most inventive and controversial of all 20th-century architects even suggested demolishing half of Paris to build a city of modern towers, set in an urban parkland.

As fate, and Indian independence, would have it, the Swiss-French genius eventually got his chance – on the blisteringly hot plains of the Punjab. Today, the city he built there – Chandigarh, 250km north of Delhi – is one of the world’s most distinctive and beguiling places. It is a city set around a vast artificial lake, composed of abstract 1950s civic buildings and public monuments that look like Picasso paintings made concrete. Based on a super-rational, Modern movement grid, it is European in spirit, yet owes nothing to the Raj. It has parks, bird-life, flowers and sweet-smelling roses in abundance. Chandigarh is as intriguing as it is unlikely: a Corbusian dream realised far, far from Paris.

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