CIAM Charter
City is a human creation. It grows with time, it gains its own identity and its own history. The old and the new, the passive and the kinetic all keep merging to become what is the culture and context, the ‘image’ of the city. In contrast to this idea, CIAM (Congres Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne), started by a group of like-minded (not necessarily opinions) architects of their time who endorsed the New and the Modern. Modern architecture planning promoted the phenomena of architecture for economic progress. They wanted economic efficiency not from maximum profit through production but from minimum working effort.
Otterlo Meeting 1959, (also CIAM ’59), organised by Team 10
CIAM sought to abolish the biased distribution of land and emphasized the need for just and standard division and a more equal distribution of wealth. It introduced normative dimensions of urban planning. CIAM focused on planning rather than architecture to create new conditions of social life. Their need for equality in space and society led to standardization in planning and architecture. Prime emphasis was on increasing the quantity and quality using modern techniques, hence traditional and organic was restrained and suppressed. Strict functional segregations and distributions were considered as a solution to the city’s planning problems. The result was the population was housed in tall apartment blocks with separate spaces for work and recreation and even historical buildings. They saw this order as a reflection of the new ideas and progress.
Model of the Plan Voisin for Paris by Le Corbusier displayed at the Nouveau Esprit Pavilion (1925)
The group itself split due to ideological differences repeatedly over time. The group’s work was accepted by certain fascist powers and was promoted in the United States, which eventually led to a series of homogeneous tall concrete apartment block-like buildings. The sessions that were held created generic blueprints for a city (which they found appropriate) that could be replicated and reproduced anywhere across the world. Chandigarh – le Corbusier’s plan was a replication of their Athens charter plan. It failed to address the dynamic reality of a megalopolis, its interdependency, and layers.
Plan for the city of Chandigarh
The question of how much local and how much universal were never addressed thus creating a strange repetitive and homogenous aesthetic of the city. City Planning now became a plug-in module, a ‘copy-paste’ mechanism which resulted in a cultural crisis. Here technology was propagated as a medium for internationalism. Furthermore, the ideas of creating new equal social conditions still remain in question. These almost alien and elitist ideas never considered including people in the planning. Their ideas were rather imposed upon to be strictly followed. Many of the social Housing schemes that were undertaken to elevate the destitute lives were not implemented properly, people were forced to live there, in turn, accelerating the decay and crime. The extreme segregation just isolated the people, the communities, and the culture. This mechanical and forced plan went against the natural growth of the city and eventually the nature of the city.
All images taken from Wikimedia Commons and used without any alterations or adaptation under the license Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic
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