Nek Chand secretly started the Rock Garden project in 1957 in Chandigarh, India, building it entirely from discarded materials scavenged from destroyed villages. By 1975, it had grown to cover 12 acres without the authorities' knowledge, featuring hundreds of sculptures. The authorities took over management in 1976 and inaugurated it as a public park. Today it spans 40 acres and remains a tribute to one man's creative vision and reuse of waste materials.

2. Rock Garden is a sculpture garden in
Chandigarh, India, also known as
Nek Chand's Rock Garden, after its
founder, Nek Chand, a government
official who started the garden
secretly in his spare time in 1957.
Today it is spread over an area of
forty-acre (160,000 m²), it is
completely built of industrial &
home waste and thrown-away items

3. The Rock Garden project was secretly initiated by Nek
Chand around 1957. It was discovered by the authorities
in 1975, by which time it had grown into a 12-acre
(49,000 m2) complex of interlinked courtyards, each
filled with hundreds of pottery-covered concrete
sculptures of dancers, musicians, and animals.The
authorities took over, and the garden was inaugurated
as a public space in 1976. It is presently run by the Rock
Garden Society.

4. Nek Chand Saini is an Indian self-taught artist, famous for
building the Rock Garden of Chandigarh, a forty-acre
(160,000 m²) sculpture garden in the city of Chandigarh, India.
His family moved to Chandigarh in 1947 during the Partition.
At the time, the city was being redesigned as a modern
utopia by the Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. It was to be
the first planned city in India, and Chand found work there as
a roads inspector for the Public Works Department in 1951.

6. In addition to the rocks other materials
were collected.The material came from
the villages destroyed to make way for
the new city of Chandigarh. Certain
fragments of these villages caught Nek
Chand’s eye and he began actively
searching and collecting particular
discarded objects.These fragments were
the remains of the villages, and consisted
largely of everyday mundane possessions
such as broken pots and bottles

7. At some stage in 1965 a more conscious effort
was made to transform the found fragments
and to arrange the rocks into a formal display .
The site was also in a dense area of vegetation
and needed to be cleared. Concrete and mud
flooring was prepared and initial structures
made up of oil drums and iron shuttering were
constructed.With the PWD stores acting as a
suitable decoy an alternativeChandigarh was
being constructed behind the shuttering and
scrap materials

8. Situated in the thick forest area, this gardens hold its
own charms for the visitors. It is full of objects built
from household and industrial waste.There are no
flowers or plants in this garden.The object to be seen
there are the figure made of raw cement resembling
humans and animals.These figures have been
decorated with broken but colourful odds and ends of
China clay. As one looks at them with deep intent, they
seem to be staring as the visitors.They seem to be
engaged in various activities.There are group of
dancing damsels made from bicycle and motorcycle's
waste materials, marching armies of warriors resting
flying or fledging birds made from countless bite of
broken glass.There are groups of music bands engaged
in their activity of entertaining the visitors. Its creator
also needs a mention.

11. Chandigarh rock garden is an epitome of creativity
and innovation. It is a unique garden that consists of
various art objects. But the best part about the rock
garden is that each of its artwork has been made by
using industrial & urban waste.
The credit for laying its foundation goes to Nek
Chand, who was the then Road Inspector in the
Engineering Department of Chandigarh Capital
Project.