The story of Chandigarh furniture

When furniture was commissioned for the new city of Chandigarh in northern India in the 1950s, what resulted is some of the most important designs of mid-century modernism. But, from the partition of India to the overlooked name of a female designer, the story of Chandigarh furniture goes well beyond the sleek wooden lines of museum-worthy chairs and desks.

Chandigarh: a new capital inspired by Modernism

Jawaharlal Nehru, an anti-colonial nationalist and social democrat, took the mantle as India’s first prime minister in 1947 following the dissolution of the British Raj and the partition of the country into the independent states of India and Pakistan. When a new administrative capital was required in post-partition northern India, Nehru decided to create an urban centre from scratch that reflected his ambitious programme of economic, social, and political reform.

Deeply influenced by the advance of modernism elsewhere in the world, and how it was reshaping daily life to be more open and progressive, Nehru turned to British modernist architects Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry, who in turn enlisted esteemed Swiss-French modernist architect Le Corbusier to masterplan the new city: Chandigarh.

Focused on the Capitol Complex, the political and administrative city centre, Le Corbusier’s vision comprised stripped-back concrete architecture of clean lines and monumental presence. The design of Chandigarh was a bold break away from the decorative British colonial architecture that had come to define India’s cities; indeed, eschewing this tradition was a vital part of Nehru’s ambition.

Chandigarh furnituLe Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret

The new buildings – which were built from 1953 into the 1960s – also demanded extensive furnishings. For that task, Le Corbusier turned to his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, with whom he had worked on furniture projects previously – including the tubular steel-framed pieces made in collaboration with Charlotte Perriand in the 1920s.

Jeanneret brought his own language of modernism to the designs, to reflect Le Corbusier’s architecture and the forward-looking vision of Chandigarh. But he also turned to local materials and talent to bring the pieces to life – a matter of practicality if nothing else, as the scale of production to furnish an entire city was huge. Materials such as teak, Indian rosewood and woven cane were central.

Furniture included sleek wooden library tables with integrated lighting, laundry chests made from teak and woven cane, lounge chairs with zigzagging frames (known as ‘Kangaroo’ chairs), daybeds upholstered in cowhide, and elegantly geometric magazine racks.

There were teak and woven cane benches for the lodgings of Legislature Assembly members, leather and teak office desks, teak writing chairs for university students, wooden beside tables for residential buildings – and plenty of other wooden tables, desks and benches besides.

Many designs feature the visually bold and practically stable inverted-V legs (also known as ‘compass’ legs) that have now become an iconic feature of Chandigarh furniture.

Jeanneret worked with Indian architects and designers already involved in the development of Chandigarh, including AR Prabhawalkar, Jeet Malhotra, Eulie Chowdhury (the only Indian woman on Le Corbusier’s team) and Shivdatt Sharma, and turned to local craftspeople for the production of the furniture.

Perhaps the most famous of the furniture works is now known as the ‘Chandigarh chair’ (or even the ‘Jeanneret chair’), an armchair design that was developed for administrative buildings and defined by its geometric teak frame with compass legs and woven-cane seat and backrest.

Chowdhury – who went on to become Chief Architect of Chandigarh – is believed to have helped design this celebrated chair, as well as create the lighter-weight library chair, a version without armrests and a slightly different frame. Both were presented at the V&A Museum’s ‘Tropical Modernism’ exhibition in 2024, shining a spotlight on Chowdhury’s otherwise overlooked impact on Chandigarh furniture.

Chandigarh furniture: decline and revival

The subsequent decline and revival of Chandigarh furniture is as much of the story as its development. As the city was inhabited, some of the designs with more fragile elements, such as woven cane, were worn out from frequent use. Coinciding with a desire that shifted away from modernist styles and natural materials to more robust designs, the deteriorating furniture was discarded in junkyards or sold off rather than restored.

In the late 20th century, European gallerists began to acquire Chandigarh furniture for low prices – and sell them on for a lot more, owing to the market’s resurgent appetite for modernist furniture, and works by Jeanneret.

Soon, heritage experts in Chandigarh realised what was happening. In 2007, Rajnish Wattas, former principal of the Chandigarh College of Architecture, established Chandigarh’s Heritage Furniture Committee, in an attempt to archive the remaining stocks of the Jeanneret designs. The city authorities ordered that no more furniture be auctioned, and Chandigarh’s Capitol Complex secured Unesco World Heritage status in 2016.

A furniture exodus

Plenty of Chandigarh furniture left the city over the decades, however, and is now highly collectable. London-based collector Rajan Bijlani has carefully sourced and restored over 500 pieces since 2004, and has publicly exhibited the works to build appreciation.

‘I started collecting it to help conserve this design legacy, because it was not really being looked after,’ Biljani told Wallpaper* in 2024. ‘As a custodian, I want to donate some pieces to cultural institutions, so that they can continue to be preserved. I want to make sure that there’s increasing awareness about the importance and the history of the collections. It’s been a very long journey, but it’s a process that’s been done with care, custodianship and passion.’

Admirers of the furniture need not only look to the limited vintage market. In 2019, Cassina launched the ‘Hommage à Pierre Jeanneret’ collection, which takes select designs of Chandigarh furniture and reissues them in slightly updated versions.

Bengaluru-based furniture brand Phantom Hands, meanwhile, has also reissued some of the classic designs in its Project Chandigarh collection, balancing an appreciation of original craft and aesthetic with structural and material improvements.