Nek Chand

1924 - 2015

Nek Chand Saini spent his early years in what is now Pakistan, but in 1947 was forced to flee to India during Partition, along with the rest of his Hindu family. A deeply spiritual man, Chand was fascinated by the mystical significance of rocks. In 1958, while working as a road inspector in the new city of Chandigarh being built by Le Corbusier, he started collecting river stones of different shapes and sizes, and industrial waste materials. He worked for 18 years in secret on what would become the Rock Garden, which was 13 acres when it was inaugurated in 1976. Chand became known for his magnificent Rock Garden site where he installed over 2,000 sculptures, and collection centers were set up to collect materials for him in Chandigarh.  Using recycled materials including discarded bicycle seats, forks and frames for armatures, he would build up the mass with a cement and sand mix. A final coating of smoothly-burnished, pure cement combined with waste materials such as broken glass bangles, crockery mosaic pieces and iron-foundry slag would then be placed on the figures. In addition to his concrete figures, he made small open-fired clay pieces and hundreds of giant stuffed “ragdolls” from scraps of vibrantly colored waste cloth. ¹