Exhibition on Indo-French Architecture
Bhopal | Saturday, Oct 18 2008 IST
In a bid to showcase the similarity in architecture in Chandigarh and Firminy - a town in France- an eight-day photo-exhibition 'Regards Croiss' (crossed looks) has been commenced in multi-art centre Bharat Bhawan here, official sources said today.
The exhbition was organised by the joint auspices of Alliance Fraaise de Bhopal, French Embassy in India and Chandigarh Tourism to promote the modern heritage of the country.
Consulate of France (Mumbai) Francois Pujola and famous theatre artist Habib Tanvir were present at the inauguration ceremony last evening.
''Regard Croiss'is a project envisaged in May 2004 and this exchange programme between two cities, which share a similar architectural heritage, involved the Chandigarh-based photographer Diwan Manna and a French photographer Michel Dieudonn,'' Mr Pujola said. Chandigarh and Firminy were both designed by famous French arcitect Le Courbusier. In an exchange programme of photographers, Diwan Manna was invited to France to capture Firminy -- centre of France -- in his camera especially the interiors and exteriors of the Saint Pierre church and similarly, Michel Dieudonn spent three weeks in Chandigarh and took photograps of Capital Complex with the same objective. ''The state-of-the-art buildings in Chandigarh exhibits its grandness and excellence, I admire the geometry of those buildings specially the High Court,'' said Mr Tanvir.
Mr Pujalo said he found 'city of lakes' very interesting and was willing to construct some grand buildings with Indo-French collaboration.
Official sources said some 50 years after the completion of building sites Chandigarh and Firminy are amongst the major post war architectural realisations and this exhibition photograph reveals the links between the two cities.
