The Union Government may soon grant approval to fund a Rs 20.02-crore digital museum proposed at the Le Corbusier Centre in Sector 19-B here, paving the way for India’s first dedicated digital architectural museum on the legacy of the city’s chief architect.
Speaking to The Tribune, Punjab Governor and UT Administrator Gulab Chand Kataria said he had taken up the project with Union Culture and Tourism Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and was assured of affirmative action. Once cleared, work on the project would be completed within a year, said the Governor, describing the museum as a landmark initiative that would strengthen Chandigarh’s UNESCO heritage status while opening a new chapter in the city’s tourism and cultural profile.
Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret) was appointed chief architect of Chandigarh in 1951 after the original plan by Polish architect Matthew Nowicki and American planner Albert Mayer was shelved following Nowicki’s death. Le Corbusier redrew the city’s Master Plan based on the concept of the human body, with the Capitol Complex as its head, the City Centre as the heart and the Leisure Valley as its lungs. He designed the iconic Capitol Complex buildings — the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the Secretariat and the Vidhan Sabha — besides envisioning the sector-based grid layout that defines the UT.
The Capitol Complex was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016 as part of “The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier”, and the Le Corbusier Centre, where the digital museum is now proposed, was set up to document and showcase this legacy through his original drawings, furniture and archival material. It is this legacy that the proposed museum seeks to reinterpret through immersive digital technology for a new generation of visitors.
UT Culture and Tourism Secretary Dr Syed Abid Rasheed Shah said the museum was proposed under the Union Tourism Ministry’s Swadesh Darshan 2.0 scheme. It would come up on 478.72 sq metres of land at the Le Corbusier Centre, with the Society for Tourism & Entertainment Promotion in Chandigarh (STEPS) as the implementing agency. He said the project was aimed at establishing India’s premier digital architectural museum, celebrating Le Corbusier’s legacy.
According to Dr Abid, the museum will house seven galleries — Early Life, Architectural Journey, Gaming Zone, Contribution to Chandigarh, Miniature Gallery, Contribution to the World and a Digital Sketch Pad activity gallery modelled on Le Corbusier’s own sketching practice. Besides, it will have a library, workshop and conference room, souvenir shop and ticketing-cum-reception area. The visitor journey has been designed as arrival-ticketing-orientation through the seven galleries to the library, workshop and souvenir shop before exit, with an average visit expected to last two to two-and-a-half hours.
Among the key technologies proposed were AR and VR, interactive screens and touch tables, and holograms with projection mapping, officials said. The project also factors in universal accessibility, including barrier-free entrances, wheelchair-friendly seating, QR-based multilingual interpretation and audio guides.