Chandigarh to witness the launch of Furniture Museum

According to media reports, in order to safeguard Le Corbusier-designed furniture for city that goes for lakhs and crores in auctions abroad, the Chandigarh Administration is all set to come up with a furniture museum in the city. This has been informed in the “action taken report” ahead of the Administrator’s Advisory Council meeting.
It will be a first-of-its-kind museum which will have city’s valuable heritage furniture on display. And the same will come up at Government Press Building in Sector 18, Chandigarh. With this, the authorities not only plan to showcase the Corbusier-designed furniture but also aim to protect the furniture from going abroad for lakhs.
The Administrator’s Advisory Council meeting is scheduled to be held later this month. It was after Professor Rajnish Wattas, former principal of Chandigarh College of Architecture, raised the issue in the last Administrator’s Advisory Council meeting on August 18 last year that this reply has been received in the action taken report.
Prof Rajnish Wattas in his query specified that “there should be a place in the Press Building for furniture museum”.
To this, the Chandigarh Culture Department specified “The proposal regarding furniture museum in Press Building, Sector 18, is being examined by the Department of Culture in consultation with the Department of Urban Planning on the aspects of viability, need, audience group, maintenance, deployment of manpower, day-to-day expenditure etc.”
A senior official said that the administration was looking at coming up with the furniture museum on the first floor of the IAF Heritage Centre which is being run from the Government Press Building in Sector 18.
As many as 40 departments have sent in their list where heritage items are located. The Chandigarh Heritage Inventory Committee had listed 12,793 heritage items, made and used by French architect Le Corbusier, his cousin and Swiss architect Pierre-Jeanneret in the 1950s and 60s.
Most of these heritage items are in the possession of the Government Museum and Art Gallery, Sector 10, the Punjab and Haryana Secretariat, Vidhan Sabha, and the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
The heritage items that are designed by Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret go for lakhs and crores in various auctions in foreign countries. That is why a need was felt to preserve the items. Constant auctions abroad compelled the authorities in Chandigarh to re-check and count the inventory of all the heritage items. The Department of Urban Planning had asked various departments to send in the inventory that was with them. Now all of it has been compiled so as to set up a furniture museum that will not just protect the heritage items but also give an opportunity to people to see Corbusier’s work.
Source: indianexpress.com