The Philosopher Architect

One of Charles Correa’s last designs was a jamaatkhana—a place for communal gathering of Muslims—at the Ismaili Centre in Toronto. It looked like a mosque but had a glass dome, and from the inside, the sky appeared like a bright faceted crystal suffused with light. And at night, when the lights inside the structure reflected off the glass, it glowed iridescent. Correa’s intention was to create the form of an ancient religious monument using modern materials; a coalescence of time itself.

I grew up in a colony at the edge of Mumbai that was designed by Correa four decades ago. There was no escape from the matchbox formations that a metropolis forces on an architect. but still the buildings here were located on a hill overlooking verdant green patches. Flats had abundant cross ventilation with open kitchens attached to the hall that let the air flow into the bedrooms at the other end of the house. Light, such a key element in Correa’s work, found its way in from multiple sources; even the stairs were left open to the sky. And then people in the colony started tampering with the original design. The open kitchens were blocked off, vitrified tiles hoisted on the floors, tinted sliding windows blocked the sunlight. And you saw how life inside changed as well—it became hotter, leaks started to erupt and it was as if the space had been crunched.

Correa brought a spiritual view of habitat into his architecture and it spanned from legislative assemblies to museums, luxury hotels and low-cost housing. Poor people would invariably be squeezed together wherever they lived, but in his eyes there was a smart way to accommodate them. In an essay called Blessings of the Sky, he wrote, ‘…there is an appalling mismatch between the way our cities have been built and the way we use them today. For a whole family forced to live in a small all-purpose room, open-to- sky space is truly essential for all the activities for which they cannot find place indoors. Hence the Squatter-Housing (1973, unbuilt) in Mumbai, in which four units are clustered together under one roof in a pattern which generates such a continuum (ranging from the most private to the most public) of open spaces. This was further developed in the incremental housing at Belapur, New Bombay (1983-86). Here the housing units are closely packed (at a density, including open spaces and schools, of 500 persons per hectare). Yet each unit is separate, so that it can grow, quite independently of its neighbours.’

When a new city next to Mumbai was planned, Correa was made its chief architect because it was his idea. Even today, despite the development that Navi Mumbai has seen, there is a sense of order to it, the clean lines and formations divided into sectors. An article in Uncube magazine noted how Correa was instrumental in envisioning it: ‘Along with two of his colleagues, Pravina Mehta and Shirish Patel, Correa submitted a memorandum to the Bombay Municipality in 1964, suggesting [that it] re-structure the north-south developmental pattern into an east-west one centered around Bombay Harbour. The proposal would also integrate the areas on the mainland rim, some 20 kilometres east of the old centre of Bombay, into a new polycentric urban structure. This was innovative thinking. It opened up entirely new perspectives on the future development of Bombay and its hinterland, and represented the first concerted effort at decentralising the urban functions of Bombay. Following much public support and extensive deliberation, the basic proposals were accepted by the state government in 1970. A new city was to be planned, called New Bombay, which would eventually become the largest planned city of the twentieth century.’

Some say that he is the greatest architect that India has ever produced, but that is up for debate. But, when he passed away at his residence on 16 June, no one doubted his overwhelming influence on Indian architecture.

architectBlessings of the SkyCharles Correajamaatkhana