A new book titled “Making of Chandigarh: A Vintage History” co-authored by Sarbjit Bahga, a Chandigarh-based architect, and Arun Mirchandani, a Delhi-based archivist, has recently been released. The Foreword to the book "Chandigarh: An Overview" has been written by Kenneth Frampton, a British architect, critic, and renowned historian of modernist architecture. White Falcon Publishing published the lavishly designed, 410-page, black/white book available worldwide through online portals.

2. Book Launch:
MAKING OF CHANDIGARH: A VINTAGE HISTORY
A new book titled “Making of Chandigarh: A Vintage History” co-authored by Sarbjit Bahga,
a Chandigarh-based architect, and Arun Mirchandani, a Delhi-based archivist, has recently
been released. The Foreword to the book "Chandigarh: An Overview" has been written by
Kenneth Frampton, a British architect, critic, and renowned historian of modernist architecture.
White Falcon Publishing published the lavishly designed, 410-page, black/white book
available worldwide through online portals.
Chandigarh is a giant experiment in town planning and architecture in India and the world.
“Among the relatively few bespoke cities designed and built in the 20th
century, ranging from
Chandigarh to Brasilia (1956) and Curitiba (1965), both being in Brazil ending with the
diminutive Milton Keynes in 1972, Chandigarh stands out as the only city to achieve a subtle
synthesis between urban and suburban land settlement patterns,” wrote Kenneth Frampton in
the Foreword.
Being one of the best cities planned and built afresh on virgin land, Chandigarh attracted the
global community of architects, planners, and historians. As a result, copious works have been
written on Chandigarh, and much literature exists on the subject.
“Making of Chandigarh: A Vintage History” is the latest addition to the several books written
by various authors on this subject. Of all the treatises published earlier, this book is unique in
its approach, contents, and presentation. The book focuses on recording the city-making
process through 575 black-and-white photographs. Several photographers have clicked these
photographs since the city's inception in 1950 till the 1990s. This book is a tribute to the
numerous known and unknown photographers who recorded the history of Chandigarh
through their photographs.
It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and photographers are worth a million.
Imagine, if we glance through hundreds of pictures clicked on a particular subject over 40
years beginning in 1950, how easy it will be to grasp the historical aspect of that subject! With
this aim, the “Making of Chandigarh: A Vintage History” has been conceived and presented
as a pictorial journey of the city.
Apart from the rich collection of vintage photos, the book includes more than 50 drawings of
important city buildings and campuses. An elaborated essay, 'Making of Chandigarh,' explains
the whole story of the capital city and throws light on the essential campuses, complexes, and
buildings designed by master architects like Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Maxwell Fry, Jane
Drew, and their Indian colleagues.

3. The entire material, i.e., text, drawings, and photographs, has been arranged in two sections –
1. Making of Chandigarh, and 2. Chandigarh in Pictures. The first section - Making of
Chandigarh, explains a brief history of Chandigarh and dwells on the Capitol Complex,
Residential Buildings, Commercial Complexes, Educational Buildings, Cultural Complexes,
and Recreational Places. The second section, Chandigarh in Pictures, features 575 vintage
photographs of Chandigarh clicked from 1950 to 1990. These pictures have been arranged in
sub-sections like Site of Chandigarh, Temporary Site Office, The Creators of Chandigarh,
Capitol Complex, Residential Buildings, Commercial Complexes, Educational Buildings,
Cultural Complexes, and Recreational Places. All the photographs are well captioned for easy
and quick understanding by readers.
The authors, Sarbjit Bahga and Arun Mirchandani elaborate that "Making of Chandigarh: A
Vintage History was conceived and presented as a coffee-table book for the use of five
sections of the society to give them an overview of the planning, designing, and development
of the capital city. The first group we hope to reach comprises professionals like architects,
planners, engineers, builders, and other people engaged in building activity. The book should
act as a source of inspiration to stimulate their creative instincts. In the second group, we
aimed to reach historians, authors, researchers, and architectural archivists. The book is
expected to provide sufficient material for thought-provoking and pursuing further research
on this or similar other subjects. The third group we have in mind is students of art,
architecture, town planning, urban design, landscape design, and photography. Hopefully,
this book will help broaden their horizons and teach them a new way of thinking. The fourth
section of readership includes Indian and foreign tourists on sightseeing and architectural
tours. The fifth section we are trying to reach is the general reader with sufficient interest in
modern architecture and planning. We hope that this book will meet readers' expectations. If
so, we shall be glad to have achieved our objectives as enunciated above.”
As a tribute, the book is dedicated to all the known and unknown photographers who clicked
photographs of Chandigarh from the 1950s to the 1990s. Besides, as an ode, it is also
dedicated to all the unknown workers, masons, laborers, plumbers, electricians, drivers, and
helpers who were instrumental in realizing the city of Chandigarh.
A marathon pictorial journey of Chandigarh through this book concludes with Herb Caen's
quote, "A city is not gauged by its length and width but by the broadness of its vision and the
height of its dreams."
Book details:
Title: Making of Chandigarh: A Vintage History
ASIN: ‎B0CKTCJLY5
Publisher: ‎White Falcon Publishing (10 October 2023)
Hardcover: ‎410 pages
ISBN-13: ‎979-8892220118
Item Weight: ‎2 kg 300 g
Dimensions: ‎21.59 x 2.54 x 27.94 cm
Country of Origin: ‎India