Iain Jackson, Professor of Architecture and Research Director at Liverpool University,is the guest contributor for this piece. His PhD research catalogued the extraordinary Rock Garden of Chandigarh and he is quite the expert on the achievements of Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry in Chandigarh.

A decade ago, India lost two architectural visionaries whose work fundamentally reshaped the nation's built environment - Charles Correa, the country's most distinguished architect, and Nek Chand Saini, creator of Chandigarh's extraordinary Rock Garden. Together they represent opposing yet complementary approaches to architecture and design that honour both India's cultural heritage and its modern aspirations. Their work lives on - and it's a privilege to explore and enjoy their amazing legacy.

A very strange waxwork of Nek Chand sitting in his workshop at the Rock Garden.

Charles Correa: architect of Post-Independence India

Charles Correa emerged as the defining voice of modern Indian architecture, creating buildings that breathed with the rhythm of Indian life while embracing contemporary possibilities. Born in 1930 in colonial Secunderabad, Correa studied at MIT before returning to India in 1954 with a clear mission: to develop an architecture that responded authentically to India's climate, culture, and newfound independence.

Rejecting the Western obsession with air-conditioning and sealed environments, Correa pioneered a climate-responsive architecture that exploited natural ventilation, cool breezes, and strategic shade. His buildings are not mere structures but carefully orchestrated experiences that blur the boundaries between interior and exterior spaces, inviting visitors to feel architecture as much as see it.

**Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya (Memorial Museum) in Ahmedabad, Charles Correa’s first significant project and where he started his ‘open to sky’ museum concept.**

The National Crafts Museum: A Village Reimagined

Correa's National Crafts Museum in Delhi stands as perhaps his most eloquent statement about the possibilities of modern Indian architecture. Completed between 1975 and 1990, the museum introduces his revolutionary concept of "rooms open to the sky" - a series of courtyards of varying scales that create distinct atmospheric changes as visitors move through the building.

The museum's diagonal axis guides visitors on a promenade through three distinct courtyards, each with its own character and spatial intensity. This architectural device transforms the act of viewing exhibits into a journey that mirrors the experience of walking through a traditional Indian village, yet remains thoroughly contemporary in its execution. The design remains deliberately unresolved allowing resident craftspeople to adapt and shape the spaces according to their evolving needs. As such it’s continuously developing. Each visit reveals something new.

The Layout of the Handicraft Museum in Delhi desgined by Correa between 1975 - 1990 and one of the starting points for the Architourian trip’s exploration of Indian Architecture.

One of the open air Courtyards of the National Handicrafts and Handlooms Museum in Delhi

The British Council Building: Cultural Diplomacy in Stone

The British Council building on Kasturba Gandhi Marg, formally opened in 1992, demonstrates Correa's ability to create institutional architecture that facilitates cultural exchange while maintaining a distinctly Indian character. Housing the organisation's largest overseas operation, the building employs Correa's signature flowing spaces and careful integration of natural light and ventilation.

Correa's architectural philosophy extended beyond mere functionalism. His use of Mughal-inspired red sandstone and his creation of spaces for community gathering reflected a sophisticated understanding of how architecture could embody both modernity and Indian identity. The building invites contemplation of what it means to be Indian in the post-independence era. This approach is often considered a post-modernist or 'critical regionalist' architecture.

The British Council Building in New Delhi by Charles Correa from 1992 with its spectacular mural by Howard Hodgkin. The mural is constructed of small, rectangular, hand-cut tiles of white Makrana marble, and black, locally quarried Cuddappah stone – a technique often employed on Mughal buildings.

This approach is also evident in Correa's Jawahar Kala Kendra arts centre in Jaipur, which employs similar textures, colors, and spatial sequencing.

Nek Chand: The Outsider Artist's Vision

While Correa worked within established architectural practice, Nek Chand Saini created his masterpiece entirely outside conventional frameworks. Born in 1926 in what is now Pakistan, Chand was displaced during the 1947 Partition and eventually found work as a road inspector at the construction site of Chandigarh - Le Corbusier's new modernist city designed as a symbol of India's future.

Le Corbusier's Chandigarh represented rational planning and modernist ideals, but Chand's vision emerged from a different impulse entirely. Working secretly by night over thirty-six years, he transformed discarded materials into an extraordinary sculptural landscape that would eventually span forty acres of land at the northern edge of the city.

School children on a trip to visit Chandigarh’s most popular attraction - Nek Chand’s Rock Garden.

The Rock Garden: A Universe from Fragments

Chand's Rock Garden began modestly with stones arranged around a small hut, but evolved into a complex of over 2,000 sculptures crafted from recycled materials including broken ceramics, glass bangles, industrial debris, and bicycle parts. The garden features sculptured figures of animals, mythological characters, and human forms, each piece contributing to narrative tableaux that draw from folk tales and epic literature.

The Rock Garden is more than a sculpture collection; it is a 'visionary environment' featuring mosaic courtyards, walled pathways, deep gorges, and interlinking waterfalls. Chand created not merely individual artworks but an entire landscape that transforms the act of viewing into an immersive journey through his imagination.

Some of the sculpted figures in the Rock Garden

This self-taught artist's achievement represents a profound statement about creativity and resourcefulness. By transforming waste into wonder, Chand demonstrated how artistic vision could flourish outside institutional support, creating beauty from society's discarded fragments. This unique environment stands alone in its scale and vision - regarded as the largest outsider art environment in the world. It starts with Chand’s collection of natural rocks before leading to a vast waterfall topped with chatris and whimsical temples.

Shared Principles, Divergent Paths

Despite their vastly different backgrounds and methods, both Correa and Chand arrived at remarkably similar conclusions about spatial experience. Both understood the power of the promenade - an architectural journey through a sequence of spaces that reveals hidden vistas and creates moments of surprise and delight.

Iain Jackson hard at work on his PhD in Chandigarh’s Rock Garden

Both artists exploited their sites' natural attributes, responding to topography and climate while incorporating sculpture, artwork, and colour as integral elements rather than decorative additions. Their work subtly references India's past - not through sentimental pastiche - but as living elements that inform contemporary spatial experiences.

Most significantly, both were profoundly affected by India's independence and the cultural negotiations it demanded. For Correa, this meant developing a modern architectural language that could express Indian identity without rejecting contemporary possibilities. For Chand, it involved preserving memory and myth through art that emerged from displacement and loss.

Enduring Legacies

The work of Charles Correa and Nek Chand represents two essential approaches to creating meaningful architecture in post-independence India. Correa's sophisticated modernism and Chand's intuitive artistry both emerged from the cultural ferment of the newly independent nation, yet their influence extends far beyond national boundaries.

Jawahar Kala Kendra Arts Centre in Jaipur by Charles Correa

Their buildings and sculptures continue to demonstrate that great architecture transcends mere shelter or decoration to become a medium for cultural expression, community building, and individual contemplation. In their careful attention to light, space, materials, and human movement, both artists created environments that enhance daily life while connecting visitors to larger questions of identity, memory, and belonging.

Today, their works stand as testament to the transformative power of architectural vision - proof that spaces thoughtfully conceived and lovingly crafted can indeed improve human experience and reveal new possibilities for how we might live together.

Masters of Indian Modernism: Charles Correa and Nek Chand

From Farleys to Chandigarh