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THE WORK OF CHARLES CORREA

Kenneth Frampton
a narrow dwelling, twelve feet wide, with sloping roofs and vents situated at the point of their intersection, was focused on an internal patio, which in fact was barely open to the sky at all. Clearly the Over the last three decades India has gradually seen the emergence produced of a contemporary architectural culture of exceptional much of caliber, one that bears comparison this architecture with the finest work being raison d'etrefor this introspective facilitating form was to shield the house down its inner volume from the sun, This last by virtue pitched cross-ventilation. in the heat of the day, thus protecting while simultaneously

elsewhere. However, outside the subcontinent

of the venturi effect, would pass through the tube to be exhausted as hot-air through the broken ridge between overlapping roofs.
.

remains unknown and the names of its practitioners

unfamiliar. Perhaps the most significant exception to this is the architect Charles Correa. Like other Indian architects trained in the West, Correa had to adjust his approach socio-economic in the late fifties to the of his

Throughout the first twenty years of Correa's independent practice, these two paradigms - the "open-to-sky space" and the
"tube dwelling" will manifest themselves largely in the field of housing, although the use of the former as the nexus for the creation of symbolic public space was implicit from the outset, particularly in two works dating from 1958; these were the Handloom Pavilion built in the Pragati Maidan, Delhi and the Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya Ahmedabad. built at the Sabarmati Ashram in

realities of Indian society even if these are now of working in a Third World

somewhat less restrictive than they were at the beginning career. Despite the evident drawbacks

country, C,.Q!reah~s alwaysmaintained that, like Le Corbusier, he had been privileged to work in an Indian context with its strong sunlight and plentiful labour, two factors that favored the use of reinforced concrete, not to mention a climate that with the exception of the monsoon season was usually quite benevolentv This last factor accounts for Correa's preoccupation he calls "open-to-sky with what of its space," a paradigm that, irrespective

During the first two decades of his career, "habitat" would remain the dominant discourse through which Correa would manipulate these forms, engaging in a combinatorial game with many cellular housing patterns of exceptional ingenuity. Regrettably,

many variations, is still a pervasive theme in his architecture. However, this was not the only type-form that Correa would derive from the exigencies of climate. The second crucial formulation, particularly suited to hot dry climates, was his so-called "tube as a means for conserving house," a form that was conceived

of these projects will remain unrealized, including some squatter housing designed for Bombay in 1973. At the same time Correa will apply the tube idea in a number of private houses; including the magnificent Ramkrishna House, Ahmedabad (1964), that was a He would deluxe version of the original tube-house prototype. and concrete Parekh House, Ahmedabad related to housing designed

energy in a society that, in the main, cannot afford air-conditioning. This extruded house type stemmed in part from the Moghul tradition and in part from the megaton form adopted the war. . Correa's first tube house was developed by Le Corbusier after in 1962. As a generic Here

proceed to apply the same notion to the even more articulate brick (1968), that in its turn was Township in to render the in 1967 for Cablenagar

Rajasthan. The Parekh House afforded an opportunity

type it was the complete antithesis of the open-to-sky concept.

tube house concept as two different sections, set side by side.

These sections responded.to

different summer and winter

at its most elaborate in the 28-story, Kanchanjunga completed

apartments

conditions, while being part of the same continuous dwelling volume. In effect the house was divided down its length into two different pyramidal sections. The first with a wide base and a narrow top functioned as the summer section, thereby closing the house down at the upper level, while the second served as the winter section, since it was, in effect, an inverted pyramid that in opening the house at the top, provided for a lightly shielded roof terrace covered with a pergola. A section organization employed of a more traditional character will be by Correa in the lush tropical vegetation of South-East

in Bombay in the same year. Here Correa pushed his

capacity for ingenious cellular planning to the limit, as is evident from the interlock of the one and a half story, split-level, 3 and 4 bedroom units with the two and a half story 5 and 6 bedroom units. Smaller displacements of level were critical in this work in that they differentiated between the external earth filled terraces and the internal elevated living volumes. These subtle shifts enabled Correa to effectively shield these high rise units from the effects of both the sun and the m0nS00n rains. This was largely achieved by providing the tower with relatively deep, garden verandahs, suspended in the air. Clearly such an arrangement had its precedent in the cross-over units of Le Corbusier's Unit habitation built at Marseilles in 1952, although here in Bombay the sectional provision was achieved without resorting to the extreme of differentiating between up- and down-going units. Not all of Correa's high rise apartments were so elaborate, however, as one may judge from his earlier and much simpler Sonmarg Apartments housing completed premium throughout of 1966 or his five-story CIDCO housing, at such a in Bombay in 1973. India, Correa's conc~pt of disaggregating

India. I am thinking in particular of the Kovalam Beach Resort, completed in Kerala in 1974 and of the equally elegant Bay Island Hotel built at Port Blair in the Andaman Islands in 1982. In this last, timber shade-roofs, suspended over public terraces, deflect one's interlocking roofs vision downward towards the ocean. The stepped similar way, deflecting

of the earlier Kovalam Beach Resort will descend the slope in a the prospect down towards the sea. namely his habit of However, the Kovalam Beach building also calls our attention to another feature of Correa's architecture, manipulating at the scale of the micro-space. floor levels so as to create different domesticsettings Apart from their incidental debt to remind one of Jorn Utzon's

In terms of the low-rise, high-density

Adolph Loos, these displacements

cellular living space implies the possibility of gradually upgrading the unit with incremental additions. Such an ad hoc strategy is inseparable particularly from Correa's overall attitude towards planning and Close to the pioneering work of John Turner, low cost housing proposals, Correa in India the crisis of perpetual urbanization in his self-build, urban development. openly acknowledges through conventional New Landscape determined

perception that in the West one gravitates towards the wall, whereas in the East one turns towards the floor. Thus one may find in Correa's work subtle level changes having a certain oriental . character that simultaneously serve to articulate different living zones in a particular vivacious way. We can see this clearly at Kovalam where the kitchenette of each unit is raised above the living area so as to provide long views over the sea. Correa's Loosian penchant for sectional displacement, accompanied where appropriate by changes in the floor surface, is

and the fact that housing for the vast majority will never be met methods. As he was to put it in his book The of 1985: by individual commercial developers - higher

"For too long have we allowed the densities of our cities to be

densities triggering off higher land values, and vice versa, in an increasingly own tail."1 vicious spiral, like a serpent that feeds off its

resting on square granite bases, set at the four corners of the square. These columns, needless to say support timber trusses carrying the impluvium itself with its tiled roofs. This Mediterranean parti, with antecedents manipulation staggered open-to-sky running back to Pompei, is at once inflected in respect of the by spatial devices of a local origin, above all the ingenious of the patio perimeter, particularly studio which is separated from the larger L-plan of the house by a corner sequence reminiscent of the entryways into

As Correa continues, this has led to inhuman environments that have stubbornly ignored the fact that in warm climates space itself is the punitive constraints the primary resource. While recognizing demonstrate urbanized

attending the realities of urban poverty, Correa would also his ability to design for the housing needs of a newly class, above all in the prototypical housing lower-middle

Rajasthani havelis. The square micro-stoa that surrounds the central space is not disturbed by this inflection. On the contrary by these subtle wall of the rise up to particularly because the "Iabyrinthic" its sense of immutable calm is enhanced displacements

that he designed for Lima, Peru in 1973. This so-called PREVI twostory housing type consisted of an ingenious assembly of T, L, and S shaped units, although in the final version the built units followed a much simpler formation. Over the last two decades a great deal of Correa's low-rise, high-density housing has in fact been realized for India's urban' middle class as in the Tara Housing settlement built on the outskirts of New Delhi in 1978. Four stories high and clustered about a central community space, the Tara project comprised 120 narrow-fronted, either two-story duplexes stacked on top of one another. Accessed at the ground or at the second floor, these relatively standard megaton dwellings all confirmed to the same module; three meters wide and six meters high. As he has matured Correa has drawn closer to the primordial traditton of the patio house, a type that is as much Mediterranean it is Indian. This reinterpreted so-called Koramangala ying-yang classic paradigm is clearly the basis in Bangalore, the for his own house and studio recently completed from the simplest of conjunctions. as

studio is extended into the interstices of the enclosed volumes, especially where tiled stairways with stepped balustrades serve the bedrooms at the first floor.

The broader implication of Correa's thinking about dwelling cannot be separated from his activity as an urban planner which is a crucial aspect of his work. In the company of his colleagues Pravina Mehta and Shirish Patel, Correa first entered the lists as an urban planner in the second half of the sixties with extremely pertinent proposals for the expansion of Bombay; plans which have lost nothing of their relevance during the thirty years that have elapsed since their initial formulation. Given the vast commuter-cum-squatter implosion into and

around the built-up area of Bombay that was already beginning to escalate out of control from the mid-fifties onwards, with workers commuting as much as four hours each way, in order to work in the center, Correa and his colleagues proposed the creation of a New Bombay across the harbour. The State Government put this plan into action, and between 1970 and 1974 Correa served as chief architect to then newly created City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO). The acquisition of some 55,000 hectares of

House. Here an uncanny charm derives In first instance there is the subtle

assembly of the.house and the studio spiraling around a of the symbolic and practical columns,

central square court containing a single tree. In the second instance, there is a reinforcement import of this "open-to-sky" space by virtue of cylindrical

land by CIDCO, for the purpose of accommodating

some two million

the central business district of New Bombay. Once again a future rapid transit line is to be the central axis of the entire scheme with "swags" of train lines picking up the village traffic to either side of the rapid transit and thus bringing the commuters to the rail stations and hence to the city center. Between the villages and the rapid transit line lie large maidans to either side, and these spaces are further articulated as communal squares, one for each village. The overall plan is designed to accommodate population a railway station. Unlike the rest of New Bombay, Ulwe is structured as an ecological, land-management system involving the creation of a and flood control. It is envisaged that and fruit, to series of retention and holding ponds and the further provision of an elaborate system of drainage economic production this hydraulic landscape would provide for all sorts of incidental activities from the cultivation of vegetables fish farming and garbage treatment, this last being geared to the of bio-gas. Correa envisages all this as an urban equivalent of Gandhi's rural economy program. Brilliantly worked out in many of its details, the Ulwe plan also allows for its phased realization and one only hopes that within a few years it will still be possible to bring it to fruition. Aside from the six story stepped terrace middle-class . seventy percent of the not more than ten minutes walk from either a tram stop or

people by 1985, gave Correa the opportunity of addressing the housing needs of the poorest sector of the population, through the hierarchical articulation of "open-to-sky" spaces within a single story urban fabric. As he put it: ""...Living in an Asian city involves much more than the use of a small room. Such a cell is only one element in a whole system of spaces people need in order to live. This system is generally hierarchical consisting of four major elements: space needed by the family for exclusively private use such as cooking and sleeping; areas of intimate contact i.e. the front doorstep where children play, you meet your neighbour, etc.; neighbourhood places e.g. the city water tap ,where you bec;ome part of your community; and finally, the principal urban area e.g. the maidan (open space) used by the whole city."2 . Arguing that at least three quarters of the essential activities, etc. can take place in private with cooking, sleeping, and entertaining,

courtyards for seventy percent of the year, Correa proposed a single story, mud brick, thatched roof residential fabric, interspersed courtyards of various scales and character. As far as Bombay was concerned, the second most crucial network capable of in the center. To running out at its factor was the provision of a transportation

affording cheap and rapid access to employment this end Correa projected a complex infrastructure

apartments that Correa built while he was chief arc1litect of CIDCO, the only housing stock that he has so far realized in New Bombay is in the Belapur district. Distancing himself from any particular class image, Correa designed his Belapur prototype as a combination spaces within low bounding walls. Such a cluster formation spontaneously produced a larger "open center/open a further level of aggregation; corner" square of several "L" shaped pitched roof units enclosing private open-to-sky

extremities to the villages of Taloja, Panvel and Uran and comprising a linear net of looped bus routes, feeding the settlements through a series of short "necklaces" that in their turn would be linked back to a future rapid transit spine feeding directly into the center of Bombay. As a further and more recent development 1580 hectares, descending of the same some plan Correa projected the so-called Ulwe node, comprising

settlement pattern which when combined squares produced

with three other such a 12 x 12 meter

from the hills to the Waghivali Lake, in

11

square linking 21 houses. This larger pattern generated a serpentine Radburn layout, in which the clusters were pulled back from the outer perimeter of the block to provide inset parking, while the jagged inner open space form was irrigated by a small stream or

Mauritius, built some two years later, also adheres to the same. principle, although in this instance, the oversailing shade roof and the seven story portico serve to establish the building on its corner site as a classic batiment d'ang/e. In his 1986 paradoxical LlC Center in New Delhi, Correa will create the parasol as an enormous space frame, running along the northern side of a long block. Regrettably this is an office building that in attempting to mediate between two totally conflicting forces fails to serve either. On the one hand it is patently not of the same order as the high rise development rising behind it, on the other hand it fails to relate to the scale and form of the classical colonnade running around the perimeter of the nearby Connaught Circle. Patently influenced by Louis Kahn in its play between the "served" status of the curtain-walled the quasi-Loosian, office space and the "servant" character aesthetic that Correa had of masonry shafts, faced in red sandstone, the LlC Center abandons pierced-window adopted for almost all of his office buildings, up to that point including the Indian Mission to the United Nations in New York faced in red enameled steel and the more recent Alameda Park building, projected in 1996 for Mexico City, as part of a large piece of urban renewal area, now in the process of being realized according to Legoretta's eight block master plan. In this instance Correa's cubic office block will be faced throughout in black tufa, with 2 three-story roof top loggias facing out over the park. It is intended that each of these monumental volumes will be decorated by a full height mural painted by a local artist within the Mexican mural tradition. As with Correa's other office structures, these crowning loggias will be covered by louvred parasols. Correa first broached what he refers to as a "ritualistic pathway along a shifting axis" in 1958., with his Delhi Handloom Pavilion which consisted of a square, multi-leveled, labyrinthic podium, built out of sun-dried bricks, open terraces shielded from the sun by

na//ah, provided to drain away storm water. By walling-in the site of


each house, Correa was able to cross class and economic the same time the house allowed for its subsequent for the modification lines by offering units of different size and cost within the same cluster. At expansion and of its cellular form. Needless to say, we will find

variations of this same patterning principle, with contiguous walls, in many other housing schemes including the ACC Township in Andhra Pradesh of 1986 and the HUDCO Housing project for Jodhpur of 1986. Among the various typologies that Correa has entertained. during his practice none is more general and partial in its implications than the large oversailing shade roof or parasol which, while it has assumed different forms in different works, is nonetheless always associated with the various bureaucratic institutions that he has designed during the course of his career. This element first appears at a large scale in an office complex for the Electronic Corporation Hyderabad of India Limited (ECIL), built in T-shaped office clusters that in 1968. In this instance a three story complex is made

up of three linked but independent

would fail to attain any kind of corporate unity were it not for the parasol that envelops them at roof level and runs around the perimeter of the building, as a deep overhang, from the southwest to the northeast elevations. Much the same formal strategy will be employed for the MRF Headquarters at Madras of 1991, although here the building is across the north western arc, patio. The LlC center in shielded by a shade roof extending

from due west to due north. Here as in the ECIL building, the parasol L:ontinues across the top of the central/entry

fifteen cable-supported

canvas parasols (chatri), each covering one "center"

of the sixteen squares into which the podium had been divided. The sole square that remained open in the asymmetrical consisted of a garden court around which the spiraling itinerary of the exhibit revolved, doubling back on itself over four different levels that were interconnected by either ramps or stairs. Correa would take a more strictly tectonic approach to the same theme in his commemorative museum for Mahatma Gandhi that he completed in 1963 for the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad. This

defined by a series of brick walls leading down as an undulating labyrinth to the samadhi itself. As in the Handloom Museum, the whole structure rests on a brick podium that in this instance houses a small museum, Correa will return to the same form in a series of works that

follow in rapid succession, the partially realized Gandhi Darshan,


Ragighat (1969), the unrealized Indian Pavilion for the Expo '70,

Osaka (1969), the Cochin Waterfront project (1974), and finally, the magnificently expansive Bharat Bhavan Arts Center built on the lake at Bhopal in 1981. Here the natural contours of the site were used to create an irregular "acropolis" comprising residence. of terraced gardens and sunken

consisted of a strictly gridded space elevated above the ground. Rendered in a fair-face brick and concrete syntax but strongly influenced by Moghul architecture at its most abstract, (c.f. Fatehpur Sikri), the Gandhi Museum remains one of the most compelling national monuments erected anywhere in this century. As Correa was to put it in 1989:' ", . . the great Islamic mosques of Delhi and lahore of open space surrounded relationship are at the other end of the spectrum: they consist mainly of large areas by just enough built form to make . , . This ying-yang by solid built surrounded one feel 'inside' a piece.of architecture. (open-to-sky-space

courts, around which a number of cultural facilities were organized galleries, a museum of tribal art, a library, an enclosed workshops and studios for artists in Following the Cochin Waterfront project, this is the first and open amphitheater,

occasion on which Correa will make extensive use of stepped terraces in the manner of the traditional stone bathing ghats. Thereafter he will return to this motif repeatedly, first in a small, collective meditation space, the so-called Surya Kund built in Delhi in 1986, and then in the Jawahar Kala Kendra, built in Jaipur in 1992 as a Rajasthani crafts museum, dedicated Jawaharlal Nehru. to the memory of

forms, and vice versa) generates figure/ground patterns in which the open spaces can act as areas of visual rest

between enclosed volumes - a principle of enormous


potential for museums. For not only does this pattern create the opportunity to provide a combination of concentration and relaxation, it also opens up the possibility of offering the visitor alternate paths through various sections of the museum."3 After the Gandhi Museum, Correa's symbolic "open-to-sky" space assumed a more organic and topographic character, one that was less determined by an overriding architectonic structure. This is at once evident in the memorial that he realised for Mahatma Gandhi's wife in Poona, in 1965, where the commemorative space is

This last is a complex symbolic work which represents'a condensation of Correa's thought to date and is a demonstration of a synthesis which he has always sought between popular culture and archaic cosmology. As with the Indian Handloom Museum, the symbolic central square is left empty and bounded with ghat-like stepped terraces on four sides to create a kund which in this instance is dedicated The visitor's itinerary to the sun (Surya). The other eight squares or to a different planet and its attributes. weaving its way through these squares is mahals are each dedicated

meant to recall the Vedic ritual route of the pradakshina which is

effected here through openings on the central axis of each mahal. However this seemingly "circular" route does not have to be slavishly adhered to and the visitor is free to explore the different sectors of the compound at will. replete with The most surprising and refreshing aspect of this entire complex is the way in which a radiant, popular architecture, icons, is combined retaining the vitality of contemporary with antique lore, while at the same time craft activity. The implicitly

vaguely recalls Schinkel's loggia in the Altes museum, Berlin; a feature that is backed up by the central courtyard of charbagh on to which it opens, together with an ornamental garden situated to the rear of an elongated site. . Like the Mexican architect Recardo Legoretta, to whom he may Correa seems to be torn at times between pursuing vaguely referential to popular culture, be compared,

colorful abstract compositions,

regional character of this institution finds expression in the red Rajasthan sandstone with which it is faced, topped by copings in beige Dholpur stone. These are the same materials that were used for the Jantar Mantar Observatory appropriate at Fatehpur Sikri and in the Red Fort at Agra. In each mahal this revetment is enlivened by icons inlaid in white marble, black granite, and grey mica stone. At the same time the interior of the whole is enriched by local artists who have painted images of Krishna and other cosmic figures, together with Jain cosmological vaults and walls of the compound. A similar mandala parti, structured about a central kund, will again appear in Correa's work in the late '80's, first in the new British Council at New Delhi and then in the premises of the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Development buildings being completed Banking at Hyderabad (JNIDB), both in 1992. Of these two works, the building with a striking mural in diagrams on the internal

as in his extremely scenographic Cidade de Goa of 1982, and a more direct evocation of an actual vernacular as we find this in the National Crafts Museum that he finally realized in New Delhi in 1991. Closer in spirit to the Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal than to Jawahar Kala Kendra, this museum is not organized about a strict mandala pattern and while it is graced by a number of square courtyards, are occasionally meandering these are not treated as analogies of the Vedic kund, despite the fact that they stepped to create informal arenas. Instead, the various courts give access to different exhibits opening off a pathway in an informal manner; Village Court, Temple Court, Darbar Court, etc. As in Bharat Bhavan, the podium is elaborated at two levels; on the ground floor through a series of courts and above through a set of roof terraces. At the same time most of the single story accommodation museum is conceived provided is totally enclosed. What is key here, as Jyotindra Jain has written, is that the whole after the timeless world of the Indian village crafts exist side by side. Jain shows efforts tQ regularize the where otherwise incompatible

for the British Council has the strongest initial impact, largely because of its portico which is decorated white marble and black Kudappah stone, designed by the British artist Howard Hodgkin. This is one of those rare instances in which the artwork makes the building rather than the other way around. It is a demonstration dimensions paradoxically of the way in which a figurative abstraction in two can be used to activate a three dimensional emphasizing space by

how the unofficial folk culture of India has always maintained its anarchic autonomy despite colonialising character of its production. homogenizing Jain sees the value of the National Crafts

Museum as helping to maintain some resistance to the forces of the late modern world.4 The last in the line of Correa's nine-square mandalas to date is his design for the hew State Assembly in Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh. Although this work was put in hand in 1983, only

its spatial depth. And indee.d the most portico,which

rhetorical aspect of this building is its "open-to-sky"

now, after twelve years, is it finally nearing completion;

a delay that

is modified by a diagonal of granite slabs, embedded conducting disrupting extremities of the central space. This landscaped centrifuge of energy extending

in grass,

is rather typical of the rate at which buildings come to be realized in India. Inspired in both plan and section by the hemispherical Buddha stupa at Sanchi and $ituated some fifty kilometers from the city, this building partially represents the mythical mountain of Meru. However, within its circular perimeter the plan is orthogonally subdivided into nine compartments, with the four corners of the matrix being occupied by the circular Legislative Assembly, the in each sector is a self

the pedestrian to two adjacent courts situated at the diagonal, the tranquility of the square, is also meant to represent a out towards the limits of space. Thus just as the organic In many respects this

the concept of the kund is totally transformed, no longer conforms to the mandala concept.

plan, arising out of the collegiate typology and the shape of the site assembly depends for its cultural legibility on the presence of literal icons, such as statues of Galileo, Newton, Einstein and the Indian Sage Aryabhatta, landscaped who more than fifteen centuries ago established the that the world was round. The two peripheral courts are also in such a way as to represent scientific paradigms; hostel quad being paved according figure representing Lagrange's to a fractal diagram known as

Upper House, the so-called Combined Hall and the Library. For security reasons the mode of circulation contained independent system. Thus VIPs enter the building via an culminate in a central

axis coming from the southeast, while the general public enters from the southwest. These two axial approaches square which unlike the kund, as this appears in other mandala schemes, is covered by a pergola. After passing through a checkpoint the public may gain access to viewing galleries architecturale, to coin the overlooking the three main halls through a complex system of ramps and elevated circulation. This promenade circumambulation Sanchi. Corbusian phrase, as being analogous to the ritualistic that takes place around the sacred stupa at Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics

Serpenski's gasket, while the computer court is structured about a Lobes. is a product of his Fuller, who was Needless to say, Correa's architecture

formation; that is to say he has been influenced to an equal degree by both the lateral thinking of Richard Buckminster one of his teachers in the United States, and Le Corbusier, whose stature both as an urbanist and an architect left an indelible mark on contemporary Indian architecture. This last is still evident today in the work of Correa, even if today he rarely makes any direct Corbusian reference. However, even the mandala form may be related back to the presence of a similar geometry as this appears in Le Corbusier's last work of consequence: his regrettably unbuilt project for the Venice Hospital made in 1965. The other ethos that Correa shares with Le Corbusier is his faith in the presence of what Sigfried Gideon called the Eternal Present. This is the deep source that links Correa not only to his own youth in Goa but also tQ the absolutely inexhaustible subcontinent history of a where past, present and future co-exist in an all but

The Inter-University

completed on the campus of the Pune University, near Pune City in 1992, is a much more somber work than the Jawahar Kala Kendra, in the main because the architect attempted to express overtly the dedication of the work to the exploration of outer space. Hence the "black on black" aesthetic, reminiscent of the American artist Ad Reinhardt, with walls faced in black basalt, capped by dark Kuddapah stone and a final course of glossy black granite. This dark masonry revetment, symbolizing astral space, brackets the main entrance, which in its turn frames two concrete columns that imply the axis leading to the central kund. In this instance, the kund

indistinguishable

continuum. "We live in countries of great cultural

happens, architecture

must re-invent the expression of the effectively sum up

heritage," he says, "countries which wear their past as easily as a woman drapes her sari"5. Thus India for Correa is like the Mediterranean sustenance was for Le Corbusier; the source of a spiritual as it is deeply conditions and mores of a particular beliefs of the that is as universal in its implications

mythic images and values on which it is based."6 These two extremely succinct paragraphs the full scope of Correa's activities over the past three decades and the fact that changes in the technique of building have been far less dramatic in India than in other parts of the world may go some way towards explaining the apparent ease with which Correa has been able to reinterpret and reintegrate the past into an extraordinary body of work.

rooted in the geo-physical

place. Like other Indian intellectuals of his generation, Correa will find inspirational depth in the mythic and cosmological past. In this way he has been able to elaborate partis that were initially somewhat schematic into works of poetic consequence. In opposition to the stylistic superficiality environment may be conceptualized of Post Modern as pastiche, Correa postulates three separate levels at which the and perceived today;'first, an everyday pragmatic given, second, as a domain where fashionable imagery of one kind or other will inevitably be present and, third, as an all but invisible cultural sub-stratum that rises, from time to time into the architectural way architecture unconscious of a particular region. Correa argues that this triadic interplay of climate, technology, is further modified by the

References: 1. Charles Correa: "The New Landscape," Book Society of India, 1985, p.46. 2. Ibid, p. 38. 3. Museum Quarterly, UNESCO Review, No. 164, N:4, 1989, p. 223. 4. Dr. Jyotindra Jain: "Metaphor of an Indian Street," Architecture + design, Delhi, Vol. VIII, N:5, Sept-Oct 1991, p. 39-43. 5. "Charles Correa," Concept Media, Singapore, 1st Edition, 1984, p. 9. 6. MASS, Journal of the University of New Mexico, Vol. IX,Spring 1992, p.4-5.

evolves over time through the dynamic interaction and the emerging aspirations of the society. in the modernizing Third

Thus of the forces shaping architecture World Correa writes: and its expression, open-to-sky concomitants

". . . at the deep structure level, climatic conditions, culture its rites and ritual. In itself, climate is the quantities attributed to source of myth: thus the metaphysical

space in the cultures of India and Mexico are of the warm climate in which they exist: just as without No

the films of Ingmar Bergman would be inconceivable the dark brooding Swedish winter. "The fourth force acting on Architecture other art feels its influence so decisively. technology is Technology.

. . the prevailing

changes every few decades. And each time this

THE BLESSINGS OF THE SKY


Charles Correa

Rajasthani chattris

In India, the sky has profoundly affected our relationship to builtform, and to open space. For in a warm climate, the best place to be in the late evenings and in the early mornings, is outdoors, under the open sky. Such spaces have an infinite number of variations: one steps out of a room. . . into a verandah. thence on to a terrace. courtyard, Throughout Supernatural. human history, the sky has carried a profound and it'as the abode of the sacred meaning. Man intuitively perceived . . and . . from which one proceeds to an open

perhaps shaded by a tree. . . or by a large_~9.2!,

overhead..61.eachQ1oment, subJI c.hange2 in ttle qua~ity of light and ambient-.ail:.gepeJ:ateJe..elings within us.- feeliQ.gs_~hi~h are '"central to our beings. Hence to us i~ A'sTa,the symbol of Education has never been the Little Red Schoolhouse of North America, but

Hence to climb a path to the top of the hill, where the of

--

Gods dwell, is a paradigm of such mythic power that it has been central to the beliefs of almost every society, since the beginning time. Thus the great Hindu temples of South India are not just a collection of shrines and gopurams, open-to-sky but a movement through the pathways that lie between them. Such a path is the
-

the guru sitting under the tree. True Enlightenment cannot be

'

achievedwithintheclosedbox of a room- one needsmustbe


outdoors, under the open sky. These open-to-sky spaces have very practical implications as well. 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. Thus in traditional villages and towns all over India, such open-tosky 1spaces are an essential element in the lives of the people. Examine, for instance, the village of Banni in Kutch, where the

essence of our experience

it represents a sacred journey, a

pradakhshina, a pilgrimage. And this sense of the sky extends to the architectonic vocabulary as well: as witness the walls around Rajasthan palaces and Moghul forts, crowned with patterns that interlock builtform with sky - and the wonderfully evocative ~is (umbrellas) along the roofscape, capturing fragments~,?f the infinite heavens above.

The Red Fort at Agra

The Lord Buddha at Borabudhur

AQ~

Diagrammatic section of Red Fort

0 Guru under the tree

House in Banni village

houses consist of a series of circular huts around a central courtyard. Each hut has a specialised function: one for visitors, on their need, the time of style and natural the this pattern is -.'" terrace - -"'- level. .. In the cold ~, but sunny -. -. winters, ---_. reversible: the terrace gardens Qi3Lng used during t~_e day, and the another for storing grain, a third for sleeping, and so forth. The family moves from one hut to the next, depending day, etc, in a nomadic pattern of astonishing sophistication. Then again, consider the Moghul Emperors in their magnificent Red Forts at Agra and Delhi, living in a similarp?ly-centric typolog~i: On the roof terraces of these forts, we find truly elegant patterns of free-standing pavilions, placed in immaculate gardens, inlaid with as to use: the Diwan-I-Am for fountains and channels of running water. As in the village of Banni, these pavilions are differentiated receiving visitors, the Moti Masjid for prayerS, the hamams for bathing, and so forth. Given the cold winters of North India and the annihilating its summers, how did the Moghuls manage to live in such a disaggregated pattern of pavilions? The answillJie~[n the sunken
Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya

10w!~~~;I~~rn~-~t night. The result is a brilliant re-inventio~;fthe desert tents of Central Asia from whence the Moghu1scame.
These Moghuls generated a life-style as royal as Versailles tennis court, not a parking lot. The typologies
..

but "-

with truly aristocratic finesse, their palaces are built on the. scale Qf a revealed in these examples are astonishing:

flexible and incremental, achieving great spatial richness through heat of minimalist means. They exercise a seminal influence on many of the projects in these pages - starting with one of the earliest, the Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya (1958-63) at the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad. This memorial to the Mahatma is a museum and research centre where scholars come to study his letters, books and photographs. --rThese aLe.housed in- a disaggregated plan connected ---by covered and open areas a pattern which not only allows for ~--'-mc:re flexible .growth but also gives to tFi~ users-_areas ~-visu?1 q~iet ~e the-eye can rest and the mind meditate. ~ .. -

sourtyardE,-.WbiGl:i give.accesS-tG-aJowBLleyeLof rQQJJ1s.Jn the early morning of the summer months, a velvet shamiana (canopy) is ~tretched over the rim of the c.2.ldrtyards-,JrapQing the cold overnight air in the lower level of. rooms. This is where the Moghul Emperor 'Spends~his da;.in Em~er~~ ~d th;even~nL ~ami..n;js removed, ~ndthe pavilions of

his co~r:!..~:::.~eup on to th~ g,a!:ge~and

Instruction, Enlightenme-n

Salvacao Church

Jama Masjid, Delhi

Another example is the Salvacao Church (1974-77) in Bombay which speculates on what church typology might have been if Christianity had not been headquartered in Europe, but had stayed .
Kapur Think Tank

in Asia - where it originated, Yet another is the Sen Farmhouse (1972, unbuilt) outside Calcutta which has four caves (living, This concept has also generated the Museld-Olof Archaeology. (1985, unbuilt) Bhopal, wh5're the system of courtyards galleries are built separately and incrementally with the constantly fluctuating wall - is completed into a pattern which is first clearly defined by a continuous masonry wall, and then the exhibition on the other side of it. This typology of the inside-out sock can also cope more easily budgets and time-tables of an

sleeping, cooking and washing) placed around a ~QQI2.:fo~ courtyard; at different times of the day, this courtyard can be used in conjunction with any particular cave, depending on the activity. The same principle also generates the Patwardhan Houses (1967-69) in Poona, where the sleeping and cooking functions are housed in square masonry boxes, grouped ways for the living areas. These typologies were further developed might be termed the In...ide-OutSock. An example is the project for a mud Farmhouse for Mrs. Indira Gandhi (1972, unbuilt) - a concept which re-surfaces again in the Kapur Guesthouse (1978, unbuilt) to accommodate participants in a high-powered think-tank discussing India's future. Here the main arena is a square courtyard made of in.a pattern which creates breeze-

economy like India's, since the basic architectural statement - the


in the first instance. It places the highest space - as do the great Islamic mosques, emphasis on open-to-sky

like the Jama Masjid in Delhi, which is really just a large open courtyard with enough builtform around the periphery to make one feel one is within a piece of architecture.

COURTYARDS & TERRACES Open-to-sky space is also of vital importance in housing where it can make a decisive difference between livable habitat and claustrophobia - particularly so for the lowest income groups. Even in reasonably dense housing, individual terraces and/or gardens for

earth, defined by a high mud wall - with the rooms for each of the
visitors as appendages on the other side of this wall. Each suite of rooms has a door opening on to the courtyard, in the centre of which the discussions take place - surely a configuration which should serve to wonderfully focus the mind! What is crucial here are not the formless rooms that lie on the other side of the wall, but the clarity of the central core - hence the analogy of the sock turned inside-out.

each family can be provided

as in the Jeevan Bima townships

(1969-72) in Borivli and Bangalore (1972-74), and the low-income ho.using (1971-72) for the Gujarat Housing Board in Ahmedabad.

Low-income housing,
Gujarat Housing Board

Kanchanjunga

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'~'<~~i'~~

,\

Masterspaces

~..I
~ Jeevan Bima Nagar, Borivili

Colonial Bungalow Rallis Apartments Porch

)t,
\d
.

Such open-to-sky --- - -- spaces-- not only - improve- living conditions,


--. ~

r-r--T-'
blJt

Verandah

cEil also hia'ieCQDsigeCable economievalue-in a de..veloping


~conomy like India, ,where families augment their income by keeping chickens, or goats (or even a buffalo!). Usually such activities are not encouraged in company-owned townships, but the Malabar Cements Corporation township (1978-82) was an exception. All the families, including those at first floor levels, connect directly to a small piece of land for their exclusive use. These principles are viable also in the high-rise buildings of Bombay, where the issue is compounded by the hot humid climate.

~e~LiVing ~ed-: I Bed Dining Bed I

Bath
Plan

Verandah Bath

- - ! .,.....

Another variation that this buffer zone can take is to turn the

verandahintoa garden- preferablyof double-height. Thiswasthe


genesis of the Cosmopolis Apartments (1958, unbuilt) in Bombay, Kanchanjunga and later of the Boyce Houses (1962, unbuilt) in Pune. Finally came the opportunity to actually construct this concept: (1970-83), a condominium the large terrace-garden of luxury apartments in Bombay where in the corner forms the central focus for the terrace gardens are also the focus

An east-west orientation c~che... ttt~ prevailing bre;s~ and al1so the best views in the city,. but it also exposes the building to the blistering sun -- and the monS.OOnrains. The old colonial bungalows
~

solved this problem intelligently by locating the main living areas in the centre, protected by a continuous verandah running along the

whole apartment. Double-height

periphery

a concept used in the Sonmarg Apartments (1962), the

for each family in Tara Group Housing (1975-78), a high-density complex of maisonettes in Delhi. Here the terraces a!:..~ covered bY a ~~ht pergola, since sleeping under the night sky is an age-old ,-custom in the hot dry climate of North India.

Rallis Apartment~ and later in the DCM Apartments, where a belt of verandahs, studies and bathrooms forms a protective zone around the main living areas.

Planning for Bombay

Be)apur Housing, New Bombay

Ulwe.. The CBD of New Bombay URBANIZATION Such open-to-sky spaces are of course of crucial importance to

the poorest inhabitants: the squatters. For the great wave of distress migration that is engulfing our cities in the Third World poses not just the issue of poverty (in actual fact of course, rural poverty is worse); it is really the brutal and de-humanizing patterns that this poverty
Squatter Housing

take.son in the urban context. Obviously 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 (1973, unbuilt) in Bombay, in which activities for which they cannot find place indoors. Hence the Squatter-Housing 4 units are clustered together under one roof in a pattern which t~ Jenerates 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 Though the housing typologies introducing principles, of its neighbours. provided here cover the entire range

Because such patterns of low-rise housing can be reasonably dense (particularly in Third World cities where occupancy per room is extremely high), the overall land needed by the city does not increase very much. In any case, since only about one-third of a city's land is devoted to housing, even doubling this area necessitates only a marginal increase in the overall size of the city but it can make a decisive difference to the lives of the people, particularly of the poorest. How do we increase the supply of urban land? The section Planning for Bombay, outlines some possible strategies for restructuring the city. Also discussed is the development of Ulwe (1990), the Central Business District of New Bombay, which seeks to establish affordable housing typologies and coherent urban form for including the poorest. the entire spectrum of our urban population,

of income groups, the plot sizes differ only marginally - thus the principle of Equity (an issue of the greatest political the Third World) - as well as other equally crucial income ger"ieration, such as: people's participation, significanceto

identity, pluralism, and so forth.

In short: by opening up the supply of urban land, one is using Space as a Resource - a principle of fundamental importance to our urban centres.

-~
Resting Writing

\\
Windscoop houses, Sind

Parekh House
Tube Eating House Patio

Correa House
I

j
Ramkrishna House

mechanism for dealing with the elements (truly, a machine for

living!)

this is the great challenge and opportunity of the


world.
-

. developing

In this, the old architecture

especially the vernacular - has

much to teach us, as it always develops a typology of fundamental sense. For instance, in the hot dry climate of North India, most
Hindustan Lever Pavilion

houses are narrow units with common party walls. The two long sides have no heat input, all ventilation and light enters from the short ends and via interior courts. An interesting variation of this pattern can be used to develop a section which modulates temperatures through convection currents: as the h~eated air rises, it moves along the sloping surface of the ceiling, slipping out through a vent at the top, thus drawing in new air from the lower level to replace it. This principle, first developed in the Tube House (1961-62) also forms the basis for the Hindustan Lever Pavilion (1961) and the Ramkrishna House (1962-64). The idea progresses further in Cablenagar (1967, unbuilt), a township near Kota, Rajasthan, fbr which we devel9P'ed two pyramidal sections, Summer and Winter, to be used at different times of the day and seasons of the year. The Summer section (for the daytime) entraps and humidifies the dry air, thus cooling it; the Winter Section (for early morning, and at night) opens up to the sky above. These formed the basis of the Parekh House (1966-68) and the Correa House (1968, unbuilt). In order t6 "open-up" the narrow spaces usually generated between the parallel walls of row-housing, we developed for the Gujarat Housing Board (1961, unbuilt)

tHE MACHINE FOR LIVING Another equally critical parameter: Energy. In this century, architects have depended more and more on the mechanical But in India, we engineer to provide light and air within the building.

cannot afford to squander resources in this manner - which is of


course actually an advantage, for it means that the buildingjtself must, through , its very form, create which the user . ~ the "controls" " .' needs. Such a !:espon~e necessita!et~ much more than just sunangles and louvres; it must involve the section, the plan, the shape, in short, the very heart of the buildin~. Thus the-wonderfully inventive wind-scoop houses of Iran, or th~

---

Alhambra in Granada - where the courtyards and water pools are


not just arbitrary ornamental decorations, cooler than the surrounding countryside. but crucial passive-energy In such examples indeed, deep devices, serving to make this exquisite palace at least 10 degrees the challenges of a difficult climate have triggered off architectural responses that are not wilful and trivial, but are generated in the wellspring of the human imagination. Consider that fundamental typology: the house around a courtyard. To cross a image-making. Architecture as a desert and enter even the humblest such abode is a pleasure beyond mere photogenic

interlocking units which create varying dimensions - internal dimensions - an idea later expanded in the Previ Project (1969-73)
in Lima, Peru. .

ECIL Offices, Hyderabad

Section through Padmanabhapuram

Administration Offices, Val/abh Vidyanagar

I
MRF Headquarters, Madras

Bay Island Hotel, Andamans WORK SPACES Are these concepts relevant to other building typologies, as for LEISURE Another marvellously inventive example of natural ventilation is

instance, work spaces? Earlier attempts to deal with solar prorction involved various forms of brise-soleil- as in the Administratio~ Offices (1958-60) for Vallabh Vidyanagar University at Anand. One soon discovered that this kind of concrete louvre, while'providing powerful visual imagery for the builtform, can be counter-productive. The concrete heats up during the long hot day and then acts as an enormous radiator in the evening, rendering the rooms unbearable. So the ECIL Offices (1965-68) in Hyderabad, workspace tries to develop a in which the very pattern of the builtform itse~ cremes a

the Padmanabhapuram Palace in Trivandrum - the oldest wooden


building in India. Here, in the hot and humid c,limate of southern India where cross-ventilation is essential, we-find a truly remarkable sec~on where the pyramidal form of the plinth ri~es parallel to the slope of the tiled roof above - th~ minimising the need for enclosing walls to keep out the sun and rain. From within the pavilion, one'sJl0e of vi~onis deflected_sharply downwards to the

sp~ rnigo-climate. Through this and other similar efforts, gradually a kit-of-parts came into existence: the section which facilitates convection currents,. the internal zone of micro-climate, stepped terraces, the pergola roof. Variations of this kit-of-parts were used in the MPSC Office Building (1980-92) in Bhopal and the LlC Centre (1975-86) in Delhi. Other examples are the MRF Headquarters in Madras (1987-92), the Nuclear-Power Corporation in Bombay (1988, unbuilt) and the LlC Centre (1988-92) in Port Louis, Mauritius, where the pergola .pecomes a huge urban gesture, protecting the builtform within and at the same time creating a sense of public space in the very heart't)f a much-needed crowded city. the

\1.I!.~sarouQ9. (a cool fresh green, blissfully therapeutic on a hot day). This principle formed the genesis of the Bay Island Hotel (Andamans, 1979-82) and the Dona Sylvia Beach Resort (Goa, 1988-91). The inner spaces in both these projects are protected not by enclosing walls but by very large sloping roofs. For centuries, sloping tiled roofs have been part of the indigenous architecture most of South-India - in fact, in most of South-east Asia. And they occur throughout these projects, from the Sadiq Futehally House (1959, unbuilt) in Bombay, the Mascarenhas House (1964-65) in Bangalore, and the Kovalam Beach Resort (1969-74) in Trivandrum, to the L&T Township (1982-88) at Awarpur and the houses along the Mandovi riv r at Verem (1982-89). in

Services

Handloom Pavilion, Delhi

Indip Pavilion, Osaka

understanding
The Acropolis at Athens

of the subtleties and ambiguities

of such spaces. The

irony is that the very same cultures, which produced the original typologies, PATHWAY are now happily importing the closed box model countries of the (complete with wallpaper) from the "advanced" THE RITUALISTIC Padmanabhapuram typologies is important because it is the key to syntax) quite different from those
-

north, to fill up their towns and cities - from Athens to Singar?re to


Tokyo to Sao Paulo. Fortunately, in India one cannot build a closed box (unless one can also afford the air-conditioning this issue was intuitively addressed that will make it haqitable). Thus head-on, righttrom the first

(and to architectural

developed in the cold climates of Europe and North America


where life must be protected throughout the long winter by a sealable weather-resistant

box. Thus though the wealthy English

travelers visiting the Parthenon in the 17th and 18th Centuries must have been profoundly moved by the sacred pathway up to the top of the Acropolis, they soon realised that the only thing they could really take back and re-cycle within the hostile environment turned into surface tattooing (mere wallpaper!) outside of the sealed boxes they had to build. Now a box generates a very simplistic architectural equation. in which they

~roject undertaken, the Handloom Pavilion (1958) in Delhi. Though generated by a precise and disciplined plan of sixteen squares, it actually creates a highly ambiguous ascending - and then descending space, neither quite covered - spiral. At some distance above nor quite uncovered, containing a series of platforms in an is a "sky" of hand loom cloth, separated from the peripheral walls by a gap all around. So also the K,asturba Gandhi Samadhi (1962-65) in Poona, where the memorial consists of a gently descending defined by a series of parallel brick walls, on a shifting axis, c;Jlminating in the Samadhi itself. Other variations on this theme of pedestrian path

li~ed Werethe marble columns and pediments - which were rapidly


to decorate the

One is either inside this box - or outside it. The transition from one
condition to the other is through a precise and clearly defined boundary: the~.9oUnsid.e allcLoutside co-exist as opposites, in a How very different from the pluralistic and subtle '" s~duali1y. variations of air and light conditions spaces we have been discussing! generated by the open-to-sky The old architecture of the warm by an

path, shifting axis

and low-key builtform are the Gandhi Darshan (1968-69) in Delhi and the India Pavilion (1969, unbuilt) at Osaka, Japan. Here the pathway is extended to also cover the roof surfaces. Architecturally, the form is a kind of "non-building", given scale principally by the flights of external stairs (echoing the bathing ghats of Benares).

climates of this globe

from the acropolis of Athens to the pyramids

of Teotihuacan to the temples of Kyoto were generated

",:~--.:;1
Gandhi Darshan at Rajghat

l' Darbar Crafts

"4 ~
~ " F

. ~. ~/
r

.",. -'!
Village Crafts Temple Crafts

National

Crafts

Museum,

Delhi

Corb and Mies at the Kala Akademi

Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal

This processional open-to-sky,

unfolding of spaces, some enclosed, some in Bharat Bhavan (1975-81), of the old Pleasure Gardens of Kanchanjunga, suspended
Cidade de Goa

Urban Windows, Mexico City

is also further developed

Bhopal - which is a re-interpretation


/

which are still the most popular spot for Indian families in the cool
hours of sunset and in the early dawn, In the JNIDB in Hyderabad (1986-91), the pathway moves like a river through the building, connecting the teaching areas to the Library and Faculty Offices, and up to the hostel rooms on the sloping site, while in the National Crafts Museum (1975-85), it becomes a continuous pedestrian spine

high above Bombay, which act as

"urban windows" framing the city, Another, example is the office building in the Alameda Park project in Mexico (1994 - to date) which uses these urban windows (floating just above the tree tops of the historic park) to recall th~ great tradition of public art in Mexico City, METAPHORS The relationship of architecture to the other arts is a crucial one,

running through the heart of the museum - a metaphor for the Indian
street, taking the visitor from village to temple to palace, In the British Council Headquarters and Library in Delhi (1987-92), this pathway becomes a formal axis, running down the centre of the site, from the entrance gate right up to the rear boundary, Along it are located three mythic paradigms that have generated the history of this sub-continent, recalling the historic interfaces that have existed between India and England over the centuries, The large square cut-outs on the street facade not only encase the Hodgkin mural like a proscenium but also, from within the building, act as, "urban windows" framing views of the city outside - a visual and gesture that recalls the double-height terraces

In the Hotel Cidade de Goa (1978-82) at Dona Paula, for instance, murals and sculpture are used not just to provide references to local traditions and events, but really to bring back into balance the spatial tensions generated by the builtform, This is also attempted together earlier in the Kala Akademi (1973-83) in Panaji, These projects, both sited in Goa, use elements from the kit-of-parts developed with abstractcolour between builtform and virtual imagery can adds layers of metaphorical architecture, and realistic images, setting up a dialectic
-

a complex interaction which


dimensions to

and metaphysical

Vidhan Bhavan

New Baga/kat

by its proximity to the Buddhist Stupa at Sanchi nearby, and by form of the Parliament in New Delhi.
Vastu-purush-manda/as

The second is the town of New Bagalkot in the State of Such dimensions are an essential part of the old architecture we Karnataka. Here the principles of equity, affordability, job generation etc., (discussed in the section on Ulwe) are developed within an overall urban form which has deeper cultural relevance, recalling see around us. These buildLngs possess not only an extraordinary beauty of proportion, mate"rials, etc., but they also project, with astonishing force, polemic ideas about Qurselves and our relationship with the Non-manifest the beginning World. Strange indeed that since of time, Man has always used the most inert of move him. Today our architecture is

Srirangam - the ancient temple town on the river Cauv@ry,built as


set of concentric rectangles, in the form of a Vedic mandala Scientific Research at -depicting the non-Manifest World. The third is the IN Centre for Advanced

materials, like brick and stone, steel and concrete, to express the invisibilia that so passionately

Bangalore (1990-94), the new campus for the Indian Institute of Science. Here the centre of the site is occupied by a forest, with the scientists' laboratories, seminar rooms and living quarters on the other side of the stone wall encircling this forest. Scientists (truly the new rishis!) crossing through the stone wall to enter the open-to-sky space in the grove of trees, recall metaphorically the withdrawal of the ancient sages into the forest in search of wisdom and enlightenment. Metaphysical aspects of the sky are also addressed in the next two examples:'the Jawahar Kala Kendra (1986-92) in Jaipur and IUCAA (1988-93) in Pune. These two projects, seemingly so different

banal - partly because our contemporary existence is so, but also


perhaps because we do not seek to express anything profound (or deeply felt) about ourselves, or the society in which we live. The next few projects are really but faltering steps in that direction, metaphors for ounelationship to something outside (and

beyond) ourselves. The first is the Vidhan Bhavan (1980 - to date), a


highly complex interlock of pathways, builtform and open-to-sky spaces for the new State Assembly of the Government of Madhya

Pradesh. It is a citadel of democracy


determined

built in a circular form

by its location (on top of a hill in the centre of Bhopal),

.
~.

- ---

.1
.......

~.

Navgraha:

the symbols and colours of the nine planets

Galaxy in an Expanding

Universe

in form and function (one is an art centre, the other an academic institution), are not so dissimilar after all. Both seek to project.

the central paradigms

through which the ancient vastu-purushscientists' notions about the Black Or is there a far

mandalas (with their emphasis on the centrality at the vortex) are not so different from contemporary more fundamental Holes of Outer Space. Is this mere coincidence? generated from the same human mind.

Architecture as a Model of the Cosmos - each expressing a


transcendental programme reality, beyond the pragmatic requirements of the that caused them to be built. In this sense, they are

explanation? After all, both theories have been . . which, over all these and earlier and

quite symmetrical. The first, the Jawahar Kala Kendra in Jaipur, is double-coded (like the plan of Jaipur city itself), a contemporary the vastu-purush-mandalas architecture construct based in on an ancient perception of the non-Manifest World, as expressed - those sacred Vedic diagrams that have been of seminal importance to Hindu, Buddhist and Jain over many many centuries. Centre for Astronomy at Pune, seeks to express a totally different mindThe second, IUCAA (the Inter-University and Astrophysics)

centuries, has not changed. And just as the pragmatic pleasurable qualities of open-to-sky seem to have remained undiminished, mythic qualities as well.

space that we discussed so also its metaphysical

Perhaps the reason is not so hard to fathom. The sky, all said and done, is the source of light
-

which is the most primordial of

stimuli acting on our senses. And across its face, every day, passes

the sun - the origin of Life itself! . . . Small wonder then that man
has always perceived the sky above to be the abode of the gods, and that down all these many millennia, it has exerted such extraordinary power on us and on the architecture we build.

set, viz., our own 20th century notions of the Expanding Universe in

which we live - an understanding generated by the extraordinary


scientists (Einstein, Rutherford, Hoyle, and others) who in making the Universe comprehensible, contemporary sensibilities. have helped generate our own

The Cosmos - as it was comprehended thousands of years ago


and as it is perceived today. These two projects seem to be based . . or are they? For astonishingly, on two very different mind-sets.

Bombay, January 1996

~_..,l! '~
.. l

. """ ! . tf~. i. Ii
11

...--""'

., , ... 1 ..

This memorial museum is erected.in the Sabarmati Ashram where Mahatma Gandhi resided from 1917 to 1930, and from which he started on his historic Salt March to Dandi. Built in homage to the Mahatma, and to propagate his ideas, it houses letters, photographs, and other documents which trace the freedom are similar to the other movement launched by GaC1.dhiji. The materials used in the construction

buildings in the ashram: tiled roofs, brick walls, stone floors and wooden dqors. The only additions are the RCC channels which act as beams and as rainfall conduits - and which permit additional conWuction to be added in future. No glass windows are used anywhere in the building; light and ventilation being provided by operable wooden louvres. These elements combine to form a pattern of tiled roofs, in a typology analogous to the villages so central to Gandhiji's thinking. They are grouped in a casual meandering pattern, creating a pathway along which the visitor progresses towards the centrality of the water court.

The last possessions

of Mahatma Gandhi

Prayer Platform
u

i ".;

.f

.' \
C::itp nbn \'I i"\"\

---

...

1,

'.

..'

-,

,.

Enclosed Units

Courtyard

Semi-enclosed

Section showing channels for carrying rainwater, and for adding new units, Since the collection will, by its very nature, be augmented from time to time, the Sangrahalaya is a "living" structure which can grow and modulate, Recently, some more units were added, extending the pattern, This process will continue, as more photographs, letters and other documents are

==::I
0

~ 3

5m

collected - each generation of Indiansmaking its


contribution, and paying its homage, to the Mahatma,

?,
'~

Air gap Tiles Battens

The tiled roofs, supported on brick piers, 6 m on centre, are layered for heat control, Wooden boarding fixed to the bottom of the joists (which run parallel to the slope of the roof), is covered with waterproofing and then finished silver-white to reflect back incident heat. Along the top of the joists, lightweight battens support roof-tiles - thus creating between the two layers of the sandwich an air gap (which provides insulation from solar radiation).

Boarding Joists "Channel

~~'h::-:'.. ""
'' '
',\' ~,~..:,>,~

'..'jl

,'-

--

'-Wooden member to operate louvres


I I I 1

--

':.""i"~~ I

t' t' I I "


Louvre
Closed position

,,'~ ,, " I'

--

I' I' " I' "'~~-tr~, , I


.. r"'J'-'L I, "" I' ' , I . I I L
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" ','

Operable louvres

Metal flat acts as stiffener I

I " /

I I 'J.."'o!.~,, I ,

I , , I , I
'.' ,,'~,

I I

I I

Detail

of louvre 0 erable louvres

I 0.5

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Village women visiting the Ashram

"I do not want my house to be walled on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any of them." - Mahatma Gandhi

NATIONAL CRAFTS MUSEUM


Delhi 1975-90

This Crafts Museum, casual and accepting vernacular, is organised

of the artisan's

around a central pathway, going from

village to temple to palace, a metaphor for the Indian street - in fact, for India herself, where all these different kinds of crafts have always co-existed down the centuries. Walking alongthis spine, one catches glimpses of the principal exhibits that lie on either side (the Village Court. Darbar Court, etc.). One can visit any particular exhibit, or alternately, progress through all the various sections in a continuous sequence. Towards the end of the sequence, the exhibits get larger and Finally, one for folk include fragments of actual buildings - since the crafts of India nave always been an essential element of her architecture. exits via the roof terraces - which form an amphitheatre

dances, as well as an open-air display for large terracotta horses and other handicrafts. There are more than 25,000 items of folk and tribal arts, crafts and textiles in the permanent collection. Less than half of the total floor area of 5500 sq. metres is open to the public; the rest of the collection is stored in special areas for the use of the very finest craftsmen who are selected from allover India to come and study
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these archives. In this manner, a potter from Bengal has the opportunity to examine at first hand the best work of his counterparts in Kerala, at the other end of the country, or for that matter, what his own forebears in Bengal had produced two or three hundred years
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previously. This is a perspective which has hitherto never been available to traditional Indian craftsmen.

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As the Director of the Museum, Or. Jyotindra Jain has stated: "We call it a museum because it has been dubbed so for a long time, but in reality it does not behave like one, and while hesitating to assume a conventional nature and role, it asks many questions of itse/~ eventually emerging as an institution that strives for identity, but in no hurry to find a slotted definition of itself. 'The core collection of the Crafts Museum was put together to serve as reference material for the craftsmen who are increasingly losing touch with their own traditions in terms of materials, techniques, designs and aesthetics of their arts and crafts due to the sudden changes caused by modern industrialisation. Thus, it was primarily addressed to the craftsmen who have now been brought into a close and integral relationship the Museum. with

"As the traditional social, economic and cultural institutions rapidly disintegrate, 7t is difficult for the craftsmen to be able to support themselves by selling their products regionally. Their visits to the Museum provide them opportunities to meet their new urban patrons. Such patronage is necessary, for the level and potential skill of the millions of craftsmen and handloom weavers in the country is so formidable that if lost, even thousands of formal technical institutions and universities will not be able to resurrect it at the cost of unlimited money, over many centuries. "Over the last decade, this Museum has been altered time and again - it is being continuously improvised. It has an unconcluded air about it in the sense that it does not appear to be 'finished'so as to make a pretty picture postcard. It is a flexible building in the same sense as an Indian village street would be flexible - affable, accommodative, informal and active. "

Kalamkari

worker

Amphitheatre

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Rajasthani

wall paintings

OARBAR CRAFTS

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Metalpots from Gujarat

Roof tiles of mythic animals from traditional houses of Bastaar tribals

The street as metaphor - from village to temple to palace

BRARAT BRA VAN


Bhopal 1975-81

The site for this Art Centre is on a gently sloping hill overlooking the lake in Bhopal. The natural contour2...Qilhe sJte b.?v~J2.een-used

to createa seriesof terracedgardensand sunkencour~ds


of Tribal Art, a library of Indian poetry (in all the 17 major languages), galleries for Contemporary lithography and sculpture, Art, workshops for

--

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off

which are located a number of cultural facilities, including a museum

and a studio for an artist-in-residence, arts,

In

addition, the 8000 sqm of Bharat Bhavan houses a full-fledged theatrical repertoire company and facilities for the performing including the Antarang (indoor auditorium), air amphitheatre), overlooking the lake, by top
,

and the Bhairang (open-

Lighting and ventilation within the building are provided parapets), In addition, the openings to the courtyards

lightS(from the concrete sheli's- and from slots along the terraceand terraces have two sets of shutters: the inner ones consisting of ? combination

of fixed glass and operable panels for light and ventilation; the outer ones consisting of large wooden doors, closed at night for security,

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The amphitheatre (Bfiairang), overlooking the lake

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The open-to-sky pathway is structured around three courtyards - from which one enters the various facilities. This feeling of open space is an essential part of the experience of visiting Bharat '11liavan. Progressing through the terraced gardens and courtyards, one comes Rem"" A)(hibitiofJ. spaces, workshops- and dance theatres, in an easy and casual manner, maKingmem accesST5lefOfhe -ctrtzmJErof Bhopal. Every evening, whole families, on cycles and scooters, come to stroll around in the terrace

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gardens - and perhaps stay on to watch a play,


or hear a concert.

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View back towards the main entrance

IN CENTRE FOR ADVANCED SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH


Bangalore 1990-94

Since time immemori91, holy men and sc~olars inlllcJl?hgW,e renounced the world and gone to live a life of contemplation in forests and high mountains. This age-old pattern was adopted as a metaphor for g~nerating the layout of this new campus, an extension of the Indian Institute of Science (the oldest and still the premier Institute of Fundamental Research in India), which has been created to provide research fa~ilities and living accommodation for distinguished visiting scientists and scholars. The traditional renunciation of the world by the rishi (holy man) is here symbolised by a long curving wall, built lecture halls,
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of granite blocks, which encircles a forest in the centre of the site. The various facilities provided (research laboratories, library, residential accommodation, walletc.) are on the other side of the

so that during the course of their studies and research, the

scientists (truly the new rishis!) can step through the perforated granite wall, into the forest for wisdom and enlightenment. A service road skirts the outer boundary of the site, providing access to the various facilities. In a second phase, an additional set

of research laboratories has been added, connected to the znain building dome, celeb~ating the "Bucky Balls' '" by a,Buckminster Fuller ' which constitute the structure of carbon atoms,- a geometry intuitively conceptualised by one who must surely be among the greatest rishis of our 20th century.

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the forest

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Looking out from the hostel, towards the forest

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The Library - that ancient symbol of knowledge - "breaks through" the granite wall, establishing closer relationship with the forest

Walking past the Hostel entrance, with the Library ahead

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JNIDB
Hyderabad 1986-91

This Institute is set up to train senior managers from banks in India and South Asia, who come in for various types of courses from two weeks to a full year. One of the key objectives therefore is that informal interaction and discussion by the very pattern and layout of the built form itself. Hence the complex system of interdependent organised around a series of landscaped provide the humidified micro-climate spaces, so as to courtyards, of the programme among

management trainees and faculty members should be encouraged

necessary in the hot-dry connects the leads one up through

climate of Hyderabad

and very evident in its traditional


of these courtyards

architecture. The sequence

auditorium to the teaching rooms, and thence on to the faculty offices. Along a cross axis, another sequence the gently ascending levels of the sloping site, past the lounges and

dining hall to the residential rooms, which are laid out around . smaller courtyards. In the centre of the entire complex is the kund, whose stone steps echo the boulder-strewn place for casual conversations, formal occasions. landscape of Hyderabad, creating a focus in the centre of the complex - an ideal as also for concerts and more

The landscape

of Hyderabad

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cF=t= 01 35m Part plan showing residential rooms around access courtyard To generate interaction between management trainees and faculty, there are two important spatial sequences - the firstleads from the public zones (the teaching rooms, auditorium, etc) to the privacy of the individual hostel rooms. The second continues on from these individual rooms out into the surrounding landscape. Both sequences have been carefully layered, so as to create a series of zones, ranging from the most public to the most private. Thus starting with the monumentality of the entrance hall, the spaces get gradually more casual, so as to encourage the kind of. informal interaction so essential to the programme. From the residential rooms out towards the external landscape, there is an analogous pattern of layering: each room has a small sit-out porch, which in turn relates to the cluster of other such porches,allJocated on terrace gardens, from which one can go out into the surrounding landscape.

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arwaza,marking entrance to Faculty and Staff Houses

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are white, with the warm earth colours and the landscape

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The houses for faculty and staff are on the rightI

main plaza, reached through a "darwaza" (or gal which spans over the driveway Besides the Oirf residence (located at the corner), this complex provides accommodation for three categories of houses, from the maintenance staff to the senior faculty, organised around three interlocking COU

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, Pergola covered walkway

KALA AKAD EMI


Panaji, Goa 1973-83

Located on a site along the Mandovi river in the capital of Goa, this Centre for the Performing Arts provides 10,500 sqm of facilities for visiting artistes and troupes of performers from other cities in India and abroad, as well as for local Konkani and Marathi theatre groups and" musicians who travel around many villages and towns

of Goa - and who constitute a vigorous and essential part of its


cultural traditions. The facilities provided are several: they include a 1000-seat auditorium, a 2000-seat open-air amphitheatre, for experimental productions, .

a special "black box"

and so forth. There are also schools of In

Indian Classical Dance, and Indian and European Classical Music, as well as an Exhibition Gallery for Painting and Sculpture. addition, accommodation artistes and musicians. . has been provided for visiting troupes of

The site, which faces the historic Mandovi river, is on the

Campal, a wide tree-lined road running through an old residential area of Panaji. Thus the builtform is low-key and unobtrusive - the main 'event" along the road being the large pergola-covered for the auditorium and the amphitheatre. foyer As will be seen from the

plan, this space leads one toward the casuarina trees along the riverfront, so that the building in fact acts as a large breezeway, connecting the Campal to the Mandovi river.

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The 1O00-seat auditorium has to function u, wide range of conditions, ranging from spe and plays, through sitar and sarod recitals western orchestras. These variations in

acoustical conditions are brought about by manipulating areas of absorbent material a the walls and ceilings of the auditorium. Th, mechanics of these changes are not alway apparent to the audience, since these devi are placed outside a box whose walls are r of materials which are acoustically transpaJ but visually opaque. On the walls and ceilir this inner box is painted the illusion of an 01 Goan theatre, complete with balconies pee with typical locals, drawn by the renowned artist Mario Miranda. To decrease the reverberation time in the auditorium, real CL are pulled behind the figures in the balcom supplemented by other drapes that move (unseen) above the false "ceiling".

The central foyer: a breezeway

that connects

the main entrance to the fylandovi river

When the show starts, the house-lights dim gradually, with the illuminated figures in thE balconies fading last of all. At the interval, I process is reversed. However, at the end G performance, just before the balcony-light5 come on, spot-lights illuminate (for a few bl seconds) the ceiling behind the inner box. this surface is painted fragments of the gre jungles of Goa; an experience to remind th audience that all they have witnessed is mt illusion - certainly the play, perhaps also tt own lives - and that the only thing they car sure of is that one day this too will pass, an jungle will reclaim its own.

At the top left corner of the mural, the stair continuing straight is real - the one turning to the right, an illusion. At the lower right hand Ie Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe come around the corner, to make the world - and Goa, alas! - never the same again.

uditorium interior- a visual construct of acoustically transparent materials

Acoustical voiume

Virtual volume (Acoustically transparent visually opaque)

Structure

Jungle scene

Perforated coffers

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KOVALAM BEACH RESORT


Kerala 1969- 74

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The purpose of this project, commissioned

by the Government

of India, was to initiate one of India's most spectacular (but relatively unknown) beaches as a major beach resort area. Thus the facilities specified in the programme (accommodation for over 300 guests,
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centres for yoga and ayurvedic massage, water sports, and so forth) had to be deployed in a manner which would create a critical mass for each activity - and at the same time open up several strategic points on the site so as to increase future growth options. The master plan therefore does not concentrate all the facilities in one area, but generates a larger number of potential growth points, thus allowing a more flexible response to future demands. The guest rooms come in three configurations. Firstly, on the
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edge of the beach, hidden under the palm trees, are the kudils

individual suites for longer stays, with their own cooking facilities, etc. Overlooking the beach is the main hotel with 100 guest rooms. Here, in order to preserve the natural beauty of the site, the facilities are all built into the hill slopes - every room getting its own private sundeck. In between the kudils and the hotel there are clusters of "detached units", offering about the same facilities as the kudils but at slightly higher densities. Throughout the project, the construction is in traditional vernacular of Kerala: viz, white plastered walls with red tiled roofs; other pavilions consist of light bamboo chhatris with coir matting on the floor and local Kerala handicrafts.
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around courtyards, has a clear view of verandahs, also guest rooms to the meandering

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CIDADE DE GOA
Dona Paula, Goa 1978-82

Goa, one of .the oldest trading centres along the west coast of India and for 450 years part of Portugal, is a land of rivers and hills and stunning palm-fringed always been traditionally beaches. Because Goa's economy has land-based,
-

the population

of seven

million is evenly distributed

one lives in a place because one


working there. Thus polycentric

either owns land there or is a tenant-farmer

Goa has no single dominant city, but a balanced 100,000 inhabitants.

system of villages and towns - the largest of which has less than
This hotel, a few minutes drive from Panaji, is built on a sloping site which descends down to a beach on the Zuari river. During the hotel began to emerge as a sort of it . . . surely there was a mythical city which (Are Portuguese perhaps
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the process of design, which would describe

expressionistic hill town - so the search commenced for a name


the Portuguese had yearned for, in vain? . . . . an EI Dorado? But alas, historians could find nothing. less metaphysical town. City of Goa. than Spanish?) Finally a phrase surfaced: . a marvellously evocative phrase. . a city,

"Cidade de Goa" . . . the original name for Panaji, Goa's capital which is at times a city abstracted, and then again a city"of virtual

imagery, and finally a city of real dwellings and balconies and terraces. The main road is up on the barren ridge of a rocky plateau. One passes beneath the entrance arch and descends long driveway into a lu,sh green valley, to arrive. surrounded down the . . in a plaza,

by key symbols and signs which connote: CITY.

Some of these images are the artifacts of a stage set, others the trompe de l'oeil of the cinema poster artist. These facades are layers, one passes through. kaleidoscopic . . . a highly fragmented, spaces. series of visual sensations and architectural responses in the . like the
Entrance plaza

What is real? The object? Or the image? Or the image of the image of the image? Awakening sub-conscious memory. . . the bitter-sweet saudade of nostalgia. fados of the Alfama, a sardonic art.

The palm-fringed

beaches

of Goa

Street in Panaji

Walkingdown the pedestrian street

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Goa has. always lived at the interface of many cultures. Even before the Portuguese arrived, it was one of Asia's greatest ports - a vital link on the trade routes. In its history were men like the fabled Adil Khan, and the Kadamba Kings whose ancestor, Trilochana Kadmaba (i.e. the Three-eyed Kadamba) sprang from a drop of Shiva's sweat that fell at the foot of the Kadamba tree. These rich images form the principal themes of the hotel. Beyond the lounge, the pedestrian street begins. As one walks down these covered arcades, past courtyards, one glimpses connecting bridges and short flights of stairs leading to the guest rooms. The shops are not in the main lobby, but along this street (as would occur in a real town), starting with

One of the Oamao guest rooms. The sleeping area consists of a mattress placed on a traditional at/a (raised platform) covered by chattai (rush matting)

the Taverna - a typical Goan bar.


The guest rooms reflect the main historic themes. Some of them are 'Casas' based on their prototype in Portugal. Others, called 'Damao', reflect Goa's ancient trading connection with Gujarat - seen in the statues in the Cathedrals of Old Goa, carved by Hindu craftsmen strongly influenced by their own traditional iconography. The metaphor of the city culminates in the Alfama, one of the many restaurants in the hotel, named after the old Moorish quarter of Lisbon. Here we find the city involuted on itself: an indoor city within an outdoor one, with diners seated at various levels in different houses, and at terrace cafes around a miniaturised plaza.

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MRF HEADQUARTERS
Madras 1987-92

Madras is a low-rise city, with a quiet and relaxed life-style. These new headquarters for MRF, the leading tyre manufacturer India, gently follows the curve of the road to create a series of terraced gardens, along the waterfront in Madras. Rejecting the notion of a high-rise tower to convey the commercial pre-eminence of the client, this design generates column rising to monumentality though a single free-standing in

recalling the waves on the seashore of the Marina

support the large pergola that floats above the terraces, protecting them from the sun. Within the building, the various levels of the offices open out onto a central atrium, linked through a casual pattern of connecting wonderfully stairs, creating a focus for the building - and a to another, or casual way to walk from one department

to exit and go home at the end of the working day. At the roof terrace level, one emerges on to a large garden, with the trees and buildings of Madras all around.

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The entrance lobby: floors and furniture of granite and leather

Walls in atrium, recalling the curved surfaces of the main facade facing Greames road

Views of atrium from the upper level, with the skylight reflected in the granite floor

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jEEV AN BHARATI
Delhi 1975-86

This office complex for the Life Insurance Corporation (LlC) is situated on the outer road of Connaught a pivot between the colonnades building is both proscenium trees around Connaught of Connaught

of India

Circle, and acts as Place and the new

generation of high-rise towers that now surround it. !hus the and backdrop: a twelve-storey stage-set whose faceted glass surfaces imagery of Delhi can be glimpsed. The two lower levels of the complex consist of shopping separate wings, generating metres. Connecting long, supported decks and restaurants, while the upper levels of offices are located in two a total built-up area of 63,000 square the two wings, is a great pergola, 98 metres reflect the buildings and

Place, and beyond which the new high-rise

at either end by masonry piers and in the middle by will pass between the two blocks,

a single column. A city proposal for an elevated pedestrian walkways (if ever constructed) allowing pedestrians to traverse the building as a great darwaza, i.e.

gateway, defined by the portico-form.

102

From Connaught

Outer Circle

The red sandstone of the piers wraps around the rear facade, culminating in the twin elevator towers which frame the slot for the pedestrian bridge. On this side of the building, the windows are deeply recessed into the masonry so as to protect them from the heat of the Delhi sun.

Exterior clad in red sandstone

The rear facade, with slot leading through to Connaught

Circle

104

;ross from the open green area in Connaught

Place

Bus Terminal

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The knife-edged

masonry pillar in the NW corner

View from the Jantar Mantar


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PERMANENT MISSION OF INDIA TO THE U.N.


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1985-1992
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The site, just down the road from the UN Headquarter York, consists streets, of two Manhattan city-blocks connecting ad forming a narrow strip of land 60 metres long, with

of 12 metres along 43rd 81. and a mere 6.3 metres along L


Into this crevice had to be inlaid a complex programme of the Permanent Mission of India and an Exhibition Gallery ( access from 44th 81.) located in the four levels of the radii surmounted by a tower with residential accommodation fa different categories of staff, ranging from the security pers (15.5 sq. metres each) to the Dy. Consul. General (200 sq. trIplex apartment with terrace gardens, at the top of the bL This wide range of apartment sizes were all accommodatE

same envelope (a tower 14 metres wide and 15.5 metre~ I


wrapped in a taut metal-panelled
-

top are interlocking duplexes

skin. The larger apartml somewhat like the Kancha

Apartments in Bombay (1969-83), but with the double-hei! glass-enclosed (so as to remain useable in the North AmE winters).

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From 44th St. The building fits together like a jigsaw puzzle, not only because of the mix of offices and residences, but also because Government of India regulations specified very precise areas for each apartment, down to the last square metre, for the many

differentcategoriesof staff- and thesecould


neither be increased (because of objections from the Ministry of Finance) nor decreased (because of vigorous opposition from the PMI staff). Councillor 1& 2

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20m

mtrance door on 43rd St., which es wide by 6 metres high, opens tions (two upper and two lower). de door on 43rd St. (leading the apartments in the tower) and ce door to the Exhibition Gallery ., it is made in India of wood and
raditional Rajasthani craftsmen.

Maquette of Husain sculpture

Apart from the many works of art within the PMI, the
eminent Indian artist, M. F. Husain, was specially commissioned to create two pieces The first is a large mural in memory of Mahatma Gandhi which covers the surrounding walls of the main lobby. The other, yet to be installed, is a sculpture for the double-height terrace over the main entrance on 43rd St, which pccording to Husain depicts the 7 mythic horses of the Mahabharata, bursting forth

from the Chakra (wheel) - seen in the Emperor


Ashoka's Column, the Official Seal of the Government of India.

The double-height

terrace over the main entrance

on 43rd St., with opening for Husain sculpture

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11

Starting with the lower three floors of the podium (clad in reddish-brown granite from South India), the tower rises to 27 floors, "evaporating" at the top into a cube of pergola-covered terraces - like traditional towers in the hill-towns of Yemen.

Looking " towards

the east river and the UN headquarters

The North facade from 44th SI.

L.I.C. CENTRE
Mauritius 1988-92

Mauritius is an Island of Paradise in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Africa. It has an evenly-distributed human settlements, poly-centric pattern of not unlike Goa. The capital is Port Louis, and of two important of the centre of the city. While the boundaries

this office complex is situated at the intersection streets in the crowded

site are defined by the pergola above and its large supporting column, the building itself steps back in terraces, opening up precious space at this very busy street intersection - a ges!.Ur~ which creates an --- urban lanai, filled witJ:1 the-exetic fJora-of-Mauritius. Apart from the main entrance to the office floors, the programme called for two other important entrances, each one have its own
,

identity.Thefirst is for the officeof the ConsulGeneralof India- to


be entered from a doorway directly off the main driveway, with the Ashoka Column (symbol of the Government of India) directly above.

The secondis for the Life InsuranceCorporationof India- which is


on the first floor and reached via the bridge which stretches out to the pavement in front.

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An urban lanai at a busy street intersection

Entrances facing President Kennedy Avenue

Office Office Office Office LlC Office Consulate

Longitudinal section through the site

distant mountains from 4th floor offices

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First floor plan

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Terraces overlooking President Kennedy Avenue

Stairs and bridge leading to entrance of LlC headquarters

at first floor

Pergola over main entranCE

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A terrace along the North facade

openings along the eastern and western faces 1e building are relatively low-key, but along the 'facade, double-height terraces provide ctacular views of Port Louis harbour, Along the th-western boundary of the site is a arcade ~hprovides protection for pedestrians moving /leen the bus terminal (a block away to the ') and the city centre,

The North facade, facing the harbour

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From the highway along the northern boundary of the site

11

121

ALAMED A PARK PRO }ECT


Mexico City 1994 to date

This office building is part of a new development destroyed in the earthquake

by Reichmann

are for offices, with the top three having Executive Suites a on to terraces with marvellous views of the city through the "urban windows" at the top of the building. From Alameda Park, these openings, floating just aba\ level of the trees, will frame the multi-faceted mural, painte great Mexican tradition of public art, so vividly exemplified work of Deigo Riveira and Orazco. The external walls are c black volcanic rock used in many of Mexico City's oldest t with the mullions of the square windows in a glossy reddisl metallic finish.

International in the heart of Mexico City, on a site which was largely of 1985. Within the context of a Master have been entrusted to several interPlan developed by the noted Mexican architect Riq:!rdo Legoretta, (Caesar Pelli, Aldo Rossi, Fumihiko Maki, etc). of a

the design of the buildings national architects

This projeCt is a low-rise building, located along the front of the site, facing the historic Alameda Park. It has the proportions cube
-

the lower two fl.oors of the building contain shops which plug arcade along the rear of the site. The upper floors

into the shopping

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125

KAN CHANjUN GA APARTMENTS


Bombay 1970-83

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In Bombay a building has to be ~te~ east-west to catchJbe QIevajling sea:b[eezes, and to open up the l2est views in the city: the Arabian Sea on one side and the harbour on the other. But these unfortunately are also the directions of the hot sun and the heavy monsoon rains. The old bungalows solved these problems by wrapping a protective layer of verandahs around the main living areas, thus providingthe occupants with two lines of defence against the elements. . Kanchanjunga, an attempt to apply these principles to a highrise building, is a condominium of 32 luxury apartments of four different types, varying from ~.::.to 6 bedrooms each. The interjock of these variations are expressed externally by the shear end walls that hold up the cantilevers. The tower has a:proportion of 1:4 (being
/ 7

21 metres square and 84 metres high). Its minimalist unbroken surfaces are cut away to open up the double-height colour) some hint of the complex spatial organisation spaces that lie within the tower. terrace gardens form and of living
Overlooking the city from a garden-terrace

at the corners, thus revealing (through the interlocking

Typical sect/on, showing interlock of basic units

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out towards the terrace from a living room: two fefence against the sun and rain

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Repeating the basic interlock of 3 and 4 bedroom units generated facades that seemed like just so much yardage, Incorporating 5 and 6 bedroom units (created by adding an additional half-level to some apartments), enriched this basic pattern, giving the tower rhythm and energy, like a Tree of Life,

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SONMARG APARTMENTS
Bombay 1961-66

This is an early attempt to deal with the context and climate of Bombay. In order to create two lines of defence against the rain studies, dressing around the main of 75 cm and sun, a belt of auxiliary spaces (verandahs, living areas. The apartment only two apartments is on two levels with a difference between the living room and the main bedrooms. creating through-ventilation apartment Since there are of cross-light.

rooms, etc) is arranged to form a zone of protection

per floor, each unit is open on three sides, and a subtle ambience by the same family, the

Over three decades of occupation

illustrated has had to deal with many different changes in

the ages and the space requirements of its users - and this is where
the cordon of auxiliary spaces along the western and eastern faces have proved extraordinarily an easy and economical responsive and flexible, combining with the main rooms to deal with a large number of spill-over activities in manner.

Shadow on bamboo

chik

The living room, looking towards protection zc

132

133

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A diwan in the living room, with photograph of the Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya

Plan showing protective

zone along eastern and western -perimeters ~~ 0 1

The main facade facing Napean Sea road

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along eastern perimeter

Connecting zones of protection: the door (with the faux Matise) opens to connect the Living Room to the Guest Room.

jving

room, with protective

zone along western perimeter

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for the Master bedroom

HOUSE AT KORAMANGALA
Bangalore 1985-88

The traditional courtyard typology

houses of South India represent a

much older, and really quite different, from that of the

bungalows built by the British - which is usually a long shed (with


the Living and Dining rooms down the centre and the Bedrooms on either side), wrapped around with continuous verandahs. The result: rooms which are large and generous, light and cross-ventilation. In contrast, the traditional Goa are usually organised but sadly lacking in

old Hindu houses in Tamil Nadu and with a


Ji1'f

around a small central courtyard,

tree or tulsi plant in the middle. One enters through the front door, intentionally placed off-centre on the main facade, and then moves along a shifting axis to arrive at the courtyard which acts as a central focus, bringing wonderful and predictable bounce-light and ventilation to the rooms that surround it. How infinitely more delightful to the somewhat dark spaces of the colonial bungalow! Entrance were sorted out. Thus during
-

Construction on this housewasstartedin1986- unfortunately,


before user requirements

construction, the house kept changing

really quite fundamental

changes in the number of rooms, in their sizes, in their relationship to each other. These went through more than a dozen incarnations
-

the only thing they all had in common was the courtyard in the
right until the end. rounds of decision-making have generated have and executed a layering - an ambiguity which would probably

centre. Thatnevervaried- and it allowedthe restto keep


changing, complicated These successive

been impossible to achieve in a design conceived through a single round of decision-making designer's fall-out of a process involving consecutive which has grown organically with time.

(however complex the rounds of decisions of an old town 0

intentions), but which has come about as a natural

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(each hopefully the last!) like the subtle ambience

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towards courtyard from living room

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Bamboo chiks around the courtyard

The Burma teakwood doors, taken from a turn-of-the-century bungalow that the family use to live in, incorporate the traditional symbol of the tortoise (appearing in various sizes, depending on the width ofthe door). These doors have been hand painted by the architect to celebrate their new incarnation. Studio garden, with granite blocks

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:entry watchingdoberman crossing courtyard very swiftly

VILLAS AT VEREM
Goa 1982-89

Thirty-eight elongated

houses located on a beautiful piece of land along

the Mandovi river, across from the city of Panaji. Because of the nature of the site, which runs between road and river bank, it was possible to string out these houses so that all of them get a river view, with still enough land left over to create a shared garden along the river front. Most of the house-owners are Bombay families who want to houses have a second home in Goa. In this sense these are holiday homes, though they can also function as permanent year-round (and in fact do so for a few resident families). There are two basic house-types, with an equal mix of 2 and 3 bedroom size~. On the river front, the elevations vary, so that families have a certain amount of individual identity, and the view of the clusters from the river has diversity. Simple changes in the floor levels within the houses help define specific areas, while preserving openness cross-ventilation. Construction and

is of brick bearing walls, finished in stucco and by a roof


Shared back-garden, along the banks of the Mandavi river

painted white, with a mezzanine floor of RCC, surmounted of wooden rafters and clay tiles.

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The basic unit in the Site Plan is a block offourh depending on the angle of two bedrooms, placed one centre. This pivot increases central units to 3 bedrooms A block of four houses with hinge in centre

- and this block can become eitherconvex or co

the "pivot" (consistin over the other), in th the capacity of thet each, while the end

remain as 2-bedroom units. Thenuancesofthe

subtle movements in the shapes of the blocksfr concave to convex and back again, animatesth plan, giving a certain individuality to each house (which, as in the case of the beach hotel DonaS is further augmented through the use of differen balconies, porches, etc).

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The house at the eastern end of the site is a holiday home for the architect. The living and dining areas

are wrapped around an atrium

which is protected

by a jaffrey, covered with bouganvilla. This allows the Living and Dining rooms to be free of any protective grills, for even when the wooden shutters - of these openings are closed, the rooms continue to be cross-ventilated through this atrium (which acts as a lung for the whole house).

Looking towards the river, from the living room

II

Upper flap, partly open

From the living room one steps out on overlooking the river, through a door ~ flaps. The lowest flap acts like the bot dutch door, while on the upper two is scene of the river and landscape out, when the flaps are closed, the river c( part of the house; and when they are present a somewhat unreal counterp( scerJery.

The living room, looking towards three-flap opening facing the river

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All three flaps closed

All three flaps open

INCREMENTAL HOUSING AT BELAPUR


Belapur, New Bombay 1983-86

This project, located on six hectares of land about 2 km from the city centre of New Bombay, attempts to demonstrate how high densities (500 persons per hectare, including open spaces, schools, etc) can be easily achieved within the context of a low-rise typology. The site plan is generated houses are grouped. by a hierarchy of community spaces, starting with a small shared courtyard 8m x 8m around which seven Each of these houses is on its own piece of of open-tothey do land, so that the families can have the crucial advantage sky spaces (to augment the covered areas). Furthermore,

not share any party-walls with their neighbours


houses truly incremental, house independently:

which makes these

since each family can extend their own

These houses cover almost the entire social spectrum from squatter families to the upper income brackets - yet, in order to maintain the fundamental principle of Equity, the sites themselves vary in size only marginally (from 45 sqm to 70 sqm). The form and plans of these houses are very simple, so that they can be built and extended by traditional employment masons and craftsmen - thus generating in the Bazaar Sector of the urban economy (i.e., exactly

where they are needed for the new urban migrants).

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A cluster of seven houses, arrangec

Looking out to shared courtyard

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Buildable to this boundary edge

The house sites are arranged in pairs two adjacent sides

so as to save

on plumbing and sanitation costs. The main structure of each house has small but mandatory set-backs on
-

Water supply and drainage

and can abut the boundary on

the other two. Windows are allowed only on those walls which are set back and on the main facade which faces the community space in the centre. This pattern ensures that each house will be free-standing with respect to its neighbour, and hence can grow independently.

Shared service lines

Road

Plan of seven houses around the courtyard

Site plan

Road

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Type A units

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These house plans are merely indicative, 1 construction of the units is simple enough undertaken by local masons and mistrys, , active participation of the owners themse/\ In time these occupants will add their own of colours and symbols, colonizing the pro through their life-styles.

Arriving at a cluster

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New Bombay

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TITAN TOWNSHIP
Bangalore 1992 to date

The client, one of the most successful

and enlightened
-

industrial

Types of Clusters

units in"India, wished to set up housing for their workers


form of an isolated company town (with the privileged urbanisation Bangalore.

not in the

ghetto

mentality that it usually breeds), but as an integral part of the new taking place outside the small town of Hosur, near

Thus the roads serving these 1500 houses are an integral part of the new urban fabric in that ~rea and the green areas created by Titan are accessible to the public at large. Furthermore, many of the sites and houses are being sold to outsiders (that is, to other than Titan employees) ambience so that there is a natural mix of populatibn, of organic right ., from the start. Then again, in order to generate the pluralistic which is such an essential characteristic After collaborating growth, it was decided to entrust the design of the houses to four different architects. the four architects and architectural on the Master Plan, each of house designs of materials and 4 modules,100m x 100m
'\.,

then made a set of preliminary

and then met together to evolve a shared vocabulary

language. This in turn has been evolved into a set in the development of tM town.

of Design Controls for the houses, so that other architects owners can also participate

In such a context, how does one establish a certain modicum of order - and thus hopefully avoid the chaos seen in so much of the Indian urban environment? developed To begin with, a Master Plan was roads, which, within the existing pattern of municipal

inlaid a series of square modules of varying sizes that incorporate shared back-gardens for the houses, to establish the images of the new town. The left-over edges of the site were then sealed off with rows of individual plots for sale to those owners who wish to build independent houses. to form clusters of 2,4,8 or 16 modules. The The basic square modules are 48 metres by 48 metres - and these are combined roads servicing these modules are kept to very short cul-de-sacs, so they can carry an unusually high level of service infrastructure (underground electric lines, cable television, etc) and yet make it such infrastructure affordable in the Indian economic context. In these modules, each house is directly connected at one end and to the community access to these back-gardens entrances community back-garden to the public roads at the other. Outsider

is possible only at certain gate-way.

- at which are located public amenities (kindergartens, centres, etc) to provide easy and informal control.

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16 modules, 212m x 212m

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At the main entrance to Sector V, facing the open principal maidan (green area), are located the community facilities: the Club, a restaurant and a small shopping centre - which form a large gateway controlling entry to the back-garden. The other entrances to this back-garden, located at the other cardinal points of the compass, also have community facilities (a kindergarten school, a health clinic, etc) to provide info/mal monitoring at these points of access.

NEW BAGALKOT
Kamataka 1985 to date

n,

The system of dams now under construction raise the level of the Ghataprabha Karnataka's construction

in Karnataka will part of the of

river, submerging

existing town of Bagalkot under water. Hence the Government

decision to develop New Bagalkot, presently under about 10 km further along the National Highway. This for a population of 100,000 persons, will
Existing houses in old 8agalkot

new town being developed not only house the displaced is also expected gravitating Hubli.

inhabitants from the existing town, but

to become the major new growth centre in the cities like Bangalore and to try and apply some

region, attracting the distress migration which is otherwise to other already overcrowded

This assignment of the same principles (Affordability,

provided the opportunity discussed

in the planning of Ulwe that generates flexible


.J.

Replicability,

etc) to a small town, far more typical of

urban growth in India, using an approach to most traditional organically this approach,

street patterns analogous to the existing town of Bagalkot - as also


Indian towns that have grown naturally and as will be seen, in of any particular sector does not on actual demand. over a period of time. Furthermore, the composition

have to be pre-determined

by the planners, but can be decided

from time to time, as the town grows, depending

A vigorous, functional

and very beautiful! vernacular

Proposed EXISTING Floor Area (in sqrn) 0-10 10-25 25-50 50-75 75-100 100+ %of households 12 38 30 11 4 5 Type A B C D E F G N Total 100

Plot Sizes (in sqrn) % of households 12 38 30 11 4 4.5 0.5 100.0 PROPOSED I Plot Size (in rn) 8x9 8 x12 12 x 9 16 x 9 12 x 18 15 x 24 20 x 24

180

Existing street patterns in old town of 8agalkot

01~050m

EB

Proposed plot sizes, based on income profile and Government subsidies

Assuming a buildin

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First of all, based on social and cultural patterns, as well as the existing income profile and housing plot sizes in the existing town of Bagalkot, a schedule was worked out of area requirements forthe different income groups, These plots were laid out in small sub-assemblies termed "Modules" and "Strips" - which could then be fitted together to form Sectors of 1280 m x 280 m. As will be seen from the Sector plans, joining the access roads and pathways of the various I sub-assemblies (by omitting a few sites) allows a fine-scale mix of different income groups - thus avoiding the cruel segregation of income groups and classes found in most "planned" Indian towns (including Chandigarh),

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Darwaza with circulation

Pedestrian spine moving diagonally across

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The Demonstration

Sector

(presently

under

Street elevation

construction) incorporates typical houses for various sized plots and income groups. Each house is
arranged so that the main living spaces focused around a private courtyard for the exclusive use of the family

Toilet

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SURYA KUND
Delhi 1986

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The traditional rectangular purification

kunds, generally located next to temples, are

water ponds where the faithful come for ritual before entering the temple to worship, The sides of these patterns of steps, surrounding this body

kunds consist of geometric

of water, During the monsoon, the water in the kund is full; when the hot weather sets in and the water level recedes, more and more

steps get uncovered

but the relationship of the devotees to the

water stays constant, allowing them to perform the same sacred rituals along a new layer of steps, The form of these kunds is derived from the vastu-purushmandalas, those ancient Vedic diagrams which con'ceived of Architecture India,-these pragmatic as a Model of the Cosmos, Like many other aspects of diagrams are both ancient and contemporary, and metaphysical. both Axonometric Like the thali (the flat circular plate of these traditional kunds, was

used for eating), their physical form seems timeless. The Surya Kund, a re-incarnation built for a futurologist who lives on a solar energy farm in Delhi India, In that sense it

("Surya" in Sanskrit for the Sun), and who hosts think-tanks on various social and political issues concerning Like its prototypes, is a tank where one comes to think - and hopefully purify! - oneself. the orientation of the Surya Kund has been of the compass. precisely determinecj by the cardinal directions

From the garden

Section 186

===::I
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7ce to the Surya Kund

The peripheral walls, defining the central space, give to the participants of the think-tank a clearly demarcated arena for discussion, one which serves to marvellously focus the mind. In the centre, symbolising the bindu (the Source of all Energy) is the Shri Yantra - the most sacred of all

yantras.

Think-tank in session

BRITISH COUNCIL
Delhi 1987-92

This new building for the British Council houses a number of diverse functions, including a Library, an Auditorium, and the Headquarters of their offices in India. an Art gallery.

These elements are arranged in a series of layers, recalling the historic interfaces that have existed between India and Britain over the last several centuries. From the main entrance gate, one moves around three down the main axis which extends right up to the rear garden wall. The three nodal points along this axis are structured axes mundi, each recalling one of the principle exist in the Indian sub-continent. belief systems that

At the farthest Wd is the axis

mundi of Hinduism, a spiral symbolising Bindu - the energy --- centre


of the Cosmos. The next nodal point, located in the main courtyard, is centred around another mythic image: the traditional Islamic Char Bagh, i.e. Garden of Paradise. The third nodal point alo~ is auropean icon, inlaid in marble and granite, used to represent the -Age- of Reason, - - including the mythic values of Science and

--

Progress.

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The 3 axes mundi are placed along the length of the site, connecting the entrance gate to the rear boundary at

the other end.

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Shiva, from whose hair sprang the sacred Ganga river

sculpture

by Stephen Cox

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ffice

The walls around the Char Bagh are clad in red Agra sandstone. The head of Shiva and the Bindu at the farthest end of the axis are sculpted in the black rock quarried near the sacred site of Mahaba/ipuram.

Detail of rear courtyard

At the entrance garden, encompassing all these many layers, is a mural by Howard Hodgkin, made of white Makhrana marble inlaid with black Kuddapah stone. Symbolising the shadows of a tree, Hodgkin's work is a metaphorical image as sheltering and pluralistic as India herself. Apropos of this the critic John Russell has written: "What looks like a flat pattern turns into a force of life that seems to question our very right to be there. Those floppy, elephant-eared black leaves come around the corner as an amalgam of all the vegetable growths that stand for torment and ecstasy in Mughal decoration. . . Without Correa, Hodgkin would have had-to topple over into sculpture to get the use of the third dimension. Without Hodgkin, Correa's building would have looked like an espalier for which someone had forgotten the trees. The building does not prop up the art. Nor does the art infiltrate the building. The two are one

and indivisible. "

VIDHAN BHAVAN, STATE ASSEMBLY


Bhopal 1980 - to date

The new State Assembly

for the Government

of Madhya

Pradesh is under construction in the capital city of Bhopal. Many factors determined its form: its site on the crest of a hill; the old Muslim monuments nearby; as well as of course, the famous Buddhist Stupa at Sanchi, just 50 kms. from the city. The plan is a series of gardens within gardens. The administrative compartments. offices are used to define a pattern of nine The five central ones are halls and courtyards of shade and running water), with the four functions: the Vidhan Parishad by the specialised
Legislators' Entrance
V.l.P. Entr1

(creating a micro-climate corners occupied

(Upper House), the Vidhan Sabha (Lower House), the Combined Hall, and the Library. Since the administrative in any Assembly government offices constitute the bulk of the floor experience. In Roof plan Thus
Combined Hall

area, they form a decisive part of the architectural manner of reaching them, is of considerable buildings constructed gardens: this circulation government contemporary double-loaded for the visitor. was usually along verandahs

building, the placing of these offices, and the importance.


Public Entrance

in India during the last century, from which one got a In most

view of surrounding

hence having to wait to meet a pleasant experience. takes the form of conditions

official was a reasonably buildings,

assured. For security reasons, the public has to be separatedl the Assembly Members and other VIPs; hence they enter throe the main courtyard on the west, and after passing through the check point, climb ramps to reach the viewing galleries overlq the three main halls. On the way to their galleries, they progre~ along bridges and ramps (winding around the "Subbhas" like, ritual circumambulatory progressions paths around the Sanchi Stupa), which allow all the various users to experience t~
-

however, this circulation

corridors - which create quite intolerable

In this Vidhan Bhavan, the movement patterns within the building have been carefully studied, so as to form diverse - and pleasurable! - architectural sequences. The circulation is always along the edge of the courtyards, so that light and fresh air are

principal spaces

and dimensions - of this complex.

. - -.. "....

Jillars near Sanchi

Stupa at Sanchi

Hamam at Imamnagar

"11 --

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20 m

Ground floor plan:


gardens within gardens

Overleaf: part plan of lower level 4' 199

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IUCAA
Pune 1988-92

A Model of the Cosmos. beginning our own contemporary Inter-University

. . this was what Architecture,

since the

of time, has sought to represent. Centre for Astronomy

Is it possible to express located on

notions of what the Universe is about? The and Astrophysics,

the campus of Pune University, is such an attempt. The site consists of three contiguous pieces of land, with two campus roads passing by courses of a between them. One arrives down a road between two swerving black walls of local basalt stone, surmounted deeper black Kuddapah stone, topped finally by a glossy black

polished granite (which reflects the sky and clouds above). Black on black on black: the visual structure of Outer Space.

These black walls draw one into the entrance, between two columns of exposed concrete which de-materialise at the top into a

soft blue. Ahead and to the right, lies the kund - here transformed
into a metaphor for our Expanding Universe. The~tones along the edges fly apart with centrifugal energy, setting up the diagonals that connect to the other facilities in the centre of the camp':!.Jhe-

--

Computer Centre to the Northwest, the Hostel to the southeast and


.~

to the~siting Facu y

ousing that lies beyond.

-he central kund

Around the kund itself are located the four major elements of the Institute: the Library. the Faculty---offices, the Lecture Halls and the Student FAr.iliti$s. The larger-than-life figures within the kund represent four extraordinary scientists: Aryabhata (who, more than ten centuries ago, established that our planet was round), Newton (sitting under a tree, looking at the fallen apple), Galileo (gesturing up to the dome of Heaven) and Einstein (time in his pocket-watch, contemplating the relativity of space).

The Expandi!

-instein in the rain

The landscaping

models an image of a black hole seen through a radio-telescope

Granite blocks

209

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

Entrance Kund Black Hole Roche Lobes Serpenski's Gasket Faculty Offices Lecture Halls Computer Centre Library Dining Dome Student Hostel Guest Apartments Exhibition Gallery Auditorium Science Park Samrat Yantra

13

Site plan: across the road to the east, a 500-seat Auditorium,

Art Gallery and Science Park

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The twin entrance columns of exposed concrete, touched with blue at the top, de-materialisingi~

-;ourt

ipheral black wall, revealing portion of the Computer

Court

Verandah around the Computer

Court

.;, Pendulum in the faculty offices

oucault's

@1

@f@
Calibrated markings at base of Foucault's Pendulum: white marble, inlaid in black and gray granite

t was important that the surface of the main dome


:arrya message as crucial to the.scientific values of his century as the Jain cosmograph is to the ancient /edic notions of the Cosmos (as depicted, for rJstance, in the dome of Mangal Mahal at the lawahar Kala Kendra in Jaipur). Since one of the nost fundamental qualities of Science is precision, he astronomers at IUCAA, using a map of the night ;kyon the day that the project broke ground, nodelled the precise position, size and relative Jrightness of the stars by placing small pieces of Ilass (which let through specks of intense daylight, ike stars in the night sky) in the form work of the iome before the concrete was cast.

Inlaidstone pattern on floor below dome is of ancient Ayurvedic origin, linking the seasons with the rashis (constellations).

81
,

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The Serpenski

Triangle modelled

in the landscape

of the courtyard

in the centre of the hostel

The configuration of rooms and circulation is based not on conventional dormitory typologies but on the Oxford and Cambridge system of student accommodation, where 2 or 3 rooms are accessed directly off a staircase, 3 or 4 stories

high

thus giving to each cluster of 10 rooms or so, a

separate identity. Here this typology is adapted for a ground and one upper storey structure. The circulation at the lower level is around a central courtyard with seating provided in alcoves placed at intervals along the periphery. Each pair of rooms shares a bathroom and verandah. From this level, stairs lead directly to the upper storey, where the circulation switches to the outer periphery of the building (facing the garden) so as to reach a limited access corridor serving 8 to 12 rooms for Faculty, with attached private baths. Here each pair of rooms share a private balcony overlooking the central courtyard.

Hostel's upper level plan

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Hostel's lower level plan

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Axonometric.of type IVhouses

Director

-~---housing
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Double height pockets in type IVhouses

To the west are row-houses for the Staff and Faculty, grouped around courtyards. All the various categories provide a generous share of terraces, porches and courtyards for each family

tyard of type V houses

215

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II

II

The Samrat Yantra: for measuring

the Sun's orbit

constructed

in black masonry, polished

granite and steel

Detail of window in Director monitoring entrance

Steps to top of Samrat Yantra

II

.,

The external wall of black basalt, surmounted by black Kuddapah stone, crowned by polished black

granite

black on black on black,

the colour of outer space

217

jAWAHAR KALA KENDRA


]aipur 1986-92

The ruler Maharaja Jai Singh who built the fabled pink city of Jaipur was moved by two seemingly conflicting sets of mythic ideas and images. On the one hand there were the oldest myths of the Navgraha mandala (i.e. the mandala of the nine planets, which scholars believe was the origin of the city plan of Jaipur - with one of the planets moved to the opposite corner in order to avoid an existing hill). Jai Singh was also a profound believer in the newest myths of Science and Progress (as witness the Jantar Mantar, the astronomical the skies). Thus the city of Jaipur, double-coded truly extraordinary: the principal like Jai Singh himself, is of the clarity of its main arteries, the positioning socio-economic instruments he constructed to measure, with the greatest possible accuracy, the movement of sun and stars across

ODD ODD ODD

If _c~DOD

NavgrahaMandala

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uare moved Corner sqaf hill because

Genesis of Jaipur

buildings, the efficiency of the water management patterns and,

system, the sure grasp of underlying

above all, its startling relevance to us today of the transformation between past and future, between the material and metaphysical worlds, between the macro and micro scales, that Maharaja Jai Singh sought to synthesise. In these respects, he seems analogous to another man, born Nehru, India's first after and forwards
Jantar Mantar, Jaipur: monitorir.;, sun and stars the Jaipur city plan

more than two centuries later: Pandit Jawaharlal Independence,

Prime Minister. Guiding the new nation in its first decades Nehru also wanted to look backwards in one decisive gesture:j.e.=dls..CDlLedogJodia.'.s_past-whilst

~multa!leouslY Jrwenting-a new-future. Thus this Arts Centre, dedicated to Nehru, is really a metaphor for both men - and for Jaipur itself. Like them, and like the city, it is double-coded: a contemporary building based on an archaic notion

'\
.

of the Cosmos: the very same ~9!ahU!lalldala,

squares moved aside, so as to provide a point of entry, and to recall the gesture that created the original plan for Jaipur.

with one of the

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The genesis of the Jawahar Kala Kendra

KETU

BUDH

SHANI

RAHU

GURU

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Curved Glass wall and water court in Guru, looking back towards the kund

--

~ model of the Cosmos. From behind us the morning sun rises while ahead the full moon sets

The external walls of the building (including th around the central kund) are clad in red Agra sandstone, topped by a coping of beige Dholpl
1

stone - the same materials used for the Jantar Mantar Observatory, in the Red Fort at Agra, ar Fatehpur Sikri.

i
.~~

On these external surfaces, the presence of ea' the planets is expressed by its traditional symb inlaid in white marble (embellished, where necessary, with polished black granite and mic, slate), recalliag again the precisely calibrated surfaces of the astronomical instruments at the
1

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Study for placing Tantrik drawing

Jantar Mantar Observatory.

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Jain cosmograph depicting the manifest world

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Mangal Mahal with domed roof

ihe first planet enters is Mangal (which corresponds to Jupiter). Since this planet represents Power (signified by the square symbol and the colour red), it was decided to house the Director and his administrative offices here. This planet becomes the entry point to the

whole complex - so along the walls of the Mangal


Mahal is an explanation of the Navgraha, and on the ceiling under the dome is painted a Jain cosmograph depicting all the rivers, mountains, animals and vegetation of the manifest world around us.

The dome in Mangal Mahal looking towards vehicular entrance

~
KETU

colour:

Milky White quality: Heart function: Cafeteria

colour: function:

Red

SHANI (SATURN)

quality: Power Administration

RAHU

colour Iridescent quality: Devourer f Restorer function: Rajput Weaponry

lQJ
GURU (JUPITER)

colour: Lemon Yellow quality. Knowledge function: Library

The nine planets

SHUKRA (VENUS)

colaurV quality : Performing

If the nine planets is represented by a square, 30m, defined by red sandstone walls, 8m high. Dgramme for the Arts Centre is disaggregated into )parate groupings, each corresponding to the myths Irticular planet: for instance the planet Guru (which lises Learning) houses the Library, the planet 'ra (the Moon, which denotes Pleasure), and so forth. Iditional symbol of each planet is expressed in ! and stone inlay in the stone walls that surround it. 'ntral square, as specified in the ancient Vedic 1S,is a void: representing the Nothing - which is the Jurce of all Energy.

Rahu, the imaginary the sun

planet which represents

the eclipse of

2956

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Traditional symbol of Rahu (inlaid in black granite, white marble and grey mica slate), depicting quite literally, the Sun being devoured by the Moon

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Details of red sandstone in kund steps

Kund, looking through square opening towards curved gli Diagram showing layers of stone blocks forming kund steps

The exterior walls of each planet are covered in red sandstone. - but the interiors are painted in the auspicious colours, emotions, and mythic imagery traditionally associated with that planet

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La

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The imaginary planet Rahu, symbolising

the solar eclipse. Hence the white anc

black interlocking circles

and in the centre: the Axis of the Universe.

I!'

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E.C.I.L. Office, Hyderabad

IUCAA, Pune

Salvacao

Church, Bombay

Belapur Housing, New Bombay

ZWE
Hindustan Lever Pavilion,

~.~
Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya, Ahmedabad

, ~

Kanchanjunga, Bombay

EOO
P. M. I., New York

IN Centre, Bangalore

~
a Park, Mexico

,.\

M.R.F. Headquarters,

Madras

20

40

60m

All drawings

at

1: 1234

Vidhan Bhavan, Bhopal

1958
HANDLOOM PAVILION, 1958, Pragati Maidan, Delhi, for the All-India Handloom Board. This temporary pavilion designed and built in six months was the first completed work of the office. Brick and mud walls generate a square plan forming a simple multi-level box, through which visitors move in an easy and continuous flow. The roof of wood umbrellas, covered with hand loom cloth, suffused the internal space with an even light.
I

GANDHI

SMARAK

SANGRAHALA

Ahmedabad, memorial
scholars
-

for the Sabarmati Ashral

Sabarmati Ashram, the historic home 0


which functions

as a centrE

housing his letters, photogrE

archival materials. (See pages 30-35)

I I ..

LALBHAI HOUSE, 1959-61, Ahr Hansa and Niranjan Lalbhai. A H house at Hansol along the Sabarmat large orchard garden.

CAMA HOTEL, 1958-59, Ahmedab


Hotels. Two floors of hotel rooms flank a atrium, open at both ends; thewholevoll by stilts, above a large podium. A thire was added during construction. Ur number of changes have subsequenl

(particularly at the entrance level) b without reference to the architect.

;
Elevation

Wood

frame

Handloom & A!kathln

11_.. UII ... . Section

III

,. -. .. fli!iJ y:J

arth fill

'
236
0

'~,
2 10m

TRATION BUILDING, 1958-60, Anand, for 'idyanagar University. The lower two floors ~dministrative offices and the top floor Jartmentsfor University guests. Because of -west orientation of the site, climate 1 is a major factor. This external walls are as a combination of storage walls and kinds of closeable shutters: the wooden !n directly to the outside and the glazed in axis at right angles to them. This allows ventilation through the open glazed panels Ie the wooden ones are closed to keep In.

COSMOPOLIS incarnation

APARTMENTS,

(Unbuilt),

1958,

Bombay, for the Cosmopolis the Kanchanjunga

Housing Society. The first

of the concept which was later to become Apartments.

Section
Glass Shuner

Elevation

1959
Inside

I $

3800

I I <If

Detail of openings in external walls

FUTEHALLY HOUSE (Unbuilt), 1959, Bombay, for Rabiaand Sadiq Futehally.Asmall two-bedroom house on the side of Pali Hill is a variation of the design of the twin houses at Bhavnagar, using brick walls and terracotta tiled roofs.

l=DT_~rI
--~J
ound floor plan ~~
0 2 5 10m

zW

W
HUMANITIES DEPARTMENT, 1959-60, Anand, for Vallabh Vidhyanagar University. This rural universityis an experiment in education started by nationalists during the Independence struggle. The buildings are simple in construction and built departmentally. This Humanities Department has a square plan with a courtyard in tile centre. The peripheral walls are loadbearing.

SEN HOUSE, 1959-61, Calcutta, for Chini and Sanjoy Sen. A large multi-levelled house, with terrace gardens, opening onto a private garden.

TWIN HOUSES, 1959-60, Bhavnagar, Gujarat, for Mr. & Mrs. Mohamud Merchant. These twin houses were designed for a large joint-family headed by two brothers. Each house is an ascending spiral of spaces; one house turns clockwise and the other anti-clockwise. Their plans based on a grid of 9 squares of 4.5 metres x 4.5 metres each, allow the rooms to interlock around the central square (housing the circulation) which acts as a flue, setting up convection currents through the rooms. The cantilevered balconies of the bedrooms emphasise the ascending spiral of the interior spaces, as also the direction of the contrapuntal "twist" of each house. And although their plans are generically the same, the two houses are not identical - -the areas and position of the varied functions having been adjusted to suit the special requirements of each brother's immediate family.

CRICKET STADIUM & SPORTS COMPLEX, 1959-66, Ahmedabad, for the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. The programme, which called for a stadium to seat 35,000 people, an extensive club house and swimming pool, tennis courts and badminton courts, etc., has only been partially completed due to lack of funds.

Elevation

,1Sf<

i81
238

NIUM PLANT, 1959-63, Bhabha Atomic :h Centre, Bombay, for the Department of Energy. This plant for processing plutonium, ~ts a unique effort by Indian scientists in the Atomic Energy

GUN HOUSE, 1960-62, Ahmedabad, for the Ahmedabad Rifle Association. The Ahmedabad Rifle Association needed a building to house their offices and showroom. Since their requirements were small and their initial funds limited, they wanted a plan which would provide direct access to independent rentable offices, and which could be added to later on. Thus the building consists of 2 separate blocks each 12 metres x 12 metres. The floor slabs are diagrids, supported by 4 columns placed at the middle of each external wall, augmented by diagonal braces to the corners. This creates an internal office space free of obstruction. The central slot between the two blocks is used for circulation and toilets.

..

--

d Pi
'!"

.. r-

.4

~l!'

W
~.._Plan

ESING HOUSE (Unbuilt) 1960, Ahmedabad, 'nima and Anil Hutheesing. A variation on the gar house with the 3 bays in each direction :Jto a tartan grid of 5 unequal ones, so that :ulation in the centre moves casually and lIy around a garden.

~3m

lor,

Kitchen

F
'"

--

, I

OJ
Living

OJ

II

o
\

Dining

c:=J11
En"y

00

....

L:/
dn

c==!J

..

rT1

LJ01Oil
ON f

Kitchen

if

,-1

r 6m

20 r,

~239

1961
TUBE HOUSING, 1961-62, Ahmedabad, for the Gujarat Housing Board. Also known as the "tube" house, this was first prize winner in an all-India competition for low-cost housing. Though the programme specified walk-up apartments, these row-houses proviGJedthe same density - and larger living space per family. Each unit is shaped so that the hot air rises and escapes from the top-,-setting up a convection currents of natural ventilation. Inside the units there are almost no doors; privacy being created by the various levels themselves, and security by the pergola-grid over the internal courtyard. Section

LOW-INCOME Ahmedabad,

HOUSING

(Ur

for the Gujarat Hausin~

of the restrictive parallel walls of A row house, the width of each unit v internal relationship of spaces is mo

unit has an internal courtyard.

,--, 0, 0 135m

Plan

f---'

AMTS WORKSHOP, Ahmedabad workshop covering

1961-63, Ahrr

Municipal Transport 5e and bus yard for the A~

10 acres in the heart of 1

involved the development of a maste the design ofthe buildings. Inthe main the administrative offices are placed overlooking the two acres of covere( thus providing direct supervision. ThE
.,///'

of RCC folded ventilation.

plates, allowing in I

II
240
~-

"AN LEVER PAVILION, 1961, Delhi, for 1Lever Ltd. The Industrial fairs held annually Jrovided an extraordinary opportunity for to experiment. This is a variation of the ndloom Pavilion. The circulation pattern is Jtthe form has metamorphosed due to the narrow site, and because of the structural ed: random-folded RCC plates, gunited in;ingramps and platformsbelow-and creating nons"which set up convection currents of air Iefractured, scaleless spaces.

SONMARG

APARTMENTS,

1961-66,

Bombay,

for

the Sonmarg Housing Society. This design is an earlier version of the Rallis apartments, wherein verandahs, studies, etc., form a zone of protection around the main living spaces. (See pages 132-137)

LABORATORY

& PROCESSING

PLANT, 1960-62, gas, water

Bombay, for Suhrid Geigy Pvt. Ltd. The laboratory has a flexible system of services for supplying roofed over by an RCC plate structure. and electricity at each table. Behind it is the work area,

1962

..

SEN-RALEIGH POLYTECHNIC, 1962-64, Asansol, for the Asansol Education Society. A training centre consisting of workshops and class-rooms, the spaces organised around a large atrium, so as to encourage through-ventilation.

:tion
II:

RAMKRISHNA HOUSE, Ahmedabad, 1962-64 for Mr. & Mrs. Ramkrishna Harivallabhdas. This large residence, built for one of Ahmedabad's millowners, is based on the spatial and climatic concepts developed in the Tube House and the Hindustan Lever Pavilion. The plan sets up a series of parallel bearing walls, punctuated by interior courts and "cannon", climaxing in the living room which opens out onto the main garden to the south. The house is set at the northern end of the site so as to maximise the size of this garden and to enhance the spatial sequence of getting there.

KASTURBAGANDHISAMADHI,196. the Gandhi Smarak Nidhi. Kasturt Mahatma Gandhi, was under house when she died in 1944. This memor the spot where she was cremated. edge shifting of the Aga Khan Gardens, descending defined consists of a gently

axis, open-to-sky,

parallel brick walls, culminating in thE At several points along the path ther, to levels from which the surround is viewed. The podium created by houses a modest museum devoted te

I'

COu Section

.u
Section

111

~
SubtcmneanMuscum

Service court

~
.' .,
,

. "' .";,.. , ".

'

, '.

EB
~ ~ 0 2 ' 5 ' 10m

Plan

<>[

242

~L DARWAZA CENTRE (Unbuilt), 1962, lmedabad, for the Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Jrvices. A major bus interchange for the city, with lopping and offices above. A complex interlock of Irioustypes of vehicular and pedestrian flows. The staurants, shops and other commercial aCtivities are Idecks which connect directly (via over-bridges) to "public garden across the road. -

BOYCE HOUSES, (Unbuilt), 1962-63, Poona, for Dr. & Mrs. Boyce: Second generation incarnations of the Cosmospolis concept. Variations of the basic theme are used to form different prototypes, assembled here as a cluster of town houses.

THAKORE HOUSE, (Unbuilt), 1963, Bombay, fol Mr. & Mrs. R.Thakore. A 3-bedroom houseand studic facing the sea at Juhu Beach.

Roof garden

Study IU itchen\U

ra
I ' " , ,,~:

-..

Carpark

~DAJ BUS TERMINAL, 1962-63, Ahmedabad, for JAhmedabad Municipal Transport Services. A large perbolic paraboloid umbrella forms the bus stop, hindwhich is located a canteen for the public and icesand maintenance workshops for the AMTS.

Section

BATTERY PLANT, 1963-66, Hyderabad, for Union Carbide (India). A manufacturing plant, together with administrative offices and staff canteen.

WRANGPURA BUS TERMINAL, 1962-63, Imedabad, for the Ahmedabad Municipal lnSport Services. Offices and canteen combined h a bus station.

SHUKLA HOUSE, (Unbuilt), 1963, Ahmedabad, for Mr. & Mrs. S. Shukla. A small two-bedroom house with open terraces on the upper floor. 1963 CATERING INSTITUTE, 1963-67, Bombay, for the Ministry of Food, Government of India. Built on a restricted city site, this project integrates the teaching and residential facilities into one building, arranged in the form of a stepped section. The terraces are accessible from the indoor teaching areas, student lounges, etc., adding considerably to the kind of casual open-to-sky space highly usuable in the warm climate of Bombay: a theme later elaborated in the SNDT campus at Juhu.

.lM AVENUE HOUSE, 1962-64, Calcutta, for Nilu j Abhijit Sen. Re-modelling of an old mansion, luding addition of some new bedrooms and a new of verandahs on the south, facing the garden.

6
Plan
~'0f' 3m

TEHAllY HOUSE, 1962-64, Bombay, for Zeenat j Abu Futehally. A three-bedroom house on the pe of Pali Hill. Has since been demolished and ,laced by a multi-storeyed apartment building.

243

1964
PLANNING FOR BOMBAY, (1964). The conceptualisation, along with colleagues Shiresh Patel and Pravina Desai, of a new strategy for restructuring the city of Bombay by opening up the mainland

directlyacrossthe harbour- in an areawheremany


key location decisions had already been taken regarding the provision of new docks, a major industrial belt, the highway system to the rest of the state, and so forth. In 1970, after the idea had gathered sufficient support, the State Government accepted the plan, notified the 22,000 hectares for acquisition and set up CIDCO (the City and Industrial Development Corporation) to design and develop the new urban centres, to be called New Bombay. (See pages164-171)

ECIL OFFICE COMPLEX, 1965-68, Hyderabad for Dr. Vikram Sarabhai. The client wanted a workspace which, through its very form, generates a controlled micro-climate, obviating the necessity for airconditioning. The brief specified a programme that

Pergola overhang to shield building

"

was incremental- hence the modularunits, which


are indented into a cruciform so as to bring more daylight to the workspaces. To minimise heat input, the units are sealed along the east;. on the west (which enjoys a panoramic view of the surrounding landscape) shade is provided by the large roof

5 10

20 km

overhang- consistingpartlyof a slattedpergolaand


partly of a thin membrane of water which reflects the incident heat of sunlight back into the sky.

MASCARENHAS

HOUSE,

1964-65,

Bangalore,

for

Plan

Dr. & Mrs. G. Mascarenhas. The long slope of the tiled roof closes off this three-bedroom hous.e from the road and opens it to the main garden at the rear.

1965 DUTTA HOUSE, 1965-66, Hauz Khas, Delhi, for Admiral and Mrs. Dutta. A large muti-Ievel private residence, with terrace gardens.

Offices

Section.

?LlLl

.STRIAN SYSTEM, (Unbuilt), Imbay Municipal Corporation.

1966, Bombay, for A scheme to allow traffic) straight

;trians to walk (above vehicular

, the commuter trains arriving at Churchgate ~ to the offices around Flora Fountain.

lAB GROUP HOUSING, (Unbuilt), 1966-67, Ibur, Bombay, for the Punjab Co-operative ng Society. The Scheme consisted of 60 rowIS(of 2 and 3 bedrooms each) around a central lunity space. CABLENAGAR TOWNSHIP (Unbuilt), 1967, Kota, Rajasthan for Oriental Power Cables Ltd. Thick roofs are slow to heat up, but once they do, they continue to radiate heat back into the house all through the night. A better way is to minimise the amount of

0
j ~c '~
. . .....

' "
'

>
.

"

Conventional

..,. I~I
~

incident sunlightfalling on the roof surface - by a


light porous membrane, like a pergola. By raising this membrane, the roof can act as a sheltered terrace. Furthermore, the profile of the internal volumes can be adjusted so as to generate convection currents (as in the Tube and Ramkrishna houses). Units of varying categories were developed for this township, using the local sand-stone throughout: in 3-metre long slabs for the floors (spanning the width of the house), cut into rectangular blocks for the walls, and as strips for the pergolas (which were contiguous over the housing clusters).

~_W'(i'

~_.
with Sun-roof

-3L

by raising Sun-roof

EZES HOUSE, 1967-68, Poona, for Commander s. H. Menezes. A tiled-roof two storey house, ~ flexible grouping of internal spaces, so as to ;able in several different ways by a family with ed children.

Volume creating

adjusted for convection currents

HOUSE TYPE G

HOUSE TYPE F

~EIRA HOUSE, 1967-68, Bombay, for Mr. & \I. Ferreira.A four bedroom house with provisions Jditional units on the upper floors for the children
I

they grow up. Section

WARDHAN HOUSES, 1967-69, Poona, for $t Mrs. J. H. Patwardhan. Two two-bedroom as, sharing a third bedroom. The living rooms ;entrally placed so as to act as breeze-ways oss ventilation.

Plan

Plan

HOUSE TYPE 0

Service street

~
Typical cluster layout
~
m

Plan

~
' '~ 0 2 ~ 5
24

;;---J;;:~~o

PAREKH HOUSE, 1967-68, Ahmedabad, for Mr. & Mrs. Dilip Parekh. From the housing types developed for Cablenagar, came two pyramidal sections: One, termed the Summer Section (to be used in the daytime) protects the interior from the heat, the other, termed the Winter Section (to be used in the early mornings and the evenings) opens up the terraces to the sky. Since this site faced east-west, this house consists of 3 bays: with the Summer Section sandwiched in between the Winter Section on one side and a Service Bay (for circulation, kitchen and toilets) on the other. The bearing walls, made of brick, express directly the climatic concepts which underlie the design.

SNDT

UNIVERSITY

CAMPUS,

Bombay, for the 8mt Nathibai Darr Women's University. A multi-disci~ one continuous structure. The 8, along one perimeter, the Arts alor common facilities placed centrall\ lowest level are located the laborat economical system of flexible due On the next level are classrooms al surmounted in turn by social facilitie~ levels consist of hostel rooms. In section, the levels step back, cr cascading terraces - and also circulation in the lowest two flc laboratories, classrooms and admi top-lighting and through ventila

Winter Section
SCIENCE

Summer Section

Section

Garden

1968
GANDHI DARSHAN, 1968-69, Raj(

Gandhi Darshan Centenary. This C consists of 4 pavilions each comme aspects of the teachings of Mahatrr amorphous Ground floor plan "non-building", structurE path moving along a shifting axis U

~~~omzEB

courtyards. architectural

The brief involved pre! drawings for two of thE

Plan for the four integrated pavilic

246

aded corridors. Students start in these els in the morning, and move upwards 1e complex during the course of the day, the hostel rooms on the upper floors at

HAWKERS PAVEMENTS (Unbuilt), 1968, Bombay, for the Bombay Municipal Corporation. A proposal to modify the profile of some of the main sidewalks in Bombay. In the crowded centres of Indian cities, pavements are used intensively: during the day they are crowded with hawkers so that pedestrians are forced onto the road, blocking the traffic lanes. As evening falls, the hawkers gather their possessions

Today:

3m

19m

3m

and go home- to be replaced by peopleunfolding


their beddings for a night's rest. These night people are not pavement dwellers (who are another group altogether), but mostly domestic servants and office boys who have to share a room in their places of work where they keep their belongings and use city pavements for sleeping. This allows them to economise on their living expenses. Furthermore on hot sultry nights, sleeping outdoors is a more attractive proposition than the crowded airless room: that they have to do so under unhygienic conditions with the public walking right amongst (and over) them is truly reprehensible. This project in 1968 recommended to the Bombay Municipal Corporation an experimental modification in one of the city's principal streets (Dadabhai Naoroji Road) in order to deal with both the hawkers during the day and the sleepers at night. What was proposed was a line of platforms 2 metres wide and 0.6 metre high, with water taps placed at approximately intervals of 30 metres. During the day these platforms would be used by

Proposed

platforms:

ARTS

Daily 9am to lpm:

60r, 18m

the hawkers- thus clearingthe pavementsand the


arcades for pedestrians. (The platform would also act as a safety barrier between pedestrians and vehicular traffic.) In the evening, at about sunset, the taps would be turned on and the platforms washed clean by municipal sweepers. They would then provide convenient otlas (platforms) for people to
Night 9pm to lam:

sleep - out of the path of any pedestrianswalking


home at night.
3m
15m

+---; 2m

3m

L_I

CORREA

HOUSE

(Unbuilt),

1968, Ahmedabad,

for

the architect. On this long narrow site, the summer and winter sections of the Parekh house are placed not side by side, but consecutively, in one linear interlock.

INDIA PAVILION (Unbuilt), 1969, Osaka, Japan, for the Government of India. This project is a further development of the themes of the Handloom and Hindustan Lever Pavilions. Here the maze is extended to cover the roof-surfaces as well - so that one enters and goes into, through, and over and out of a large puzzle-box. The architectural form is deliberately low-key, a "non-building" given scale principally by the flights of stairs (echoing the bathing ghats of the holy rivers of India) and the effigy of the mythological demon Ravana.

IJ
Plan and section
N 3{)

fO\
U

9m

~
1969
KOVALAM BEACH RESORT, 1969-74, Kovalam, Kerala, for the Ministry of Tourism, Govt. of India. Development of one of India's most beautiful beaches, using the local vocabulary of plastered brick walls and tiled roofs. (See pages 66-69)

/ / /
Section

L~~. /( ;z 5'" //\! ~/\

JEEVANBIMANAGARTOWNSHIP,1969-72,Borivili, Bombay, as Consultantto the Architecture Department of the Life Insurance Corporation of India. Housing for 16,000 persons on a 24 hectare site in a suburb of Bombay. The units, which range in size from one room to five, generate a number of typologies (from row-houses to walk-up apartments), all using multiples of the same structural module. The construction (up to 5 storeys high) is of reinforced brick bearing-walls, minimising the use of concrete and steel. In certain cases, the units step back so as to provide open terraces for the occupants. All units have direct access to a central green area of over 20 acres which forms the heart of the project.

(>

'1 HOUSING,

1969-73, Lima, Peru, for the UN of Peru. Thirteen international in a limited capable of grand-

1970

he Government

ects were invited to submit designs ,etition for a prototypical nmodating ItS). )s. Each house had to be incremental,

housing complex of 1500

up to 10 persons (including

.-.
--$i

.,-.
hI
"-""

6-

N!I -

KANCHANJUNGA APARTMENTS, 1970-Bc Bombay, for T.V, Patel Pvt Ltd. The conce~ originated for the Cosmopolis Apartments (195E finally built some twelve year" after being designee (See pages 126-131)

) units, 3 metres wide, broaden \0 6 metres at the 3, in an interlocking pattern which orients them .SSE (climatalogically the optimal orientation for . All units have vehicular access from one end porch connecting to the community spine at the

11 a small cluster of a dozen units were built of Jfthe 13 entries, The common-wall nodified into a zig-zag between units (to make it more earth-

=.
~

... .
.

) resistant) in which are located service elements as stairs and toilets.

~'

I' ~-'-

General ';"i'an

~7ang

camm;;;;?;

spi~~u

~~~om

0~
HEREDIA HOUSE, 1970-73, Chembur, Bombay, Ie Mr. & Mrs. C. Heredia. This three-bedroom house 01 a gently sloping site in Chembur, a suburb c Bombay, uses tiled roofs and brick bearing walls.

Section

Plan of units as built

~-

o~~~om

0~

Plan

~~m

EB N

24!

1971
DCM APARTMENTS, (Unbuilt), 1971, Delhi, for the DCM Ltd. The third incarnation of the theme of major and minor living spaces which can be combined through sliding doors in various configurations. (A concept which was first developed for Sonmarg Apartments, and later for the Rallis Apartments).

LOW-INCOME HOUSING, 1971-72, Ahmedabad, for the Gujarat Housing Board. A high density housing project, providing accommodation for 5,000 people in an area of 4.9 hectares. Five different types of designs were developed, each providing the range of 1, 2, and 3 units required by the programme. This gives a variety of configurations, varying from incremental housing on small individual sites, to two-storey walk-ups with open-to-sky terraces.
_MW

BIMANAGAR TOWNSHIP, 1972-74


Consultant to the Architecture Corporation Der Life Insurance 15,000 persons, open-to-sky pattern of living of India.

where every family conducive to th

space, (either a garden

life-style of Bangalore.

LJ

LJ

1972
ERANGAL BEACH RESORT (Un built), 1972, Bombay, for the Department of Tourism, Government of Maharashtra. Development of a beach near Mandwa, just North of Bombay, as an international tourist centre.

1973 SQUATTER HOUSING (Unbuilt), for CIDCO (City and Industrial Corporation). The basic module ry units (under a pyramidal roof) is rer a hierarchy of spaces. An idea furtr the Belapur housing (1983-85).

SEN FARMHOUSE (Unbuilt), 1972, Calcutta, for Nilu and Abhijit Sen. A weekend house for a Calcutta family: 4 caves (for sleeping, cooking" etc.) around a multi-purpose pergola-covered central space.
Plan
"--'~~

35m

MOZUMDAR HOUSE, 1972-74, Delhi, for Riten Mozumdar. This house on a 200 square metres site for one of India's leading textile and graphic designers, combines a studio/workshop and residence.

Site plan

Plan

IS APARTMENTS (Unbuilt), 1973, Bombay, lilis Brothers. Another version of the idea of No-lines-of-defence" theory first explored in Jnmarg Apartments and then in the DCM nents.

1974 COCHIN WATERFRONT (Unbuilt), 1974, Cochin, Kerala, for the Government of Kerala. Development along the waterfront to create housing and shopping facilities as well as amphitheatre and public promenades.

STRUCTURAL PLAN FOR BANGALORE (not implemented), 1974, for the Government of Karnataka. This project conceptualised a strategy for using Bangalore's enormous growth rate to shift the centre of gravity north of the existing city centre in

the old Cantonment - which is fast beingdestroyed.


This was to be done in a series of consecutive each of which uses existing infrastructure steps, (e.g. under-

17~9
JJ

utilised railway lines) to gradually develop aT-shaped city structure with the new commercial centre at the intersection of the two arms of the T.

OFFICE (Unbuilt), 1973, Bangalore, for the taka State Electricity Board. Five decks of 3 around a central atrium on a corner site, an important traffic junction in the city.
VISVESVARAYA CENTRE, 1974-80, Bangalore, Department Corporation as

]
BACKBAYWATERFRONT(Unbuilt), 1974, Bombay, for the Save Bombay Committee. The purpose of this project was to put a stop to the continuing reclamation of land at Nariman Point and Cuffe Parade, an activity which was adding considerably to the already enormous pressure at the southern end

Consultant

to the Architecture

of the

Life Insurance and parking.

of India. This complex advantage within

provides over 20,000 square metres of offices, shops' Instead of air-conditioning, is taken of the strong wind currents that swirl around the towers to provide controlled the office areas. air-circulation

/sliding

glass

of Bombay - and generating enormous political


corruption in the process. The perimeter of land already reclaimed will be sealed off by a belt of community facilities and promenades along the waterfront. The Government of Maharashtra has ~
Operable louvres for air control

NO

officially accepted

this scheme

but has still to follow

through with its implementation!


.

AKADEMI,1973-83, Panaji, Goa, for the Kala ,mi A performing arts centre, together with , and music schools, along the Mandovi river laji. (See pages 62-65)

, ~

Site

plan

SALVACAO CHURCH, 1974-77, Bombay, for the Archdiocese of Bombay. This church consists of a series of interlinked spaces, some covered, and others open-to-sky. The shell roofs are ventilated at the top, thus setting up continuous convection currents of air. The areas are functionally differentiated, in an analogue of Christ's life. First the years E)f preparation; secondly the years of public life; and finally, the death and resurrection. The skylight in the baptistry is by the noted Indian artist M. F. Husain.

1975
CRAFTS MUSEUM, 1975,

Authority of India. Handicra India organised village along aped to temple to palacE

herself. (See pages 36-41)

Plan

BHARAT BHAVAN, 197 Government of Madhya pr; museum, and performing E on a hillslope, overlooking pages 42-45)

;;--i,~~om

~0

{f]
/,
I \

h
""-

~y(.>L /'- --.\;" ./-~..:~;:l'~~


\' ,\.\\

~/~~/

-j

/~~ ~
~V~"
~\"

--~--~\~ ~~

\~\

~~~~

'~'",

\\"

JEEVAN

BHARATI,

1975-1

to the Architecture Corporation proscenium

Departm

of India. The sit between the ole

Circle and the many new hi~ (See pages 102-107)

'-"I".
252

...

, GROUP HOUSING, 1975-78, Delhi, for the ~o-operative Society. Over 160 two- and threeam maisonettes stacked in two decks, with the ones stepped back so as to form a pergola3d terrace for each family. This configuration ates a central area which allows the units to each other against the hot dry climate of India (a centuries-old energy-saving pattern) Iso creates a central community area which is caped with trees and running water, so as to ify and cool the dry winds. va-bedroom units cover 84 sq.m and are 3 m 3 m high and 15 m long. The three-bedroom ire 130 sq.m and interlock in an L-shape - so ley use one bay width on one level, and two In the other.

1976
WALLENBERG CENTRE (Unbuilt), 1976, Madras, for around

the Western India Match Company. A training centre consisting of low-rise tiled roofed buildings courtyards.

N I~)['

Site plan

in

(?/
~
0 5 10 20 m

SHIMOGA CAMPUS (Un built), 1976, Karnataka, for. Mysore University. The campus on the top of a hill in a beautiful region of Karnataka, famed for its thick teak forests, was designed to use the contextual rural vocabulary of white plastered walls and tiled roofs.

STEEL plan
Section

TOWNSHIP,

1976-77,

Misurata,

Libya, for was

. the Steel Authority, Government for this township developed '


0

of Libya. The master persons

of 50,000

in collaboration

with M.N. Dastur & Co., for the development 5,000

'~
2

'---"
5 10 m

who were the prime consultants

of the steel plant. Ten sectors of approximately

persons each were generated, in successive stages, along the arterial roads which run at the northern and southern boundaries of the site. Along the centre of each sector is a spine of public open spaces which contain the schools and neighbourhood mosque. The belt of sand dunes across the middle of the site has been preserved for ecological balance.

253

1977
PALAYAM SHOPPING CENTRE (Incomplete), 1977, Trivandrum, for the Trivandrum Development Authority. A large shopping-cum-office complex in the centre of the city, involving both urban renewal and new construction,

1978 CIDADE DE GOA, 1978-82, Dona Paula, Goa, for Formento Hotels and Resorts Pvt. Ltd, A 1O0-room resort on a beach near Panaji, which seeks (among other things) to create a metaphor of Goa's history. (See pages 76-85)

MALABAR CEMENTS TOWNSHIP, 1978-82, Kerala, for Malabar Cements Ltd, A town of 400 housing units on a wooded site at Walayar lake. The client was keen on developing the township in a pattern which would encourage secondary income generation for each family (unusual in a companyowned town). Hence each family (including those on the upper floor) has open to sky-space, both in the form of terraces as well as small kitchen gardens (where they can supplement the family income by keeping chickens or a goat, or even a buffalo - as is commonly done in Kerala),

WalayarL

A Workers village Market

A. Workers village

c::F 050

Site plan

~(

I~CYCLONE-VICTIMS HOUSING, 1978-79, Guntur Andhra Pradesh, for the Government of Andhra Pradesh. Housing for homeless families after the 1978 cyclone, The houses are incremental, the government providing only a single cyclone-proof room of stone walls, with the inhabitants adding on extra rooms in mud, bamboo and country tile,

0 D
PI.:';!

L~
;

{,~:-:.~~.- -

+J}i

r
~
r--r

=0 O~
="",,

,...I

'I

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I

. L~~<i
~

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_I

I I \ I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I \

"P':'

~ i~ . i~

Kitchen garden

o?~ V I
c::J
Plan

- -,-' -'JC-:;:c;'". I I 10f,':'


I 13m

',":
' ,

Kitchen garden ,-,:.

Plan, type 'A' houses

254

~ ~' 0 1

35m

'

R THINK TANK (Unbuilt), 1978, Delhi, for j and Jagdish Kapur. Based on an idea Illy developed as a week-end house for Prime ,r Indira Gandhi, this small guest house on a )utside Delhi, was meant to accommodate pants of an annual Think Tank focussing on future. lain arena is a square courtY9rd made of defined by a mud-wall - with the rooms for )articipant as appendages on the other side ! wall. Every morning, each participant es from his doorway to meet in the centre of Jrtyard for the deliberations.
/

BAY ISLAND RESORT, 1979-82, Port Blair, Andaman Island, for Bay Island Hotels Pvt. Ltd. A resort hotel on the side of a hill overlooking the entrance to Port Blair harbour. (See pages 70-75)

VIDHAN BHAVAN, 1980


Government Assembly of Madhya

to date, Bhopal, for the


The new State

Pradesh.

located on the crest of a hill, in the centre

of the city. (See pages 198-205)

)~(~
BD CENTRE (Unbuilt), 1980, Madras, for Indian Express Newspapers Pvt. Ltd. Shopping, housing and offices on a 10 hectare site iCithe centre of Madras. The new development is around the edges of the site, leaving the centre to form a new city plaza around the historic old building which used to house the Madras Club. 1980 PALM AVENUE OFFICES (Unbuilt), 1980, Calcutta, for Sen-Raleigh Ltd. A small office building on a very restricted site. The front profile of the building rotates downward so as to provide turning radius for the driveway. RAKAM RESORT (Unbuilt), 1979, akam, Kerala, for the Kerala Tourism pment Corporation. The site is a hundred ,land, just south of Cochin. Originally a it plantation it was to be developed as a tourist centre with facilities for boat trips 1the tranquil scenic backwaters of Kerala. CALVETTY GROUP HOUSING (Unbuilt), 1980, Cochin, for Forbes Cambell Ltd. Cluster housing of 85 units on a beautiful site over-looking the entrance to Cochin harbour.

:ITY CENTRE (Unbuilt), 1979, Taif, Saudi for the Saudi Real Estate Company. This nent involved preparing urban-form studies new city centre at Taif, which is to consist of o square metres of office, residential, 19 and parking facilities. At the lower two s located a souk for shoppers; the upper s are used as community spaces by the tial units which ring the project; the whole ;ition forming a continuous pedestrian spine in c Islamic tradition.

BARAPANI RESORT DEVELOPMENT, 1980-84, Barapani, Meghalaya, for the Department of Tourism, Government of Meghalaya. A development consisting of 50 tourist cottages and a restaurant on Lake Umiam.

--'

MPSC OFFICES,

1980-92,

Bhopal, for the Madhya A further development of initiated in the ECIL is for a similar hottwelve in four Corporation

1981 BEACH HOUSES (Unbuilt), 198 Mr. G. Khandwala. 10 weekend hO


across the harbour from Bombay,

Pradesh State Corporation. some of the architectural offices in Hyderabad, dry climate. independent

concepts

this complex

It is designed

to accommodate

State Government

of the classic - and simple suited for beach mezzanine

chat,

separate buildings which architecturally form a single mass, focussing round a courtyard, with a fountain at its centre. This courtyard is covered by a pergola at roof together visually. level, which not only protects the internal facades from the sun, but also ties the complex overlooking set windows. Much of the lighting ofthe office spaces ISfrom windows this central space; the external surfaces with deepeach have The six-storey high blocks are either blank masonry, or double-walls their own vertical circulation;

houses. The Ie

deck (bedroom, bathroe

can be locked up when the fal


house after the weekend.

at various pOints on the by bridges. The passing under the

upper levels they are interconnected driveway swings into the complex,

overhead bridges

a classic pattern found in historic ]"


Axonometric
I I

sectors of Bhopal city.

----------I II
/

0/

I
I

I
/ I I

'r--(~
)--"""
I I

~ '0 ~

I
Plan

' '\ .
\

L-_____-----CENTRE (Unbuilt),

0 0
Section

Courtyard

COMPUTER

for Tata Elxsi Pvt Ltd. Assemblyfae levels, with work space for the SOftl on the terrace levels.
0

~,

10

20m

1982
SHAH HOUSE, 1982-85, Juhu, Bom Rajesh Shah. Five separate dwelling designed for the members of a (each with their own gardens and tE

256

TOWNSHIP, 1982-85, Awarpur, for Larsen & o. New dwelling units, club house, schools .dministration building added onto an existing hip.

BVB CENTRE (Unbuilt), 1982, New York, for the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. A new cultural centre for the Indian community in Queens, with facilities for language, dance and music schools clustered around an internal street ascending diagonally across the building towards two corner mirrors which reflect it all back.

BELAPUR LOW-INCOME HOUSING, 1983-85, Belapur, New Bombay, for CIDCO (City and Industrial Development Corporation). A low-rise, high-density housing sector in New Bombay. (See pages 152-157)

MIXED INCOME

HOUSING units

(Unbuilt), of ten

1983, Indore, types,

for the Indore Development

Authority. A development different

1983 CUNNINGHAM
Bangalore, (measuring courtyard. the ground

consisting grouped

of 290

in clusters, around a central maidan.

CRESCENT

(Unbuilt),

1983, site

for a group

of friends. fanwise units

On the

1,900 square metres in a quiet residential radiate from the entry of each of to of the The precise and
-

1984
CANTONEMENT Archdiocese built over thunderstorm. CHURCH, 1984-87, rune, collapsed for the In a

area) seven houses

visual dimensions storey

one

is difficult

of rune a hundered

The roof of the original church, years ago.

comprehend

because

of the complexity

spatial configuration.

Keeping the outer walls intact. a new

RCC roof was inlaid, with a large central vault butressed

Q9
'---' ~ 0 10 ~ 30 50 m

~~~

by half-vaults on either side. The cylindrical "cannons" Intersect the main vaults to create exquisitely shaped ellipsoids of light.

~plan

,...h

Section

tion

and plan

I ','

" ' " ~O~t Section and plan

, , I ' , , , 30(, , N ' 9m

GYMKHANABAR, 1983, Bombay, for Bombay Gymkhana Ltd. Remodelling of an existing room to recreate a historic moment in Indian sports: the 14 sixers hit by C.K. Nayudu in the first India-England cricket match held in 1932. ..

.I

VIHOUSES, 1982-89, Verem, Goa, for Alcon state Company. A linear cluster of 32 houses ;ite along the Mandovi river useable both as I homes as well as year-round residences. ages 144-151)

ACC TOWNSHIP, 1984, Wadi for the Associated Cement Companies Ltd. In 1984 the Associated Cement Companies (ACC) commissioned two types of housing to be incorporated into an existing company township. The units designed are strung along the periphery of the sites, rather like a necklace. In both instances there is a progression from the exterior to the interior of the site; from the public and vehicular access domain, to the private internal space of the house itself, to a semi-private 'patio or court, to the large central communal space. The first type of units - Type B - consist of 368 flats, each with an area of 48 square metres. These three structures are arranged in a highly formal manner to form a series of interconnected units, courtyards and gardens. The units decrease on the upper levels to form terraces overlooking the central space. The second type - the larger Type J units - are approximately 65 square metres each. These consist of 45 courtyard houses, ventilated by internal patios, arranged in tightly-knit clusters. Each two-storey unit has a barsati room on the upper terrace level.

1985
BAGALKOT Karnataka, township TOWNSHIP, 1985 - to c for the Government of for the 50,000 persons wh

placed by the rising waters of the Gha (See pages 180-185)

A necklace cluster of Type 'B' units

.J~-

~1r~
~
0

PERMANENT RESIDENCES,

MISSION OF INDIA ( 1985, New York, for t~

of India. Offices and residential acco the Permanent Mission of India to the I (See pages 108-115)

C:~Ljl
Site plan: Type 'B' units

c:FI:= M 020 50 100 m'<Y

Ground floor plan: Type 'B' unit


L.J~ 0 1 ' ' 35m

HOUSE AT KORAMANGALA, for the architect. pages 138-143)

1985

A residence and st

and one upper floor, around a central,

~iteplan: Type 'J'Units'---J~' 0 10

30

' M~ 50m'<Y

Cluster plan:

'--'~ '
0 2 5

'
10 m

Typical elevation:

Type 'J' units

258

1986
JAWAHAR Government KALA KENDRA, 1986-92, Jaipur, for thE of Rajasthan. A double-coded buildin~

based on the navgraha (nine square) mandala, whicr was the original basis for the planning of the historic city of Jaipur. (See pages 218-232)

:HAEOLOGY MUSEUM (Unbuilt), 1985, Bhopal, the Government of Madhya Pradesh. An Jrtant collection of sculpture and architecture, sed partly indoors and partly in open-to-sky 'tyards. This is really a variation of the "inside-out ,"', with the main ordering element (the high Ie wall) and the first set of museum galleries built Ie initial phase, and the rest of the galleries (all lit courtyards and overhead top-lights) to be structed in subsequent phases, as requirements funds become more clearly defined.

Elevational sketch showing "zone between the two systems".

SURYA KUND, 1986, Delhi, Urmila and Jagdisl Kapur. A further development of the Kapur Thinl Tank built out of brick with mud plaster. (See page: 186-187)

Sectional sketch showing "zone between the two systems".

iies for lighting of interior spaces

JAWAHARLAL

NEHRU

INSTITUTE

'.. .'

DEVELOPMENT BANKING, 1986-91, Hyderabac for the Industrial and Development Banking Institutl India. A Management Training Institute for senic management from South Asian banks. (See pagE 52-61) . '.

.('~ ..,~

:~
oL-r--;~o m

Plan

0}

{~
?'

-"""

1987
MRF HEADQUARTERS, 1987-92, for one
94-11

E;J.

Ltd. The new Headquarters

business houses. (See pages

'"

HUDCO COURTYARD HOUSING (Unbuilt), 1986, Jodhpur, for the Housing & Urban Development Corporation. Using the basic design principles for the units at Belapur, the units are grouped around a hierarchy of open spaces. The houses cater to four income categories, from lower to mid-level income families. There are, however, only two basic plot sizes. Each unit is independent from its fleighbour which allows for incrementality and upgrading as families become upwardly mobile. The construction materials are those that are readily available. Local stone is used in a centuries-old traditional manner, for both the load-bearing walls and the roof slabs, similar to the Cablenagar Township at Kota. The units themselves are massed in single and double storey blocks. The house designs of the two to four room (excluding service spaces) units remain simple and are influenced by their Rajasthani context in terms of arrangement and construction materials. Because of the hot dry climate, the units are directly built around enclosed courtyards -- quite different from Belapur where the units are freestanding and allow for through-ventilation so essential in the hot wet climate of Bombay.

BRITISH COUNCIL, High Commission,

1987-92, od Delhi. The ne

Section

~u
1988

Library and other facilities. (See pa

LlC CENTRE,MAURITIUS, 1988~ the heart of the business district.(Se


Typical plans
0 135m

L_r--',

~ 0'--;'0

3~Om

"C/\ \.V

260

HEADQUARTERS (Unbuilt), 1988, Bangalore Hindustan Machine Tool Company. A horizontal complex, with terraced gardens, set on a site Ige trees in the 'garden city' Bangalore.

DONA SYLVIA, 1988-91, Cavelossim Beach, Goa. A beach resort on one of the most beautiful beaches in the south of Goa. (See pages 86-93)

~
~~

INTER.UNIVERSITY CENTRE FOR ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS, 1988-93, Pune. A research and teaching institution which seeks to project a Model of the Cosmos - as we understand it today. (See pages 206-217)
Ib=

----.

1\[ JJ,f"~

1989 STAFF HOUSING, 1989 - to date, Hyderabad, for CCMB (Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology). Over 150 housing units of various categories and sizes, organised around terraced gardens on a hillside facing the lake. THE MALANKARA ORTHODOX SYRIAN CHURCH, 1989 - to date, Parumala. A new church at the shrine of the principal saint of the Malabar

Plan
c::FI::::=
0510 20m-

EB

\,i,.;

~
a number of inter-connected

Church of Kerala - a Churchwith its own unique


rites and rituals, founded by S1.Thomas the Apostle, and older than the Church of Rome.

-'

CQ
Corporate Finance Corporate Personnel

HEADQUARTERS, (Unbuilt), 1988, Bombay, Nuclear Power Corporation of India, is a further Jpment of the HMT Headquarters. This large ex to be situated on a spectacular site in the : Energy Establishment at Trombay, is really a )meration of several autonomous units - hence
m of the building: ), with a circulatory ramp (a true pradakshina!) in the centre. Adjacent

Ig around a courtyard

) of offices share top-lit atriums (which can be j off with sliding glass panels).

Ramp

Canteen

Section
0 2 5

cF't:=

lO'm

Library

~$"~/~

ProjeqtlGroups

~~n

ProjecjtlGroups

Section

L-J ~ 0 2

' 5

' 10m 261

1990
JNC at IISc, 1990-94. Bangalore, for the Indian Institute of Science. The house of the President of the JNC, along with offices, conference facilities and a small guest house for visiting scientists is situated in the old campus of IISc, in a grove of very beautiful old gulmohur trees, is organised around three interconnecting courtyards. One arrives in the largest courtyard in the centre, where located the office of the President together with conference facilities and supporting staff. To the left is the courtyard around which are grouped guest rooms for visiting scientists, and to the right is the courtyard around which are various rooms and activities of the President's house.

JAWAHARLAL

NEHRU

CENTR

Bangalore, For the Indian Institut Bangalore, A new campus for scienti work and living facilities, (See pages ~ TATA ELXSI,1990-93, Bangalore, .
creating software and hardware for a
-

firm, is in Bangalore and c6mputer Valley",

the fastest-graIl of sloping t

centre of India and knl

The complex

structured around internal courtyards kind of laid-back ambience whicl cantonment seems to share with Califc

1991
ULWE: The CBD of NEW BOMBAY, for CIDCO Corporation), controls (The City and Industria The Development Pia

and the building of prototypi along the

1000 families (at all income levels) ( runs from the waterfront 172-179) New Bombay up into the foothills behi

TITANTOWNSHIP, 1991- to date,


Master Plan for a new company town, to be in-laid into an existing network and services, (See pages 158-163)

1992
MADGAON STATION, 1992 - to dal

Konkan Railway Authority, The princlp

r~
'
GUEST HOUSE

new Konkan Railway is located 1 km from the existing


urban growth, away

station so that it I
from the crowdec

>

"',.
'\ \

.j
'

L.J ,
0 2

;'
5

'
10 m

---'

\---~:

'

' \\ :,: :-tl_--: '!


I

EBz

Plan 262

010\
~~~o

m :v'

'

,-..j\
::::oi

II.MPUS, 1992 - to date, Madras,for the for Management Excellence. This Institute Ig senior management, provides teaching md living a9commodation for 120 trainees j in separate (but parallel) programmes. The mplex is organised behind the polished tone wall that runs parallel to the road, J the facilities from the dust and noise of the oughfareon which it is located.

COCHIN BACK-WATERS, 1994 - to date, Vennala, Cochin, for Shogun Developers. A large housing complex of housing units on three islands in Cochin's back-waters.

CAHAYA, 1994 - to date, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for EN Realty Sdn Bhd. These luxuriously large houses around a new golf course being developed in the hills around Kuala Lumpur, are part of 300 houses being designed by 12 international architects.

1995 TVS FINANCE, 1995 - to date, Madras. A Headquarters for one of India's oldest and most successful financial businesses in the centre of the city.

f
'~ff"
N

CITY MUSEUM, BMRDA, 1995 - to date, Bombay, for BMRDA (the Bombay Metropolitan Regional Development Authority). 10,000 sqm of museum galleries together with 10,000 sqm of office space (as across-subsidy to financethe museumand itsactivities), located at the centre of the new Financial Centre being developed by BMRDA in the Bandra-Kurla Complex.

)
Velachery road
~ 0 ~ 5

ffi
'---' 10 20 m

GOBHA, HOUSE, 1995-todate,

Golwad, Maharashtra.

A house, studio, pavilion and ziggurat for the noted Indian artist, Mehlli Gobhai, set in a chikkoo fruit orchard, about 150 km north of Bombay.

~~~~J~{~~~~~l~~jb::~'~Y;~~~:)~Z~' .

I
1994
research

CAPITAL COMPLEX, Government Complex Government (consisting

1995 - to date, Itanagar, for the Pradesh. This new Capital Assembly, the of the State

of Arunachal

Secretariat and the High Court) is located

E EXPORT PROMOTION Bombay, for the

CENTRE, 1993 - to Committee,

Textile

lment of India, to house Jries and textile exhibition areas.

---

GREEN EARTH FARMHOUSES, 1994 - to date, Rewas,' for Ratanlal Parasrampuria. A large integrated development on 200 hectares across the harbour from Bombay.

on the ridge of a hill in Itanagar - the main town of Arunachal Pradesh, a Himalayan State on the edge of Tibet, in the north-eastern corner of India.

1996 COTTON CORPORATION, 1994 - to date, New Bombay, for the Cotton Corporation of India. This office building, set on the waterfront in New Bombay, continues the theme of the earlier office buildings and generates its form from the same kit of parts. MAHINDRA RESEARCH CENTRE, 1996, Bombay, for Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd. A major new R&D facility for one of India's leading automobile and jeep manufacturing companies, set in a densely wooded area on the edge of Borivili National Park.

..
,I'

1'r
t

'I'" . I .. r " ,

.. r
..f.

e... '" ..

.. . " 811

. "1

II'

tr i t-

t!!. ...

~-""~

:DA PARK DEVELOPMENT, 1993 - to date, I City, for Reichman Corporation. This office
g is part of a Master Plan developed by ) Legoretta for the rebuilding of this historic

'. l'.
!y.~
IJ

.. ..
~I

. .

of Mexico City. (See pages 122-125)

GOPALPUR STEEL TOWN, 1996, Bihar, for TISCO (the Tata Iron and Steel Company, Ltd). This township for the new 10-million ton steel plant being planned by India's pioneering steel company, attempts to create for its inhabitants the pluralism and urbanity associated with larger towns and cities, while providing them access to new information technologies notyet availableto theirurbancounterparts elsewhere in India.

BIODATA

--

Charles Correa born in Secunderabi'Ld,Jodla, ---on-1sfSeptember t93u. -

AWARDS AND HONOURS 1972 Presented the Padma Shri, by the President of India. 1974 Featured in TIME magazine in cover story on New Leadership (150 persons from around the world). 1979 Honorary Fellow, American Institute of Architects.

BOARD MEMBERSHIPS,

COMMIT

1975- 1978
Member, Bangalore Urban Arts Carr

EDUCATION 1939 - 1946 St. Xavier's High School, Bombay


1946 - 1948

1975-1984 Western Board, Reserve Bank of Inc


1975 - 1989 Board of Directors, 1976 Jury Member, Pahalavi National Libl Iran. CIDCO (New Bol

~~er),~lle3~
1949 - 1953
~

U~sity
~~,::;/

of Bombay

~--1953 -1955 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.Arch) PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS 1964 - to date
Fellow, Indian Institute of Architects 1974 - to date Council of Architecture, 1979 - to date Honorary Fellow, American 1992 - to date Honorary Fellow, Royal Institute of British Architects Institute of Architects

University of Michigan

(B.Arch)

1980 Honorary Doctorate, University of Michigan. 1984 Presented Royal Gold Medal for Architecture of the RIBA at Hampton Court by H.R.H. Prince Charles. Sir Robert Matthew Prize, International Union of Architects (U.IA). 1985 Member, Academie d' Architecture Francais, Paris, France. 1986 Chicago Architecture Award, American Institute of Architects. 1987 Gold Medal, Indian Institute of Architects. International Academy of Architecture, Sofia, Bulgaria. 1990 Gold Medal, UIA (International Union of.Architects). Honorary Fellow, United Architects of the Philippines. 1991 Master Architect Award, JK Industries, India.
1992 Honorary Fellow, Finnish Institute of Architect. 1993 Honorary Fellow, Royal Institute of British Architects. Honorary Foreign Fellow, American and Sciences. Academy of Arts

1977.1986 Member, Steering Committee, Aga f Architecture.


1980 - 1984 Member, Urban Conservation Hyderabad Comn Urban Development Aut

India

1981-1988 . Member, Board of Advisors, MIMAR

1982 - 1985
Member, Economic and Planning Advisory cc Chief Minister, Government of Kama 1983 Founder Member, Indian National TI Cultural Heritage (/NTACH). 1984 Founder Member, Trust for Urban Design Research 1m 1984 - 1986 Chairman, Committee for "VISTARA. Architecture of India". 1988 - 1991 Master Jury Member, Aga Khan Award for Architecture. 1989 Jury Member, Kuwait Pearls Compe Real Estate Company.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 1958 - to date In private practice in Bombay.


1964 - 1965 Prepared alternate Master Plan (with Pravin Mehta and Shirish Patel) proposing twin city of New Bombay. 1969-1971 Invited by the Government of Peru and the UN to design PREVllow-cost housing project in Lima. 1971 - 1974 Chief Architect to CIDCO (Government of Maharashtra) for development of New Bombay. 1975 - 1976 Consultant to U.N. Secretary-General 1975 - 1989 Board of Directors, CIDCO (New Bombay). 1975 - 1978 Consulting Architect, Government of Karnataka. for HABITAT.

1994 Presented with the Praemium Imperiale of the Japan


Art A"od";oo

1990 Master Jury, Aga Khan Award forAr

by H.I.H.Pd",

M""h;to

H;t'

1975 - 1983 Chairman, Housing Urban Renewal & Ecology Board, Bombay Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (BMRDA). 1975 - 1994 Executive Committee, BMRDA. 1985 -1988 Chairman, National Commission on Urbanisation, Government of India. 264

_/'-.WHO'S WHO IN INDIA, The Times of India, Bombay CONTEMPORARYARCHITECTS, St. James Press, London WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA, Marquis, New Providence, N.J. WHO'S WHO IN THE WORLD, Marquis, New Providence, N.J, INTERNATIONALWHO'S WHO, Europa Publications, London.

BIO-DATA included in WHO'S WHO, A & C Black, London

'.'

'{ I

~
.~

h"'

. '

'

1991 Jury Member, Samarkand Competition, Uzbekistar 1993 Jury Member, National Landmark for State of Kuwc
1993 Jury Member, Juma AI-Majid Centre for Culture & f 1994 Jury Member, AlA / Otis Housing Competition, Wa1 1992 - to date Jury Member, Pritzker Prize for Architecture.

...

. /,

BLIOGRAPHY

~KS PUBLISHED (in Books) (Buildings in the Commonwealth, Edited by J. M. lards, Architectural Press, London, 1961
Id Architecture, Volume 3, Edited by John Donat, dio Vista Limited, London), 1966 ding Environment by Balwant Singh Saini, Angus' Robertson, Sydney, 1973 tries Correa: Form follows Climate (Pidgeon lio-Visual), London, 1980 hitecture in the Seventies, by Udo Kultermann, nitectural Press, London, 1980
The office in 1980

.\~

itekten der Dritten Welt, by Udo Kultermann, Mont) Buchverlag Koln, 1980 ,rles Correa: Mimar, Singapore,
!

1983

After the Masters, by Vikram Bhatt & Peter Scriver, Mapin, Ahmedabad, 1990 100 Contemporary Architects: Drawings & Sketches, by Bill Lacey, Thames and Hudson, London, 1991 Architecture of SARC Nations, by Razia Grover and S.K. Das, Media Transasia (I), Delhi, 1991 Modern Architecture: A Critical History, by Kenneth Frampton, Thames & Hudson, London, 1992 Contemporary 1994 Architecture in Asia, KIRA, Seoul,

"The Michigan Influence in Architecture", Bombay by R. B. Lytle, Michigan Alumnus, Ann Arbor - May, p.53 1962 "Concrete", 1963 "Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya", Indian Institute of. by Peter Blake, Architectural Forum,

City in Conflict: Edited by Chris Johnson e Law Book Co. Ltd.), Sydney, 1985 dern Architecture, by William R. Curtis, Phaidon 5S, London, 1987

New York - Sept., p. 78.

3rles Correa, by Hasan-Uddin Khan, Mimar, gapore, Butterworth, London & New York ,vised Edition), 1987 ntemporary Architecture, St. James Press, icago and London, 1987 -listory of Architecture, by Sir Banister tcher, 19th Edition, Butterworths, London, 1987

Architects Journal, Bombay - April, pp. 26-38. 1964 "Indian Revisions", Architectural Review, LondonApril, pp. 235-236. 1965
"Gun House", Architectural Review, London
-

Indian Modern, by Herbert Ypma, Phaidon Press, London, 1995 The Dictionary of Art, Edited by Jane Shoaf Turner, Macmillan Publishers, London, 1995
/

July,

pp. 59-60. 1966 "Three in Ahmedabad", Indian Institute of Architects Journal, Bombay - July, pp. 15-21. 1968 "Correa", Architecture Aujourd'hui, Paris - Oct., pp.
25 & 32-37. 1970 "Un Appartement a Bombay", by Pompon Bailhache, La Maison De Marie-Claire, Paris March, pp. 88-89. "Previ Project", Architectural p.198. 1971 "INDIA", Architectural Review, London - Dec., pp. 349, 352-353, 365, 369. 1972 "Correa and Kanvinde", Architectural London - August, p. 123. 1973 "Defeating the Climate", by Peter Blake, Sunday Telegraph Magazine, London - Sept., pp. 82-88. Review, Design, London - April,

Crosscurrents - Fifty-one World Architects, Masayuki Fuchigami, Tokyo, 1995

Edited by

The Architecture of the Jumping Universe, by Charles Jencks, Academy Editions, London, 1995

\
\

The Tropical Asian House, by Robert Powell, Select Books, Singapore, 1996

WORKS PUBLISHED (in Journals) 1958 . "Housing atTrombay", Design, Bombay - Aug., pp. 8-9. 1959 "Object on View", by Michael Brawne, Architectural Review, London - Nov., p. 246:

1960 "India & Pakistan", by John Writer, Architectural Design, London-April, pp.156-157
"Hindustan Lever Pavilion", Architectural London - July, pp. 57. "Cama Hotel, Ahmedabad", cover and pp. 32-35. Review,

Design, Delhi - Sept.,

1974
"Apartments", Architecture Plus, New York
-

1961 "Indian Pavilion", Architectural Forum, New YorkJan., p. 132.


,1m tree in conference room

March,

p.26. 1976 "Experience Indienne", Techniques & Architecture, Paris - Dec., pp. 124-129.
?R'

"Twin Houses", Indian Institute of Architects Journal, Bombay-April, pp. 14-15. .

1977 "Quarttro Lavori di Correa", L'Architectura, RomeMarch, pp. 640-646. 1978


"Correa", Art & Architecture, 1979 "Crafts Museum", by S. Baxi, Museum, LondonApril, pp. 374-377. 1980 "Report from India: Current work of Correa", by Tehran
-

"Charles Correa", by Satish Grover, Arch Design, Delhi - Sept., pp. 15-45. "Charles Correa's Architecture" by SaraY

April, pp. 50-59.

Indian Architect & Builder, Bombay - Oc pp. 20-26.


"Jawahar Kala Kendra", ArchitecturalOet London, Nov., pp. 92-96 "Espacos para a India", by Carlos Dibari Armando, Arqitectura Urbanisma, Buenm Dee, pp. 44-51. 1992 "The House Around a Temple Tree", byC

H. Smith, Architectural Record, New York - July, pp. 88-89.


"Contemporary Asian Architecture", Process
Entrance 1985 "A Style for the Year 2001 ", Japan Architect / A+U, to office

Architecture
1981

20, Tokyo - Nov., pp. 94-118.

Iyer, Interiors India, Bombay - Annual, pr


"Mystic Labyrinth", The Architectural Rev London, Jan., pp. 20-26. "Una arquitectura abierta alcielo", by Jar Glusberg, EI Cronista, Arquitectura & Dis Buenos Aires - Feb., pp. 1 & 8. "Squaring the Circle", Architectural ReeD York- March, pp. 98-105. "Musee a Jaipur, Inde", Techniques & AI

"Using the Past to Invent the Future", Spazio e Societa, Milano - Dee, pp. 56-63.

"Architectura - QualeFuturo",Casabella- 474/475,


Milan-Dec,p.91. 1982 "Faked Facades", by Susan Stephens, New York - July, p. 24. Skyline,

Tokyo - Summer, pp. 84-88. "Belapur Housing", Mimar, Singapore


pp. 34-40. "Charles Correa: Inspirations Indiennes", Techniques
-

July,

& Architecture, Paris - August, pp. 106-117.


"Correa Courts", by Peter Davey, Architectural

"Cidade de Goa", by Brian Brace Taylor, Mimar,

Paris - April, pp. 24-31.


"Destiny & Design", by Jahanara Wasi, 7 Fountainhead, Bombay - May, pp. 19-23

Singapore - July, cover and pp. 44-49.


"Open the Box", by Jim Murphy, Progressive Architecture, New York-Oct., pp.100-104.

Review, London - Oct., pp. 32-35.


"Edificio residenziale pp.642-651. 1986 Namaste, "Vidhan Bhavan, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh", Journal, Bombay-July, Vol. 51, pp. 11-15. 1987 IIA a tone a Bombay", by

Constanza M. Pierdominici, Cementa, Rome - Oct.,

"Better Council", by Mina Singh, Inside (


Bombay - July, pp. 14-22. "Jawahar Kala Kendra", Interior # 36, Sy' pp.94-105 "Jawahar Kala Kendra", Spazio e Socle Firenze - Oct-Dee, pp. 114-121 "Life Insurance Corporation", Delhi - Nov-Dec, pp. 10-37 1993 "Architektur im modernen Indien", by S. Architekt, BOA, Berlin - Feb, pp. 82-83. "Charles Correa: Ein Museum" by Gauta Der Architekt, BOA, Berlin - Feb, pp. 89. "Public Sector Mass Housing", by Babar Design Ideas, Bombay - April, cover & f "Jawahar Kala Kendra", Progressive Arc Architectw

"Cidadede Goa", InsideOutside,Bombay- Oct.,


cover and pp. 14-21. 1983 "Cidade de Goa", by Shalini Ramgopal, March, pp. 34-38.

"Bay Islands", Namaste, March, pp. 13-16. "Mediterranean Metaphors", by Mildred Schmertz, Architectural Record, New York - April, pp. 154-159.

"Kala Akademi", Mimar, Singapore


pp. 27-31.

March,

"Kanchanjunga Apartments", Architect, MelbourneDec., pp. 12-13. 1984 "Cidade de Goa" A+U, Tokyo-June, pp. 100-107.

"Climate as Context", by Mildred Schmertz, Architectural Record, New York - August, pp. 114119. "Variations 1988 "L'lnde Intemporelle", Techniques & Architecture, and Traditions", The Architectural

Review,London- Aug, pp. 56-58.

"Architecture", Journal of American Institute of Architects, Washington D.C - Sept., pp. 158-159.

Paris - Feb., pp. 86-97.


"A Gallery of Art", by Nandini Kapur, Inside Outside,

Bombay - August, cover & pp. 94-101


1990 "Charles Correa", by Peter Serenyi, Space, SeoulApril, pp. 122-128

New York - April, pp. 86-87.


"Indian Mission", by Peter Slatin, Oculus N.Y. Chapter - June, cover and p. 7. "JNIDB", by Mina Singh, Inside Outside, Sep.,pp.14-21. "Many Villages make a Hotel", by Anupc Inside Outside, Bombay - Dec., pp 140-

"Charles Correa", Alam AI Bena, Cairo - April, issue


114, pp. 15-16. "Charles Correa", by Waag Hu, World Architecture

Review,Shenzhen - June,pp. 32-33,68-72.


1991 "EI valor de 10sagrado", Bamboo scaffolding Sept.,pp.1-3,8. by Jorge Glusberg,

1994 "Charles Correa", A+U Vol. 94:01,Tokyc


cover and pp. 9-77. "IUCAA", by Dr. Jayant Narlikar, Southe.

EI Cronista, Arquitectura & Diseno, Buenos Aires -

Weston Creek, Australia - May/June,Pf

<na: The Works of Charles Correa", Special pproach, Tokyo - Summer, cover and pp. 30a", by Chintamani Bhagat, Indian & Builder, Bombay - Aug., Cover and pp. Ii Astronomia e Astrofiscia", Arbitaire 332, ,bitaireSegesta, Milano-Sept., pp. 180-181.

"New Bombay - A Dream takes Shape", by Ranji

"Correa Prospects: 23, pp. 26-27. "Conversation

RIBA Annual Discourse",

Bakshi, Bombay Magazine, Bombay - Aug. 22.


1982 "Charles Correa: Housing the Third World", by

MichaelBrawne,ArchitectsJournal,London-

by Jan.

with Charles Correa", by Ruslan

Annette Gartland, Building Design, London


pp. 2 & 3.

Aug. 6,
Sept.

Khalid, Majallah Akitek, Kuala Lumpur - March.


"Arkkitehturri ja Perinteen Sisaistaminen - Charles Correa haastateltavana", by K. Broner, Arkkitehti, Helsinki- June-July. "Charles Correa, Jyvaskylanlntialaisvieras - Koyhan maan modernisti", by P. Holmila, Uusi Suomi, Finland - Aug. 15.

"AsianArchitecture", Asiaweek,HongKong3, Cover story, pp. 26-38.

Correa", World Architecture ,sue,Shenzhen - Jan.

Review 95:01,

1983 "The Spaces which Lie Beyond", by Stephen Games, The Listener, London June 23.
-

Itricacy" by Robert Powell, The Architectural. .ondon - Aug., pp. 52-55.

EWSI REPORTS ON CORREA


)me Housing", by Eunice De Souza, Times

1984 "Royal Gold for Correa", by Rahul Singh, Indian Express,Bombay- Jan. 11. "Gold Medal for Charles Correa", by Neal Morris in Building Design, London - Jan. 13, p. 3
"A Profile of Correa", by Peter Murray, RIBA Journal, London - Feb., pp. 21-23. "L'lndiano Torna Vinatore", by Bruno levi, L 'Expresso, Roma - Mar. 11, p. 99. "Royal Gold Medal for Architecture: Charles Correa",

Bombay-

"The Master Builder", by David Davidar, Gentleman, October.

"Charles Correa - Historical Symbols and . Problems", by S. Merzhanov, Za Rubzhom, Moscow


-

Nov.

30mbay -

May.

"Charles Correa - A Design for Living", by Malvika

Sanghvi, Imprint, Bombay - Dec.


1986 "Charles Correa: Seeking the Boundaries of a Vision", by Yogi Aggarwal, Bombay Magazine, Bombay - Apr. 22. "Charles Correa", in Jienchu - Cross-currents in

," (interview), by Dom Moraes, New York 3gazine, New York - Oct. 11.

mbay", Architectural

Review, London - Dec.

RIBAJournal,London- May,pp. 16-17


"Indian Gold", by Dennis Sharp, Building Design,

Ir N. Gogate, Building Practice, Bombay

Architectural Studies, Hong Kong - pp. 50-53.


"Architecture & Construction", by Jorge Glusberg, La Prensa, Buenos Aires - July 28. "Architect 1987 "Vistara - The Architecture of India", in with a Third World Vision" by Tong Suit

Vol.246,#7344,London- May,p. 34.


"Medal for a Man with Faith", by Stephen Gardiner, The Observer, London - June 3.

~Better" University News, University of ind, Australia - Aug.

"A Sealed Box - An Open Mind", by Jennifer

Chee, Business Times, Singapore - Aug. 28.

Carlson, in Michigan Alumnus, Ann Arbor


,Crowded City", by Lewis M. Simons, ton Post, U.S.A - April 14. arid Architect" by Geoffrey Payne, Building _ondon - Jun 21, p. 12. Correa: Self-Help City" GSD News, Harvard , School of Design, Cambridge - Nov. 1985

- Sept.

"Reaching for the Sky", by Sunil Sethi, India Today, Jan 15, pp 43-45. "A Passage to India", by Jan Burney, Building Design, Vol. #722, London - Jan.18, p. 2.

Architecture+Design, Delhi - Jan.-Feb., pp. 52-59.


"Charles Correa - A View from the Chowk with a Banyan Tree", by A. Chauhan,
-

IIA Journal, Bombay

June.

"

Bombay-

August.

ld than owning", Jericho, Vancouver-

m who helped to shape cities", by Ursula

;ign & Environment, New York - Spring, 1.


m the Top", by Bubli Mathur, Bombay e, Bombay - August 22.

arid: It's not what they want, it's what they

y Robert Bond, Surveyor, London - July 31, 5. y", by Lynda Ralph-Knight, in "Building
London
-

July 25. Handmade buildings: Vidhan Bhavan, Bhopal (under construction)

ng a new Lifestyle", Interview of the , bySunilSethi,IndiaToday,Delhi- Aug.

---

1993 "The Seven Wonders", by E. Jayashree Kurup,

1995 "Man of the Year", by Ervell E. MenE Panaji - Jan. Cover Story, cover am "Incrediblel A building becomes a t Panch alee Thakur, Delhi Times, Dell "Charles Correa, Architect par Exce Louella Lobo Prabhu, Insight, Mang pp. 4-5. "Charles Correa and the Recovery c Peter Carl in the Catalogue for Exhit MA, Tokyo - April, pp 10-30. "First Person, Last Word". Interview Tripathi, Asia, Inc, Hong Kong
-

Saturday Times, Delhi - June 5, p. 2.


"A Synthesis of Modern and Traditional Eric Parry, Nov. Aims", by

"Seeking the Spirit", by Clare Melhuish, Building Design, London - Nov. 26, p. 16. "An Essay", by Kenneth Frampton, in Catalogue for Exhibition" The Ritualistic Pathway", The Architectural Association, London. "Arboreal Architecture", by Howard Hodgkin, Quarterly, Winter, pp. 14-15. 1994 "Charles Correa: La arquitectura complementa con la puitura", by Jorge Glusberg, LaPrensa, Buenos Aires - July 28. "Charles Correa: Un arquitecto para la mayoria", da "Charles Correa's work on display", Delhi - Feb. 10. "Exploring by Infinite Spaces", Statesman, Design

Ma

"Dear Darling Cosmos", by Brendar Yorker, New York - June 19, p. 93. "On the Vanguard of the Contempol Scene", by Riichi Miyake, PraemiulT Japan Art Association, Tokyo, p. 34 INTERVIEWS 1972 ABC TV, "New Bombay" - March, ty 1976 PBS TV, "Vancouver Andrew Stern. 1983 BBC Radio 3, "Sun and Shadow" -, Stephen Games. BBC Radio 3, "Skyscraper" 1984 Doordarshan, Dharkar. 1986 Doordarshan, "Beyond Tomorrow: L Mar 26, by R.K. Mishra. 1987 Doordarshan, "Vistara: The Architec Nov., by Anil Dharkar. 1994 THE LATE SHOW, BBC, London-A Bernadette O'Brien. 1995 The Human Face of the Urban Envir Socratic Dialogue, The World Bank, D.C., moderated by Charles Ogletre BOOKS BY CORREA The New Landscape: Bombay, 1985. HoBBIN NeN3AX: The Book Soc "Open-to-Sky Space" - Oct. Symposium" (Radio I Television)

by Sum ita Thapar,

Pioneer, Delhi - Feb. 14, p. 13.


"The Journey of an Architect", Economic Times,

Rosa Montero, EL Pais, Madrid, Spain - Sept. 6.


"An Interview with Charles Correa", by Sarayu Ahuja,

Delhi - Feb. 16. Indian Architect & Builder, Bombay Oct.

"Charles Correa - The Fate of Man and Architecture in the East", by H. Khan, Mimar, Singapore - Dec, pp. 60-63. 1988 Techniques & Architecture, Paris
-

"Opening up spaces for life", by the Design Team, Economic Times, Bombay - Feb. 17, p. 6. "In the Mind of the Architect", by Shanta Ghokale, Sunday Review, Bombay - Feb. 20, p. 5. "Architect's New Cosmic Idiom", by Sushma Chadha, National Herald, Delhi - Feb. 24, p. 5 "Space Explorer", by Ranjona Banerji, Sunday

Mar, pp. 86-97. Year, Trivandrum

Malayalam Manorama, - March, p.126.

Centenary

Midday, Bombay - March 13, pp. XII & XIII.


"Charles Correa's Five Jewels", by D. G. Nadkarni,

"The Sky Line - Corbu", by Brendan Gill, The New


Yorker, New York - May 9. "Myth - Creation - The New Landscape",

LoksattaChaturang, Bombay- April9, p. 1.


"Space, Time and Correa", by Adil Jussawala, Afternoon, Bombay - April 29, p. 11. "The Ritualistic Pathway - Five Projects by Charles Correa", by Peter Carl & Eric Parry, AA Files: 27,

Architectural Journal, China - May, pp. 31-36.


"A City Where Stark Contrast Is King", by Steven R. Weisman, The Washington Post, Jul. 23, p. 4. 1989 "Towards a landscape for the future", a conversation with Alan Twigg, The Independent, BombayNov.12,p.3. 1990

The Architectural Association, London - Summer,


pp.67-74. "Child of Bombay", by Graham Vickers, World Architecture, London - Issue #27, pp. 76-78. "PEOPLE: Japan Cites 5 Winners for Arts Achievements", International Herald Tribune, June 17, p. 24. "Correa's Home-truths", by Shanta Gokhale, The

"Bombay - City of Superlatives", by Pranay Gupte,


PAN AM Clipper Magazine, Nov., p. 28. 1991 of an Indian Street", by Dr. Jyotindra Jain, Architecture and Design, Delhi - Vol. VIII, No.5, Sept.-Oct., pp. 39-43. 1992 "Bold Break with Tradition", by Catherine Ormell, "Metaphor

Telegraph, Calcutta - June 24, Section II, p. 1.


"Asians must not ricochet off the West", by Vibhuti Patel, The Independent, Bombay - June 29, p. 7. "Encounter", by Shabana Minwalla, Sunday Times,

Independent, London - April 22.


"Working with passion and power", by Gayatri Sinha,

Bombay- July,p. 4.
"Correa Wins Praemium Imperiale", Progressive Architecture, New York - July, p. 19. "The World of Charles Correa", by Asit Chandmal, Times of India, Bombay - Nov. 1, p. 6. "Poetry in Concrete", by Ajantha Sen Poovaiah, Debonair, Bombay - Dec., pp. 20-22.

MockBa CTponn, Butterworth AI

Hindu, Madras - April 26, p. XII.


"Profile: Charles Correa", by Madhu Jain, India Today, Delhi - May 15, pp. 100-101. "The British Council Division", Britain Today, New Delhi - Nov., pp. 12-14.

The New Landscape: New York, 1989.

ESSAYS BY CORREA 1959 "Architectural Expression", LalitKale Delhi, Seminar on Architecture, pp. .

268

ier in Chandigarh", Architectural Review, June, pp. 404-412. :es", The Architect and the Community, ernational Centre, Delhi, pp. 47-50. ::Itsof Architecture",

Conspectus,

Delhi.

g for Bombay", Marg, Bombay - April, pp.

les", Seminar, Delhi

March, pp. 25-32.

,Control",

Architectural pp. 448-451.

Design, London Exhibition at Gallery MA, Tokyo 1995 1976 1986 Ekistics, Athens
-

TI- A Tourist Destination Area", Indian of Town Planners Journal, Bombay ler, pp. 52-55. TIme and Priorities",

"Space as a Resource",

Jan, pp.

33-38.

"GoaPlanning and Conservation" - Design,Delhi,


pp.33-37.
The

"VISTARA .. The Architecture of India ", essay in Catalogue for the Festival of India, Bombay (1986), Moscow, Leningrad and Tashkent (1987) 1987 "An Essay for JAE", Journal of Architectural Education, Jubilee issue, Vol. 40:2, New York, p. 12.

Architectural - December, pp. 329-331. London


Design,

1977 "The New Landscape", Habitat, London. "Functional and Spatial Planning", Housing Science, Vol.1, London, pp. 273-292.
1980 "Urban Strategies", Habitat International, Nos. 3/4, London, pp. 447-455 Vol. 5,

s of Urban Growth", Architectural

London - December, pp. 433-434.


Ip City", Seminar, Delhi - February, :0.
3n Age of Architecture", The Illustrated 'Jflndia, Bombay, 17, pg. 31.

1988 "Rajasthan and the Realm of the Sacred", Approach, Tokyo - Autumn, p. 12. 1989 "The Public, the Private, and the Sacred", Daedalus, Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Cambridge, Mass - Fall, pp. 53-114.
"Museum Architecture", pp. 223-229. 1992 "Learning from Marine Drive", Sunday Times of Museum, UNESCO, Paris.

"Urban Housing in the Third World: The role of the Architect", Open House, London, Vol. 6, pp. 31-35. "Urban Strategies for Third World Countries", e Societa, 15/16, Milano, pp. 44-55. Spazio

, Organization ofMetropolitanAreas" -

UN E/ I/SYM/I 11/9 , Stockholm - September 26, 1973.


ransport" - Seminar, Delhi - Feb, pp. 21-30.

1982 "Architecture in a Warm Climate", Mimar, Singapore -July-September, pp. 31-35. 1983 "Chandigarh: The View from Benares", Le Corbusier Archive, Vol. XXII, Garland Publishing, New York, pp.9-14. "A Place in the Sun", Royal Society of Arts Journal, Vol. 131, London, May, pp.328-340.

India, Bombay - Feb. 16, p. 12.


"Regionalism in Architecture", MASS, Journal of the University of New Mexico, Vol. IX, Spring, pp. 4-5. 1993 "Tropical Coastal City: The Spare Part and the Machine", China Architecture and Building Press, Haikou, Hainan. 'Vistas ", 1989 Award Book edited by James Steele, Aga Khan Award for Architecture.

)mbay: The Self Help City", Architectural Vol. 44, London - January, pp. 48-51. '/ Which Makes Itself", Lotus, Milan - June, 111. )ollution", Times of India Annual, Bombay, o.

"Of Frogs,well-done",IndiaMagazine,Delhi- May


Icutta", Times of India, Bombay - April 27, 1983, pp. 6-7.

"A Place in the Sun", Places, M.IT Press,

Massachusetts - Fall,pp. 40-49.


"Conflict", Architect, Vol. 7, Melbourne - December, pp.10-11. 1984 "Consciousness II", Seminar, Delhi - Jan, pp. 293-

1994 "Models of the Cosmos", A+U, No. 280, Jan., pp. 12-13. KEYNOTE ADDRESSES I LECTURES 1973 United Nations Symposium on Population Resources and Environment, Stockholm - Nov.
1974 Sir Bannister Fletcher Memorial Lectures, University

296.

"Chandigarh", Ninety Years On edited by Charlotte Ellis, Architects' Journal, Vol. 179, London - June 27, pp.47-112. 1985 "The New Landscape", Transactions of The Royal Institute of British Architects, London, pp. 60-67.

of London - May.
1976 Keynote address, The Maharashtra Council, Bombay - April. State Women's

Member of Barbara Ward's "Vancouver Symposium", 1983 The Cubitt Lecture, the Royal Society of Arts, London -Jan. Keynote address, "Conflict", Royal Australian United Nations Conference
- June.

on Human

1993 Keynote address, Tropical Coastal Cities, Haiku,

Settlements, Vancouver, Canada

China- Apr
Keynote address, TED 4, Conference, Kobe, Japan -Apr Academie D'Architectrure, Paris
1994 Annual Convention, Colombo- Feb. Sri Lanka Institute of Architects,
-

Nov.

Institute of Architects, Sydney - June. Keynote address, Aga Khan Award for Architecture, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - July.
1984 The Rowtett Lecture, Texas A & M University, March. The Raoul Wallenberg Lecture, University of

Keynote address, The Human Face of Ecological Development, World Bank, Washington D.C. - Sept

CollegeStation-

Symposium, Praemium Imperiale Kansai, Japan1995

Nov.

1986 VISTARA,Nehru Centre, Bomt 1987 Festival of India: Moscow, Leni 1989 Festival of India: TheSetagaY8 Japan. 1991 Festival of India: Berlin Culture Germany. 1992 World Architecture Exposition, Nara, Japan. ONE-MAN SHOWS 1984 Royal Institute of British ArchitE 1984
A Celebration of Architecture,
(

Michigan,AnnArbor- April.
Keynote address, Cumberland Cumbria - April. Society of Architects,

Chicago Art Institute, Chicago


Washington University, StLouis.

March.
- March.

Keynote address, East-West Encounter, University of Hawaii March.


-

Gordon Brown Memorial Lecture, Department

of

Architecture, University of HongKong,HongKongOct 1985 Annual RIBA Discourse, Royal Institute of British

Gallery MA, Tokyo & Hiroshima - April.


TEACHING

1984 British Council, India. 1993 "The Ritualistic Pathway", The', Association, London 1994 "The Ritualistic Pathway", The, Bombay and Madras 1995 "The Blessings of the Sky", Ga

Architects,London-

Jan. Union of

MIT, Cambridge, Mass. (Albert Bemis Professor)Fall 1962. University of London (Sir Bannister-Fletcher Professor) - May 1974. Harvard, Cambridge - Fall 1974 J.J. School of Architecture, University of Bombay1976.
Tulane University, New Orleans (Arthur Q. Davis Professor)Fall 1979. MIT, Cambridge, Mass - Spring 1981. Philadelphia
-

Keynote address, UIA (International Architects), Cairo - Jan.

Keynote address, National Convention, Indian Institute of Architects, Bangalore - Feb. Design for High-intensity 1987 Keynote address, Silver Jubilee Celebration, Development, Malaysian

FILMS 1955 Scriptwriter, Animator, Photogr You and Your Neighbourhood, 1976 Director and Scriptwriter for do Water, Films Division, Governrr 1986 Scriptwriter for Audio-Visual VI: Architecture of India. 1995 Scripwriter and Director for Vid the Sky

Instituteof Architects,KualaLumpur- Aug.

Roorkee University -

Feb.

University of Pennsylvania,

Spring 1982
Nehru

Aga Khan Programme, School of Architecture, Academy


1990

Seminar, Paris - April. University of Singapore - Jul. Bombay


-

Columbia University, New York - Spring 1984


Cambridge University,
1985-1986

U.K. (Jawaharlal

Professor) -

of Architecture,

Sept

Harvard, Cambridge,

Mass - Spring 1987.


-

National University of Singapore


-

July 1987

Biennale, Buenos Aires, Argentina Royal Institute of British Architects,

Sept London
-

MIT,Cambridge,Mass- Spring 1989.


Oct Nov
MIT, Cambridge. MIT, Cambridge, Mass - Fall 1989. Mass. (Visiting Aga Khan

Danish Institute of Architects, Copenhagan 1991

Professor)
March.

Fall 1992.

Museum of ModernArt,SanFransisco School of Architecture, Albuquerque - March.

Tongi University, Shanghai - Spring 1993


Washington University, St. Louis, - Spring 1995.

University of New Mexico,

EXHIBITIONS Bombay - April. 1975 Contemporary 1982 Venice Biennale, Italy. 1983 Third World Architecture: Institute, New York. 1985 Festival of India. Ecole des Artes, Paris, France. Still from film' You and Your Neighb Search for Identity, Pratt Architecture in India, USA.

Indian Institute of Architects,

American Institute of Architects Annual Convention, Washington - May. Royal Institute of British Architects, London
-

Keynote address,

Oct

1992

TheGrahamFoundation, Chicago- Oct


The Public Building, Rotschild Foundation, Jerusalem-Nov. 270

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