For him, a city could be blessed with the most beautiful physical attributes yet cease to be one. A ‘city’ was much more than ‘brick and stone,’ he noted. It was a place where “people meet, where things happen, where ideas incubate” and a place “where urban skills grow.” In his own words, cities “have mythical and metaphysical attributes.”
These notions could well define the principle behind Charles Correa’s buildings — one that was sensitive to locations, climate, context and more importantly, people. With his demise, the world of architecture and urban planning has lost a visionary. Often hailed as the greatest Indian contemporary architect, >Mr. Correa passed away late on Tuesday night after a short illness. He was 84.
Recipient of numerous international and national honours, including the Padma Shri (1972) and Padma Vibushan (2006), Mr. Correa commanded a world-wide reputation for his designs. Credited to him is a huge body of work which included national and global landmarks like the Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya in Ahmedabad, one of his earliest work at the age of 28, Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal, Jawahar Kala Kendra in Jaipur, the Ismaili Centre in Toronto, Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown in Portugal, the Permanent Mission of India in New York and the Handloom Pavilion in Delhi among others. In the 1970s, he was also the chief architect of Mumbai’s satellite suburb, Navi Mumbai. Mr. Correa gave new heights to the “open to sky” concept of design while his contributions to low-income housing were also immense, exemplified by his sustainable “tube houses” in Ahmedabad which conserved energy taking into account the hot climate.
In a January 1996 essay, while eulogising the value of open space in a warm climate like India’s, he noted the practical benefits of open-to-sky spaces.”
“To the poor in their cramped dwellings, the roof terrace and the courtyard represent an additional room, used in many different ways during the course of a day: for cooking, for talking to friends, for sleeping at night, and so forth. And for the rich, at the other end of the income spectrum, the lawn is as precious as the bungalow itself.”
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Mr. Correa’s “early work combined traditional architectural values — the colonial bungalow, traditional symmetrical space — with the Modernist use of materials exemplified by figures such as Le Corbusier, Louis I. Kahn and Buckminster Fuller.”
In 1984, he founded the UDRI in Mumbai, dedicated to protecting the environment and improving urban communities.
