ROCK GARDEN OF CHANDIGARH
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| St. Gregorios College ART ( Association of Retired Teachers) members visited Rock Garden of Chandigarh on 1st May,2014. The team includes 40 members. Nek ChandThe rock
garden is a Sculpture garden in
Chandigarh, India, also known as Nek Chand's Rock Garden after its founder Nek
Chand, a government official who started the garden secretly in his spare time
in 1957. Today it is spread over an area of forty-acres (160,000 m²), it is
completely built of industrial & home waste and thrown-away items . The
garden is most famous for its sculptures made from recycled ceramic.In his
spare time, Chand began collecting materials from demolition sites around the
city. He recycled these materials into his own vision of the divine kingdom of
Sukrani, choosing a gorge in a forest near Sukhna Lake for his work. The gorge
had been designated as a land conservancy, a forest buffer established in 1902
that nothing could be built on. Chand’s work was illegal, but he was able to
hide it for eighteen years before it was discovered by the authorities in 1975.
By this time, it had grown into a 12-acre (49,000 m2) complex of interlinked
courtyards, each filled with hundreds of pottery-covered concrete sculptures of
dancers, musicians, and animals. |
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| Nek Chand |
His work was
in serious danger of being demolished, but he was able to get public opinion on
his side, and in 1976 the park was inaugurated as a public space. Nek Chand was
given a salary, a title ("Sub-Divisional Engineer, Rock Garden"), and
a workforce of 50 laborers so that he could concentrate full-time on his work.
It even appeared on an Indian stamp in 1983. The Rock Garden is still made out
of recycled materials; and with the government’s help, Chand was able to set up
collection centers around the city for waste, especially rags and broken
ceramics.
When Chand left the country on a lecture tour in 1996, the city withdrew its funding, and
vandals attacked the park. The Rock Garden Society took over the administration
and upkeep of this unique visionary environment.The garden is visited by over
five thousand people daily, with a total of more than twelve million visitors
since its inception. Have you ever heard of a
person who picked up discarded items from garbage, cycled them away and
stealthily stored them in gorges prohibited for habitation?Could you imagine it went on and on for well over one and a half decades till a
day when it was discovered that the gorges were full of unique creations spread
over 13 acres of land?If the answer is not affirmative then this is the story
for you. The story about Nek Chand, who was a government official and did this
marvellous piece of creation secretly.Ordinarily such an act should attract
administrative action against a government official but public opinion came to
his rescue and Rock Garden was officially inaugurated in 1976. Such is the
creativity of Nek Chand that today it is one of the most visited sites in
India. Chandigarh, the City Beautiful has the honour of having this unique
feature of fixing waste material to glorify rocks
Nek Chand was born in a village which is
now in Pakistan. After independence from the British rule he settled in India
and served as a road inspector with the Public Works Department of Government
of Punjab. Over two dozens of villages were demolished to carve out Chandigarh,
the most planed city in India. The debris of these villages comprising broken
items like crockery, sanitary wares and electrical fittings; etc. attracted the
genius. He collected wasted material and stored it in an improvised cottage
(front image shown) located in a nearby gorge. Since Shivalik Range of hills
was nearby, Nek Chand collected stones which looked like animals, birds and
other abstract forms. He arranged his collections in different places in the
gorges, which were found in 1973 accidentally. By that time he had already
completed a portion (1st Phase) and was in the process to construct 2nd Phase.
The Government recognised his work and helped to complete the 2nd Phase and
later the 3rd Phase which is still under construction.
The purpose of this Hub is to exhibit the grandeur of the creation, the Rock
Garden rather than going to the nitty-gritty of the process of creating it.On
seeing the quantity of waste ceramic used in different parts of Rock Garden,
one wonders about the quantity that might have been discarded in and around
Chandigarh. It also speaks volumes about the perseverance of Nek Chand who used
his bicycle to transport these discarded items. Since he wanted to do it
stealthily it was an uphill task and a perfect example of a single-minded
devotion.
While ceramic is fixed in the background,
Nek Chand thought of fixing many silhouettes shaped from different materials
which look quite attractive against whitish ceramic
Prof.
John Kurakar
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