High Court Chandigarh2

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High CourtChandigarh-sector 1

Completion 1955

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Architect-Le Corbusier


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Capitolcomplex

The Capitol Complex is the focal point if the city, both visually and symbolically .

The three major components of the Capitol are the Assembly (Legislation), theSecretariat (Administration) and the High Court (Judiciary).


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Location

While the linear faade of the

Secretariat marks the edges of

the Complex on the left side,

the Assembly and the HighCourt are placed on the

opposite ends of the Cross

axis, facing each other across a

450 mtrs.


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Project Brief

The program of the high court building specified provision for eight law courts and a high

court, together with necessary office space of many Administrative Branches such as

Registrar's Office, Establishment Branch, Gazette Branch and Copying Branch etc. TheOffices of Advocate-Generals of Punjab and Haryana


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Project

In plan the building took the form of an

abbreviated L-shape with the long

facade facing the capitol plaza to contain

the courtrooms and the small rear

extension to accommodate offices.

The building has a rectilinear frame with

eight nos. courtrooms located on the

main faade, separated from the larger

Chief Justice Court by a monumental,

pillared entrance, extending to the full

height of the entrance.

The small Courts are 8x8x12 meters. The

dimensions of the over all design were

governed by the Modular combined

with triangular regulating lines.


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ProjectPARASOL ROOF

FORMING ARCHES

DOUBLE ROOF

GAP LEFT BETWEEN

TWO ROOFS

FULL HT ENTRANCE

REAR VIEW

DOUBLE ROOF

[APPROACHED THROUGH ROADS]

ENTRANCE THROUGH THE PIAZZA


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Project

. The three vertical piers,rising 60 feet from the floor and

painted in bright colours form the grand entrance to the

building


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Project

ROUGH CONCRETE

FINISHED RAMP


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Project


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Project


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Project


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Concept

Early sketches for the building show a multiplicity of arch forms on the

facades, with the main courtroom floor raised above ground level on pilots

and approached by a ramp.

In the final version, however, the building rises directly from the earth, the

main facade defined by a fullheight concrete brise-soleil and the arch forms

restricted to the underside of the arasol roof.


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Concepts

In the general plane of the building, which includes the development has the

shade from the sun of the bureaus and of course, the modular has made the unit in

all places textured.-Translated from French.

As Le Corbusier developed the design for the high court, it evolved toward an expression

increasingly massive, plastic, and abstract. The perhaps excessive horizontality of earlierschemes was countered by an increase in vertical dimension, while what were originally

narrow columns in the main entrance hall became three massive flattened piers leading

inward.


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It is the visual drama of these piers rising sixty feet from the ground to meet the

heavy outward thrust of the roof which creates the focal emphasis of the present

plan. What in early drawings was expressed as a lightly framed pavilion,

horizontal in dimension, has become a vertically expanding space in which the

void is defined and dramatized by strongly assertive sculptural elements. Within

the simple and rather static outer frame, the building embodies a constantlyactive balance of tensions

Concepts


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Concepts

An effort to shade the entire structure has

resulted in the use of a double roof, the

upper roof cantilevered out over the office

block in the manner of a parasol shading the

lower roof and also providing a trough from

which monsoon rain water spills through

heavy spouts at either end, falling sixty feet

to channels connected with the reflecting

pools.

The space between the two roofs is leftopen to enable currents of air to move

between the flat roof of the office block and

the underside of the parasol roof which

slopes toward the center in the form of a

row of arches.


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Plans


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Sections


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Claustraus

On the main facade the deep (4 ft. 7 in.), fixed concrete brise-soleil

gives a strong and scale less pattern to the building, and only human

beings and the unobtrusive courtroom doors can be used as visual keys

for reading the dimensions of the surface.

Commented the architect, "here the brise-soleils take the place of the

weather-drips on a classical facade, but they cover not only the

windows but the entire facade, and influence the whole structure.


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It is the concrete screen which gives the main facade its overall unity, so that it is perceived notas an assemblage of floor levels and courtroom chambers, but as a single entity of plastically

interwoven elements, in which the horizontal ground line, repeated in the two roof levels, is

countered buy the powerful upward thrust of the entrance piers and the pillars between the

courtrooms, whose vertical line is echoed in the roof supports.

Claustraus


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Finish

Within sheet metal formwork one can

insert swan planks, cut more or less

according to ones wish.

When the pouring of concrete is

completed recessed moulding appear

in the face of the concrete.

This situation is similar to the

sculptured frescos in Egyptian temples

built some 5000 years ago. It is done so as to bring forth the

surface and volume, the materials,

their place of work, the meaning of

times and also the rigorous schedule of

the job site are also recognized.


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Main Facade

Le Corbusier once described the complex of which the high courtformed a part as "a great architectural venture using very poor

materials and a labor force quite unused to modern building

techniques, with the tremendous obstacle of the sun and the

necessity of satisfying Indian ideas and needs, rather than to impose

Western ethics and aesthetics.


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Main Facade


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TapestriesThe counterbalance of complexities

and the tree as a symbol of

perfection. Air-conditioning ducts

puncture the tapestry

indiscriminately, mutilating motifs.

In the middle, top part, the sky with a starlit night

and a sun. The clouds around open on a blue sky. On

the left, the meander of the rivers that signifies that

its run may sometimes be very long, very agitated,

very unreasonable. It is the meander of complicationsand of complexities.


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Documents

High Court Chandigarh2