Inauguration of Architect Pierre Jeanneret Museum

Chandigarh, March 22^nd, 2017: On the 121^st Birth Anniversary of Architect Le Corbusier’s cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, H.E Sh. V.P Singh Badnore, Governor Punjab and Administrator, U.T Chandigarh inaugurated the Pierre Jeanneret museum today along with Sh. Parimal Rai, IAS, Adviser to the Administrator, Sh. Maninder Singh, IAS, Chairman, Chandigarh Housing Board, Sh. Jitender Yadav, IAS, Director Tourism, Sh. Kapil Setia, Chief Architect, Sh. Mukesh Anand, Chief Engineer, Sh. S.D Sharma, Senior most architect, Smt. Sumit Kaur, Former Chief Architect and other senior officials of the Chandigarh Administration.

      The museum is dedicated to the contribution of Jeanneret to Chandigarh that has been set up on the ground floor of the house whereas the three bedrooms on the first floor are proposed to be made into guest rooms for researchers and architects. The museum has sections dedicated to his residential, education and furniture design besides personal images, correspondence etc. There is ample text with vintage images to make the visitor understand the finer nuances of Jeanneret’s buildings and the challenges he faced to create these works of great functional and aesthetic merit.

      The row of type 4 J houses was designed by Jeanneret and he lived in the corner house number 57, in sector 5 for almost 11 years. After he left, the house was allotted to senior officials of the Administration and High Court. The frequent additions and alterations in the house had almost destroyed the original fabric and concept of the house. Around five years back the then Chief Architect objected to this stating that at least this house should be retained as a tribute to Jeanneret.  Since then the house had been lying vacant, a decision was taken by the Chandigarh Administration to start the restoration of the house under the supervision of Ar. Deepika Gandhi, Director, Le Corbusier Centre and Chandigarh Architecture Museum. The restoration of the house to its original glory is a great achievement for the city of Chandigarh as a meaningful step towards protecting our unique legacy. The entire exercise can now be taken as a prototype for managing our residential building stock which is fast deteriorating.

Addressing the gathering of eminent personalities from the city and the students of Institute of Hotel Management, Dadar and Nagar Haveli, Sh. V.P Singh Badnore, Governor Punjab and Administrator, U.T Chandigarh expressed his happiness over the inauguration of the museum and said “Pierre Jeanneret, Le Corbusier’s cousin has contributed to the urban morphology and architectural character of Chandigarh as deeply and widely as Le Corbusier who created the master plan for the city”.  He further added that since Pierre Jeanneret stayed here in this house this adds personal effect to the museum.

  Sh. V.P Singh Badnore, Governor Punjab and Administrator, U.T Chandigarh, said, “Pierre Jeanneret successfully bore the herculean responsibility of coordinating and managing the completion of works of Corbusier most notably the Capitol Complex, whose basic drawings came from Paris while Jeanneret worked out an astounding amount of building details and oversaw the day to day construction work.  As a prolific designer, he evolved a unique vocabulary for most of the government housing stock, several civic buildings, schools, hostels, and university buildings and some private residences within the constraints of money and technology available.”

The famous buildings in Chandigarh of Pierre Jeanneret are the Le Corbusier Centre, Primary Schools and colleges, the Chief Minister’s house, MLA hostels etc.  In Punjab University he designed the Gandhi Bhawan, Library and Administration Building, Hostels for Boys and Girls etc.