Team to check up on heritage items at court

CHANDIGARH: UT has decided to salvage some of its lost prestige by identifying and preserving the original heritage furniture designed or made by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret that are lying neglected in various offices and educational institutes of the city. This comes close on the heels of the administration's miserable failure in saving the rare and historic heritage furniture items from being sold for crores of rupees at the Wright auction house in Chicago on March 31.
The recently-formed Chandigarh Heritage Inventory Committee will visit the Punjab and Haryana High Court and Panjab University next week to take stock of the situation.
Speaking to TOI, Chandigarh Architecture College's principal Pardeep Bhagat, one of the key members of the committee, said, ''We will visit these two places next week to identify whether the heritage furniture, lying with them for years, are original pieces or their replicas. We have already written letters to the concerned authorities of PU and the high court asking them to prepare a detailed heritage inventory of all such articles in their possession.''
Bhagat further said that both Le Corbusier and his cousin had designed and created a number of beautiful and aesthetic furniture items like chairs, tables, desks, almirahs which had later been taken by various government offices and educational institutes in Punjab and Haryana.
''We have received positive response from at least 20 such places but they are not sure whether the furniture lying with them is original or replicas of the same. That is why our four-member heritage inventory committee will visit such places to identify and preserve the precious furniture stock. We are going to start our pursuit of the heritage furniture from PU and HC starting next week,'' Bhagat said.
Earlier, UT had sent letters to at least 32 educational institutes and offices to come up with details of lost furniture of Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret. These included Panjab University, Government Arts College, Punjab and Haryana secretariats and Punjab Engineering College University of Technology.