OM INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN

Topic – Biography of Nek Chand Saini

Submitted To –

Ar. Manoj Kumar Submitted By - Parth

Roll no :- 1610463011

He Was Born On 15 December 1924.

He Hailed From Shakargarh Region (Now In

Pakistan) Of District Gurdaspur. His Family

Moved To Chandigarh In 1947 During The

Partition. At The Time, The City Was Being

Redesigned As A Modern Utopia By The

Swiss/French Architect Le Corbusier. It Was

To Be The First Planned City In India, And

Chand Found Work There As A Roads

Inspector For The Public Works Department

In 1951. He Was Awarded The Padma

Shri By Government Of India In 1984. He

Died In 2015.

Nek Chand Was The First Person In His Village To Go To High

School, And After Studies In Lahore Returned To Work On The

Family Farm, Where He Built Huge Scarecrows Out Of Cloth And

Rag. But His Peaceful Existence Received An Almighty Jolt With

Partition, When Sectarian Violence Forced His Family To Leave The

Ancestral Home. They Trekked In A Refugee Column For Three

Weeks Before Finding Safety, And Chand Eventually Found

Employment In Chandigarh, Supervising Road Construction.

His vision for the garden appeared to emerge

when he was a child. Born into a Hindu farming

family in a rural village in the shakargarh region of

the Punjab in British India, he was entranced by

his mother’s tales of kings and queens in a

beautiful kingdom, and he would play in the local

forests, making model buildings by the river bed.

He made his first bangles

he had sculptures from

broken collected on the

ground in a market.

Chand Began His Vast Creation In

Secrecy. From 1952 He Was Working

As A Roads Inspector As Part Of Le

Corbusier’s Huge Construction Project

Of Chandigarh, The New Capital Of

The Half Of Punjab Remaining In

Independent India After Partition In

1947. Outside That Work, However, He

Had Begun To Build His Clandestine

Garden In A Forest Clearing In 1958.

Hardly Anyone Knew About It Until,

After 15 Years, It Was Discovered By

The City Authorities. He Was

Potentially In Serious Trouble: He Had

Been Building Illegally On City Land In

An Area Under Strict Control, And He

Was A City Employee To Boot.

Nek Chand Was The Creator Of The

Extraordinary Rock Garden Of

Chandigarh, A 25-acre Environment In

Northern India That Contains More Than

2,000 Statues. A Combination Of

Sculpture, Architecture And Visionary

Landscape, The Garden Takes The Form

Of A Series Of Chambers And Courtyards,

With Winding Walkways Suddenly

Opening Out To Large Vistas And High

Waterfalls.

Having embarked on a mission

to turn waste into beauty,

Chand used broken crockery,

iron foundry clinker, electric

plug moulds, fluorescent tubes,

bicycle frames, bottles, glass bangles,

shells, cooking pots and smashed up

bathroom fittings to create his

wonderland.

His figures of queens and courtiers,

beggars and ministers, schoolchildren,

revellers and dancers, monkeys,

elephants and camels are set in different

chambers linked by low arches and

covered in mosaic. There are also

hundreds of strange-shaped rocks

installed in meandering lanes, two huge

waterfalls, deep gorges, rushing streams,

a model Punjabi village, an amphitheatre

and a colonnade of giant swings. More

than 5,000 visitors a day cram the

pathways and dramatic gorges.

His Use Of Waste Materials Rocketed,

And Collection Centres Were Set Up

Around The City To Provide What He

Needed. He Started To Make Larger

Statues With The Help Of Assistants,

Bringing Untrained Labourers Up To

The Standard Of Skilled Craftsmen. A

Pumping Station And Waterfalls Were

Constructed, And Chand Made Use

Of The Building Methods He Had

Observed When Working Under Le

Corbusier, Especially Shuttering To

Form Reinforced Concrete.

PADMA SHRI AWARD

His work appeared on a postage

stamp in 1982, and he was

honoured with a Padma Shri

award in 1984 by the Indian

government for his contribution

to the arts. He was invited to

exhibit his work in Paris and

Berlin, and in 1986 spent six

months in Washington making

sculptures at the National

Children’s Museum.

NEK CHAND FOUNDATION

The Nek Chand Foundation, a registered

charity, was formed in 1997 with the aim

of supporting Nek Chand's work and

raising awareness of the Rock Garden

throughout the world.

The Foundation's projects include:

creating surveys, publishing much-

needed documentary and publicity

material; arranging exhibitions and

coordinating semi-annual volunteer trips.