New Cities - Question of Cities

Lessons from independent India’s urbanisation: Plan cities based on sustainability and social equity

The first three planned cities in India were to be reflections of a modern and secular new nation, built form of the new democratic republic. Chandigarh, Bhubaneswar, and Gandhinagar could have become the template of India’s urbanisation, strengthening their role…

How Gandhinagar transformed from ‘Gandhian’ city to GIFT City

More than a decade after Chandigarh was built, the planners of Gandhinagar had the opportunity to re-envision a city with different or…

‘Gandhinagar is a green ghost capital city – and hardly Gandhian’

When Gujarat’s capital Gandhinagar was conceptualised, it seemed like an ideal place to live in with a vast expanse of greenery. The…

Gandhinagar’s urban sprawl turns greenest city into a planned mess

Like the other planned cities, Gujarat’s capital Gandhinagar has veered away from the original master plan and developed into an urban jungle.…

How Bhubaneswar’s master plan was overtaken by unsustainable development

German-Jewish architect Otto Koenigsberger adopted a linear approach in building Odisha’s capital Bhubaneswar in which the neighbourhood unit would be “an attempt…

Bhubaneswar’s urbanisation caught between old temple town and new city

The new city of Bhubaneswar was built from scratch but in the frenzy of building Odisha’s capital, the existing Old Town was…

Transformation of the planned city: Some hits, some misses

The temple town of Bhubaneswar is no longer a town of people employed in the government, building a life with their families…

A compendium on Odisha’s planned city and its transformation

The interesting story on how Odisha’s capital, Bhubaneswar, was planned and built has found its way into many research papers and reports. German architect Otto Koenigsberger’s master plan emphasised on organising the town “in such a manner that it forms…

Chandigarh: Seductive and orderly icon yet prophetic for democracy

In the newly-independent and modernising India, planning and building capital cities was the symbol of the nation. Chandigarh, planned by Le Corbusier,…

The city and its discontents: Chandigarh’s alternative story

Despite its proclaimed democratic and egalitarian foundation, Chandigarh has emerged as a city designed for neo-liberal India with its grid hierarchy, segregation…