Palace of the Assembly / Parliament Chandigarh, India - Le Corbusier - 1955-1963

Palace of Assembly is a legislative assembly designed by noted architect Le Corbusier and located in Chandigarh, India. It is part of the Capitol Complex, which comprises three buildings — Legislative Assembly, Secretariat and High Court. This building was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016.?

After the partition of Punjab, in 1947 following the independence of India, the divided Punjab required a new capital as Lahore was now in Pakistan. Thus Le Corbusier was commissioned by first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru to build a new city of Chandigarh as the capital of Punjab and newly carved state of Haryana. The brief for the design was a city "unfettered by the traditions of the past, a symbol of the nation's faith in the future". Subsequently, Corbusier and his team built not just a large assembly and high court building, but all major buildings in the city, and down to the door handles in public offices.?

One of Le Corbusier's most prominent buildings from India, the Palace of the Assembly in Chandigarh boasts his major architectural philosophies and style. Le Corbusier's five points of architecture can be found within the design from its open plan to the view of the Himalayan landscape. The program features a circular assembly chamber, a forum for conversation and transactions, and stair-free circulation.?

The first of Le Corbusier's architectural ideals is the use of pilotis to lift the structure off of the ground. Reinforced concrete columns are utilized in a grid throughout the Palace of the Assembly and are slightly altered to raise a large swooping concrete form high above the entrance.

This form represents the second point of Le Cobusier's list a free facade. Pilotis allow the form to express the grandiose release of space precisely as Corbusier intended. The other various facades of the building also bestow the free facade via brise-soleil formed from the golden ratio.

Le Corbusier's desire for views is then apparent from all facades. The sun-shading along the offices provides a frame for inhabitants into the surrounding site while the portico opens to the adjacent landscape and the distant Himalayas.

Inside, the Palace of the Assembly houses an open plan structured by the grid of reinforced concrete columns. Again, this structural pattern allows Le Corbusier to manipulated the program freely and place offices and other private programming along the outside of the plan and leave the centre open for public use. Intersecting that open space, is the circular assembly chamber that is contradictory in form to producing good acoustics.

On top of the building lies an accessible roof supported by the pilotis. Providing usable space on the roof of a structure complies with Le Corbusier's fifth ideal of architecture by giving occupants vertical means of connecting to nature and compensating for the habitat removed by the building.