THE CITY BEAUTIFUL, CHANDIGARH
INTRODUCTION
In 1950, India’s first prime minister. Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru. Commissioned the French Swiss architect Charles Edouard Jeanneret (“Le Corbusier”), to apply his artistic brain to bring up a well planned city based on contemporary ideas and that carries an idiosyncratic identity of its own. This led to the birth of The City Beautiful, Chandigarh. A Union territory as well as serving as a capital to two major states of India, Chandigarh stands upright with an essence of its own.
The final product of Architect Corbusier’s efforts was a city of concrete blocks and straight arterial roads, projecting Le Corbusiers philosophy of functional efficiency, free of unnecessary ornamentation such as domes and arches.
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Most of its residents have their roots belonging to an Indo-Aryan ethnic origin. There is lots of vividity among the different castes settled in Chandigarh. Say, even when a Jat and Khatri are next-door neighbours, some of their cultural traits vary a lot. These diversities add beauty and color to the cultural heritage of the city. Due to the diversity in the castes and culture of the people of Chandigarh, discovering parts and quarters of the place can be a leisurely experience for the travellers.
Jovial, Fun-loving as well as euphoric, these are the adjectives which describe the residents of this charming city. Here people believe in living life to the fullest. People in Chandigarh are accustomed to a leisurely lifestyle, which sets them apart from the residents of other major cities in India. A word that describes the city in the lifestyle arena is ‘à la mode’ meaning up to date. However, with the passing time, they are adopting themselves to a fast paced lifestyle. People in the city are very friendly and warm. Even when they live a very busy life, they try make it a point to dedicate some of their time to their loved ones and go for outing, especially during weekends, to some of the major attractions of the
In Christine Stansell’s City of Women, the main issue discussed is “the misfortunes laboring women suffered and the problems they caused” (xi). Throughout the book, Stansell delves into the different aspects that affected these female New Yorkers’ lives, such as inadequate wages, societal stigmas about women laborers, and the hierarchal class system, within antebellum America. She argues that since the nation’s founding, in 1789, the bedrock of these tribulations working women would be mercilessly exposed to was gender inequality. Women’s opportunities and livelihoods were strongly dependent on the dominant male figure in their life, due to the fact that in that period there was very few available and accepted forms of employment for women. Stansell claims, “Paid work was sparse and unstable. Laboring women were confined within a patriarchal economy predicated on direct dependence on men” (18). As the work continues, she illustrates these women’s desires to break away from their reliance on men, as well as the avenues they took to achieve this desired independence. To help solidify her
When talking about leadership positions within the community, the authors who were writing in the Antiquity along with some authors who were writing in the Renaissance strongly believed that men were the only ones capable of being in an elected position in the city. Christine de Pizan has a different opinion, expressing a strong argument for the strengths of women, while also demonstrating how a city without men could become an equally successful city. By using the allegorical figures of Reason, Rectitude, and Justice as her guide to constructing this city, she paints a picture of how women exhibit all of the traits of men while also having many qualities that men do not possess. Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies lays the foundation for how women can be successful in leadership positions and many of her ideas also match what the Greek philosopher Plato was saying through his book The Republic. The similarities of ideas in Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies and of Plato’s Republic for an ideal city and the inhabitants of these ideal cities proves that women are just as capable as men of populating and leading an ideal city.
A lot of modern architects and designers boasted the fact that they followed know existing style, some say modernism was a lot more than just a style, it was a new, refreshed and revived outlook on the world accustomed by new viewpoints of space and time. One of the most iconic ‘modern’ architects was Charles Edouard Jeanneret Gris, who took a great interest in exploring new materials, who rejected precedents from the past and pioneered simplicity. Charles Edouard Jeanneret Gris was born in Switzerland on October 6th 1887 and chose to be known as Le Corbusier. He initially worked in France, where he was most active, utilizing his many talents by being an architect, designer, writer, painter, urban planner and theorist. Corbusier started his academic life in 1900, as a goldsmith & engraver; he studied at La Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland. Corbusier was taught the history of art, drawing and naturalist aesthetics of art nouveau by L’Eplattenier who Corbusier later, himself referred as his only teacher. Corbusier left his current studies at the time and progressed with his studies of art and decoration with the intention of becoming an artist/painter. It was L’Eplattenier who insisted that Corbusier studies architecture, and therefore organized some local projects that Corbusier could work on.
For many years woman have been subordinated to men, The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros a 1984 coming of age novel in which Esperanza is represented as the determination and hope for the woman in her poems but also the quest for a better life, and a promise to help those left behind under the suffering of the new traditions, crime, violence and sex. Cisneros' novel opened the doors to new ideas a new focus of the Chicano novel, In Mañana Means Heaven published in 2010 we begin to see a passive woman, Cisneros introduces the problems a woman faces while Hernandez sets the woman free of these injustices. Bea Franco represents the hope for woman, left behind in Cisneros' novel. Bea represents the emergence of willpower and self motivation to get out of the abusive relationship and find what she really deserves. Both these novels utilize different narratives, but both have a very earnest, hopeful, intimate tone. They both also share themes of struggle of self definition, sexuality and autonomy that through a life journey these woman are able to progress in a constrained society.
Throughout history, architecture has been employed in the service of politics, as symbols of the state. Architecture is therefore shaped by the national traditions in the pursuit of projects of identity, modernity, power, and prestige. A building is not merely a walled structure, but a metaphor for national ideology as it embodies the civic life of the citizens that it houses, as well as the ideals of the nation within which it resides. This paper will explore three varying architectural periods and examine the interaction between nationalism and the building styles that developed either as a means to express it.
In "A Woman's Beauty: Put-down or Power Source," Susan Sontag portrays how a woman's beauty has been degraded while being called beautiful and how that conceives their true identity as it seems to portray innocence and honesty while hiding the ugliness of the truth. Over the years, women have being classified as the gentler sex and regarded as the fairer gender. Sontag uses narrative structure to express the conventional attitude, which defines beauty as a concept applied today only to women and their outward appearance. She accomplishes this by using the technique of contrast to distinguish the beauty between men and women and establishing a variation in her essay, by using effective language.
In The House on Mango Street, Cisneros portrays women with aspirations who are trapped by father figures. This suppression from fathers causes women to mature early and get married at a young age. Even though marrying young is not to their benefit, by doing so, some women are able to escape their fathers. While some women willingly get married, others do not get a say in their marriage but are forced to marry. In either case, they are forced into unhealthy relationships with their husbands, who treat them the same way their fathers treated them.
In the early 1990’s, it was reported that eleven million women in the United States suffer from various eating disorders. At the same time, at least ninety percent of people struggling with eating disorders are female (Stephens). Many researchers tried to figure out why so many women today were suffering from these terrible conditions that destroy people from the inside out. After thorough amounts of research were done, it was concluded that today’s society generates intense amounts of pressure on women to fit an “ideal image” of the models they see in various ways. Thanks to false advertising, false images of women, and the changing “desires” of society, the Beauty Myth gives women an image of themselves that is physically impossible to achieve.
In the novel This Earth Of Mankind by Pramoedya Ananta Toer, discrimination against social structure, race, and gender is apparent. The setting is in the Indies, or now called Indonesia. At that time, there are terms for different races in the book, which are “Native” indicating someone who is pure Indonesian, “Indo” a half European and half Indonesian, and “Pure Blood” or “European” when someone is pure European. An Indo and a Pure Blood receives more respect in society than a Native. Furthermore, European or Pure Blood is at the top of this social hierarchy, people who are European or Pure Blood receives the utmost respect in society. Differences in gender is prevalent in this novel, where most women in this book have power in their own homes, but in society is looked down upon. Female characters experiencing these are Annelies, the main character’s love interest, Nyai Ontosoroh, Annelies’ mother who is a concubine, and Magda Peters, the main character’s European teacher. Women in this novel are portrayed differently according to what race, social structure, and gender they are born in, which can be seen through Nyai Ontosoroh, Annelies, and Magda Peters.
On a positive note, there are designers who have accomplished what seems like the impossible and created spaces that stand timeless in their place. The Eiffel Tower, Grand Central Station, Sydney Opera House are just a few examples of spaces that provide a unique experience for the people and contribute to the identity of the city.
Le Corbusier. The City of Tomorrow and Its Planning. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1987
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