Thus, Chandigarh was a symbolic as well as a practical necessity. No city could house a new capital and rehabilitate the displaced persons from Pakistan. The underlying philosophy was grounded in the new industrial civilization. There were straight lines of modernism and no domes or spires. Corbusier had recognized that Hindu temples and Muslim architecture was very geometrical but what they lacked was architecture for modern civilization. Technology was invoked with admiration for emerging development of planes, cars, ships and trains.

A parliamentary committee sought a site for the capital and a relatively flat area bounded by two river valleys some 5 miles apart in the foothills of the Himalayas was selected. These river valleys were dry for most of the year, but a large dam was built to form a lake to retain water from the Himalayas in July and August. Two men, P.L. Varma, the Chief Engineer of Punjab and P.N. Thaper a former member of the British Indian Civil Service directed the Chandigarh project from the very beginning.

During the construction, several villages in the area were not integrated but instead were cleared and demolished, while occasional groves and peepul trees were carefully retained. All in all, the building of the city caused dislocation of about 9000 people for whom compensation was arranged and land set aside for resettlement.