World heritage tag for Capitol Complex: UNESCO team to visit complex on Sunday, UT to give presentation

An official of the administration said that the team would be given a presentation on Sunday. The team members would be visiting the Capitol Complex to assess the structures for themselves.

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Chandigarh has been vying for UNESCO heritage status for the Capitol Complex for the past several years without much success. A dossier was prepared in the year 2006 by Dr Kiran Joshi who was then a faculty member of Chandigarh College of Architecture. However, problems were encountered with the Union Ministry of Culture and the case was never put up with UNESCO.

Two years later in 2008, the administration was set to submit its dossier when the Archaeological Survey of India asked for concurrence to be taken from Punjab
and Haryana. The Capitol Complex is one of the most renowned structures of Le Corbusier, creator of the city. It comprises three buildings — the High Court, Secretariat and Assembly — as well as several monuments. The Secretariat and the Assembly are being used by the governments of the two states. But the approval was never received.

This time, the administration has applied for heritage status for the Capitol Complex as part of a transnational dossier prepared with several other countries where structures designed by Corbusier are present.

The administration has been sprucing up the Capitol Complex ahead of the visit by the team. The walkway in the complex has been completed as per the original design of Corbusier. Some trees were chopped to make the view of the complex more clear. Proposals have been prepared for completing the incomplete monuments of Corbusier. A tourist information centre was inaugurated last year to make the complex more accessible to tourists.

There are several violations within the Capitol Complex. The structure is also witnessing blackening of concrete. The Central Building Research Institute at Roorkee has been engaged to conduct a study of the buildings and prepare a report on increasing the structural stability.