Shortly after the separation of India and the liberation from British colonial rule, a new capital for the Punjab is to be built from scratch at the foot of the Himalayas. Lahore, the old capital, had fallen to Pakistan during the partition. In 1951, Indian government representatives commissioned the architect Le Corbusier to work on the ambitious project. With its open spaces, parks and swimming pools, its protected trees, cultural buildings, universities and places of worship, the planned city of Chandigarh, laid out at right angles and completely designed, has an atmosphere all of its own. To this day, it symbolises the new Indian democracy, progress and belief in the future. For Le Corbusier, Chandigarh offered a unique opportunity to realise his urban planning ideas and create a modern city based on the human scale. The result was a controversial synthesis of the arts with light and dark sides.
What has become of Corbusier’s avant-garde vision after 70 years? What significance does it have for our present day? The film “Power of Utopia – Living with Le Corbusier in Chandigarh” by Swiss filmmakers Karin Bucher and Thomas Karrer, according to the announcement, “sheds light on a diverse India from a European perspective and explores the questions: How intertwined is our society really with architecture and what can we learn from Chandigarh today?”. To this end, the film “accompanies people on their journeys through the city and seeks out places and locations that reveal the dazzling interplay of old dreams and new life, utopia and everyday life, decay and quiet poetry”. A contemporary witness recalls the founding period, the director of the Le Corbusier Centre, an artist, an actor and an architect talk “about the risk of settling here and reflect on their lives in and with Chandigarh.” On their forays through Chandigarh, the two filmmakers also meet residents who broaden their view of the city and allow them to immerse themselves in the everyday life that has appropriated the buildings. By immersing us in a different culture, the film sharpens our view of both our own and others’ reality.
Karin Bucher and Thomas Karrer have received numerous awards for their multi-faceted portrait of the “Beautiful City”, conceived as a garden city, including the prize for best film at the Venice Architecture Film Festival. After numerous screenings in Switzerland and the cinema release in Germany, “Kraft der Utopie” can still be seen in some cinemas; the film opens in Austria on 5 April.
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