Chandigarh’s ethos of modernity is usually interpreted in its radical urban planning, iconic architecture and generous green spaces. Yet some of its most radical ideas unfolded quietly, behind high walls and inward-looking courtyards. The city’s most transformative spaces were not just in the Capitol Complex or institutional buildings, but more so in the girls’ hostels tucked into its educational campuses.Built with great foresight within the early decades of the city, the girls’ hostels of the city were not merely places of residence for students; they were instruments of social change. At a time when sending daughters away from home was still fraught with anxiety, these hostels enabled women from across the region to study, work, and live independently in the new city. They became quiet laboratories of modernity, shaping not only student lives but the social culture of Chandigarh itself.
Chandigarh was built from scratch with no inherited social fabric. Education became a tool of rebuilding the state and so Panjab University and colleges in the city were made with great thought and urgency. Post partition, many families were displaced while many women students migrated from small towns and rural Punjab, Haryana and Himachal. In such a scenario girls’ hostels made continuity of education possible by offering respectability and safety, which reassured families. Girls’ hostels in Chandigarh can be counted among the city’s most radical modern institutions as they normalised independent female life and became instruments of social change, not just accommodation. In this milieu of shared routines and spaces grew new friendships across caste, class, region. Exposure to urban manners, speech, dress, ambition and ideas shaped the first generation of independent women professionals who later defined Chandigarh’s culture and progress.These humble hostels usually in exposed brick work, became architectural expressions of a society transitioning from caution to confidence, designed to balance freedom and control. As society progressed hostel buildings also evolved from introversion to openness. Early hostel architecture (1950s–60s) reflected a society that wanted women to step out — but carefully. Characterized by inward-looking courtyards, planning that ensured controlled entry points, solid walls and minimal transparency, the emphasis was on discipline, protection and surveillance.The Second phase (1970s–80s) reflected the quiet confidence and openness of society with larger windows, external balconies and verandas in some cases and thoughtful recreational spaces in hostels located more openly within campus fabrics.As women’s presence in the city became normal, hostel buildings no longer needed to hide. Outside Panjab University, girls’ hostels of other colleges came up close enough to campuses but buffered from the city reinforcing safety without isolation. The creation of special hostels for working women further empowered women and ensured continuation of their professional and personal growth in the city.These early girls’ hostels of Chandigarh were sensitively designed to negotiate freedom and restraint, privacy and protection. In doing so, they became some of the city’s most important yet overlooked heritage structures. They are just as culturally and architecturally significant as the museums or colleges which are seen as examples of the city’s heritage. Without them, Chandigarh could not have functioned as a regional education capital for women. If Chandigarh’s govt buildings represented the ambitions of the State, its girls’ hostels represented aspirations of women.These buildings deserve documentation and preservation not just as student housing, but as pivotal social infrastructure that enabled the sociocultural and academic growth of the city.(The writer is ex-director of Le Corbusier Centre)
