The last of Corbusier’s gifts to India 

On Corbusier’s 135th birth anniversary this month, a 1960-dated console desk in teak wood, designed by him and BV Doshi, went under the hammer for roughly ₹1 crore

The year was 1955. Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier, who had buckled down to design India’s first planned city of Chandigarh, had been expecting architect Balkrishna V Doshi to pay him a visit. “I was assisting Corbusier with some drawings. Newly married, I arrived at the capital of un-trifurcated Punjab with my wife. When Corbusier saw us, he drew a sketch spontaneously and offered it to me along with five notes of ₹100 each as a wedding gift,” recalls the 2018 Pritzker prize-winning architect, over a phone call from Ahmedabad.

The sketch enjoys a special spot in Doshi’s collection of souvenirs — comprising artworks, hand-written letters and a small sample of Open Hand’s plaster cast — that hold a mirror to his camaraderie with Corbusier. Now in his 90s, the architect has passed on most of this memorabilia to his children and grandchildren, who consider it “priceless heirlooms of the family’s history”.

To Doshi and his family, Corbusier’s memories and gifts may be priceless, but to the art world, his creations are precious. On October 6 this year, Corbusier’s 135th birth anniversary, a 1960-dated console desk in teak wood, with Chandigarh’s administrative buildings listed as its provenance, was auctioned in France. With its design attributed to Corbusier and Doshi, the website of French auction house Piasa shows, the desk went under the hammer for approx. €1,25,672 (roughly ₹1 crore).

Doshi, who had worked with Corbusier on many projects in Ahmedabad — Villa Sarabhai, Villa Shodhan, Mill Owners’ Association Building and Sanskar Kendra to name a few, says, “Hearing about the furniture pieces that I had the great honour of designing with my Guru Le Corbusier all I feel is deep reverence. So for me they are not objects but priceless memories and I am filled with gratitude for my Guru - Le Corbusier.”

One of the oldest auction houses Christie’s auctioned 25 of Corbusier’s works, including paintings, manhole covers, models, sculptures, tapestries and furniture in London and 26 in New York between January 2012 and October 18, 2022. The most expensive of these was his oil painting Nature morte et figure dated between 1927 and 1944, sold for 3,301,000 pounds.

Even Corbusier’s Chandigarh manhole cover, moulded in cast iron with the city’s map embossed on it, was auctioned last year by Sotheby’s in the UK for nearly ₹10.15 lakh? The city’s roads, pavements, parking lots and even residential areas are dotted with about 2,000 such manhole covers, which the Municipal Corporation now plans to replace with concrete ones.

Advocate Ajay Jagga, a member of Chandigarh Administration’s Heritage Items Protection Cell, has been tracking auctions of items created and designed by Corbusier and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret, with whom the architect collaborated with on the Chandigarh project.  “I have been recording the auctions of the city’s heritage items since 2006,” says Ajay.