Celebrating 21 years of establishment of Chandīgarh Architecture Museum, Sector 10, Chandigarh
The Chandigarh Architecture Museum shall be completing 21 years of its establishment on 17th December. In order to celebrate the occasion and engage the citizens -especially children of the city in the Museums a special event DAY AT THE MUSEUM was held in the Chandigarh Architecture Museum
A guided tour of the museum was conducted by Deepika Gandhi, Director, Le Corbusier Centre and Chandigarh Architecture Museum. The participants were made aware of the immense contribution of the Indian team of bureaucrats and officers who worked out the details of the site selection, size and nature of city, number of inhabitants, funds needed etc. Most participants were surprised to know that before Corbusier an American team of Architects had already done a lot of work on the master plan of Chandigarh before the untimely death of one of the members after which Corbusier was engaged. The entire story of Chandigarh from the inception to the problems facing the city by the 1980s was explained to the group in an very informal and engaging manner as many of them were young children.
In order to attract children and make a visit to the museum special activities had been planned for children.
There was a colouring competition in which a sketch of a Tapestry by Corbusier was given to the children who used interesting textures and colour schemes to render these. However, the major attraction was the “Make a chair -relay race” for the entire family wherein the group had to put together the pieces of a chair designed by Jeanneret one at a time. Both the activities had prizes worth Rs 1,000, Rs 750 and Rs 500 and the children thoroughly enjoyed themselves. The plaza in front of the Museum was buzzing with activity and excitement and the students and parents confessed that they had never imagined that a trip to a museum could be so much fun. The sculptural Museum building designed by architect S D Sharma- a veteran architect of the city, was lovingly decorated by the staff to add to the festivities
Deepika Gandhi said that the Architecture museums and Department of Tourism shall continue to hold interesting and unique events like these that shall go a long way in bringing citizens -especially students closer to the Museums and could become a regular feature of the cultural landscape of the city.
