Heritage panel turns down proposal to demolish Chandigarh iconic Kiran Cinema

Citing that Sector-22 is a heritage sector and the theater itself was designed by Le Corbusier’s associate Maxwell Fry in 1956, the committee said such buildings cannot be demolished and can only be adaptively reused.

The Chandigarh Heritage Conservation Committee has turned down the proposal of the owners of the iconic Kiran Cinema in Sector 22 to demolish the building and turn it into a multiplex.

Designed by Le Corbusier’s associate Maxwell Fry, Kiran Cinema was built in the late 1950s. (HT File)

Citing that Sector-22 is a heritage sector and the theater itself was designed by Le Corbusier’s associate Maxwell Fry in 1956, the committee said such buildings cannot be demolished and can only be adaptively reused.

Maxwell Fry, an English modernist architect, writer and painter, and his wife architect Jane Drew had worked with Le Corbusier for three years to build Chandigarh.

The plan to turn Kiran Cinema into a multiplex was proposed in view of the fact that in its current condition, it barely gets any business.

A consultant hired by the owners had presented a proposal before the heritage committee to rebuild the structure while maintaining the existing façade.

As per the minutes of the meeting issued recently, the committee clearly stated that, since, it is the first movie theatre of the city designed by Maxwell Fry, it is important to ensure that the proposal is thoughtfully examined. So, it was suggested that instead of demolishing the existing structure, retrofitting and conservative measures be used to adaptive reuse. Accordingly, it was decided that the owner will submit the revised proposal, to be examined by the sub-committee of Chandigarh Heritage Conservation Committee (CHCC) and members of the Plan Approval Committee (PAC), to come up with a solution on the above lines, before presenting it to the committee again.

The single-screen cinema had come up in the early 1950s in the oldest sector of the city, Sector 22. There are 200 seats in the hall. Between 1996 and 2005, it stuck to the risky but ultimately profitable idea of screening only popular Hollywood hits such as Titanic, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, and James Bond movies. It was also one of the first places in Chandigarh to screen the live telecast of the 2002 Football World Cup.