Join us for a discussion on Le Corbusier Album Punjab, 1951 (Lars Müller Publishers, 2024).
In 1951 Le Corbusier was invited to the Indian state of Punjab to help develop the master plan for the new capital of the region, Chandigarh. During his two-week visit, Le Corbusier kept a notebook which this new facsimile edition reconstructs. Known as the "Album Punjab,“ it constitutes a primary source for reconstructing the questions that a small team of architects and government officials faced in the early days of planning the capital of Chandigarh, the most widely known example of a city built from the ground up.
In accompanying volume features previously unpublished photographs by Le Corbusier's cousin Pierre Jeanneret who joined him on the first expedition to Punjab. Architectural historian Maristella Casciato traces the story of their momentous trip and also transcribes Le Corbusier famously illegible handwriting.
Speakers:
Maristella Casciato, Senior Curator & Head of Architectural Collections, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
Pippo Ciorra, Senior Curator, MAXXI Architettura, Rome
Moderator:
Barry Bergdoll, Hon. AIANY, Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History, Columbia University
About the Speakers:
Maristella Casciato is senior curator, head of Architectural Collections at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. She has been responsible for major acquisitions such as Frank Gehry Papers, 1954–1988, and Paul R. Williams Papers. She has co-curated exhibitions including The Metropolis in Latin America, 1830–1930 (2017), MONUMENT(ALITY) (2018), and Bauhaus Beginnings (2019). Among her recent publications: Rethinking Global Modernism. Architectural Historiography and the Postcolonial, co-edited with Prakash and Coslett (2022); Technoscape. The Architecture of Engineers, co-edited with Pippo Ciorra (2022); and the facsimile reprint of Le Corbusier Album Punjab, 1951 (2024). Casciato has been nominated 2023 Fellow of the Society of Architectural Historians.
Pippo Ciorra is an architect, critic and professor at SAAD (University of Camerino) and director of the PhD program “Villard d’Honnecourt” at IUAV. Author of books and essays, he was part of the curatorial team for the 1991 Architecture Venice Biennale and juror for the 2016 edition. He has curated exhibitions in Italy and abroad. Since 2009, he is Senior Curator of MAXXI Architettura in Rome and co-director of “Premio Italiano d’Architettura”. His main research fields are late 20th-century Italian architecture, museums and exhibitions, urban and architectural theory and its social and political implications.
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