Le Corbusier(Exterior light, from Chandigarh, India, c. 1960)
Secretariat Building in Chandigarh, designed Le Corbusier."After years of struggle in Rio, Algiers, Saint Die and Bogota, Le Corbusier, at the age of 62, had the rare opportunity to apply his theories to the design of a new city. Chandigarh was to be his most momentous assignment: the only urban plan of substance he implemented. Yet, after planning the city's outlines in a matter of weeks, he delegated the design of the fabric to others and concentrated on the group of buildings on the Capitol. He saw the Capitol as a sacred place to match the Acropolis. Separate from the rest of the city, it became almost a prohibited zone to most of the citizens whom he expected to stand back, in awe of his architecture. Separated by vast distances, the Capitol buildings became individual oases, each with its own intricate box of tricks, of which Le Corbusier was the master."
taken from here..
"Chandigarh is home to numerous architectural projects of Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Matthew Nowicki, and Albert Mayer."
(open hand monument)"Le Corbusier saw the Capitol as a sacred place - separate and protected. The monumental scale of the Capitol attempts to be both, precise and enigmatic, worthy of sacred places such as Teotihuacan in Mexico, the Giza Pyramids in Egypt and, most sacred of all to Le Corbusier, the Acropolis at Athens. Therefore, in assembling his elements of urban design, he avoided the conventional symmetry of the traditional Empire style and pursued the drama of a sacred theatre."