Charles Correa my mentor through Architecture School

I began my journey through Architecture at the age of 18, My Architectural

Knowledge base back then was as vast as the average millennial teens of
today, with our selfie sticks and the instantaneous instagram or tweet of
what we have consumed for breakfast, in complete obliviousness of world
created around us by architects, unaware of great minds like Charles
Correa, who in his humility, has been the Indian Postmodern Architectural
Icon, an inspiration and a guide for Architects across the globe for over a
period of six decades.
Correa is known for his sensitivity with climate, materiality, culture and
aspirations of the context in which he created his master pieces, his
metaphysical approach to design that transcends the ego of modern
architects creating a harmonious communion between the site and the
habitable sculpture we call Architecture.
I am in my final semester, weaving and wading my way through my
architectural thesis dressed in a camouflaged green puffed advanced
bomb suit with my finger over the red wire as the jury sit with a sniper,
locked on to make the head shot.
As the External Architect sat through the pre-thesis panel, 70 odd
students choosing a topic, were presenting their studies and with 70
varying topics, there were almost 25 students who had Charles Correas
works as a study. I began to realise the diversity of Correas works
spanning from low cost housing to the urban design of Mumbai, Correa

managed to incorporate his design principles and philosophies

irrespective of the client or scale of the project, the essence of designing
around the end user and understanding of human scale, cosmos and
cultural ambitions of clients was the driving force of his work. The way in
which embrace and relate to Charles Correas work shows how his designs
transcended from being mere building into an extension of Culture, an
Identity for Indian Architecture in a time India needed it most.
I would like to share my encounters with Charles Correa and how his work
has influenced me along the yellow brick road of Architecture school.
Huddled around a computer screen around one am, 12 drowsy pair of
eyes came across Charles Correas Plan for Bombay, our Urban design
team after a long day of documentation looked for a serendipitous spark
that would drive the urban study of our site, when we came across
Correas fore sightedness in understanding the mismatch between the
citys structure and the load it must carry, Correa called for a
rearrangement of the city that would restructure the way it would grow
thriving on its diversity and it incorporating all kinds of end users into the
design of the city. We were able to understand the multiple layers that
Charles Correa worked with in his career and merged them together in a
simple sustainable way.
Last year our entire class of 70 during our North Indian tour visited some
of Correas works, the Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya, a memorial museum
for the father of our nation was a personification of the kind of man
Gandhi was, The museum was designed as cluster of modular units 6

meters x 6 meters of reinforced cement concrete connecting spaces both

open and covered showcased the simplicity of Gandhis life. The museum
was an elegant composition using stone floors, brick walls, wooden doors
and loured windows devoid of glass and tiled roofs, allowed the poor to
experience the museum with reverence and pay their tribute without
feeling alienated by opening glass doors and feeling overwhelmed by
complex dominating form. The Ashram was one of Correas earlier works,
it was a surprise that this project was not handed over to a big Indian
practice let alone not a foreign Architect.50 years have passed and the
Architects chosen to design in the new state capital in Amaravati are
Norman Foster, Richard Rogers and Rem Koolhaas, I noticed the standard
Correa has set for Indian Architects and loss in identity of Indian Architects
in Postmodern Architecture, Correa has left a legacy behind for young
Indian Architects to take the baton and push forward with the lessons
Correa has taught us in understanding our cultural roots and reinventing
contemporary architecture in an era driven by digital media.
I had the opportunity of Interning in a small practice in London, as we
were finishing up the work one humid July summers day, sipping away on
our English tea , my Chief Architect looked over my shoulder and threw
out a question every architecture student has locked and locked in his
pocket, who my favourite Architect was, as the names Zaha Hadid,
Norman Foster, Renzo Piano rolled through my mind I decided to stick to
my Indian roots and went with Charles Correa, to my surprise my boss
says Oh! that man is one of a kind, one of the greatest Architectural

minds of the 21st Century but he is one the worst Clients to manage to
hold down, his ideas are racy, and outpaces every mind in the room.
My chief Architect was working with the British Foreign Office at the time
and collaborated with Charles Correa in the design of British High
Commission in New Delhi, my boss went onto explain how in client
discussions, Correa surrounded himself with four members from his firm
who were very light on their feet and were taught to tune their minds in
synchronisation with Correa and were equipped to spontaneously
translate his ideas, philosophies and discussions into drawings, Correa
managed to touch the lives of everyone he worked with during his lifespan
and it didnt stop there he managed to disseminate his philosophy through
the next generation of Architects.
While interning in London, I was lucky enough to be there during the
London festival of Architecture, with open studios, workshops and student
shows. There was an evening in july,a PechaKucha was organised by MLJ
Architects which was held in an old abandoned shoe factory, as I found my
way into this quirky, rusty warehouse tucked away in central London, I
went in to find Architects in their suits, I found my way to a corner next to
the only other architecture student in the room, I introduced myself and
after about five Minuits of awkward silence, Theres some really
interesting architecture going on in India isnt there? said the stranger, I
really love the apartment in Mumbai by Charles Correa and just like that
we were no longer strangers two sides of the world but two Architecture
students who admire and love the work of Charles Correa, the way in

which Charles Correas work is recognised at an international level is

shows how his brand of architecture connects with people and the legacy
he has left behind for Indian Architecture.

In 2013 Charles Correa submitted his lifes work to the RIBA to be

archived, although he is a internationally celebrated Architects, it shows
how much as an Architectural fraternity we have to system of Archiving
and preserving our Architectural cultural heritage, we are a very loosly
connected family who require a medium for bringing together academic
and practise in order to create an identity for Indian Architecture,
celebrating the legacy that Indian Architects like Charles Correa have let
us with, understanding that globalisation has left us disconnected and our
architecture commercialised and alienated from our context. We need to
take a step back and understand that a tribute to Charles Correa is more
than celebrating his works, its in taking the identity of modern Indian
contemporary architecture and reinventing it to the Indian context in 2015
and readapting while remaining culturally rooted.
Correa believed that we must design with where we came from in the
back of our mind and produce Architecture for todays needs that will be a
meaningful heritage for the architecture of tomorrow.
I understand Charles Correa to be an epitome of simplicity, he managed to
capture the essence of our culture and create a brand of architecture that
is site driven yet had his contemporary flair, in an answer to a question,

are architects in India able to influence change more than Architects in the
West, Charles Correa said after a lecture in London they were not, but that
did not stop them from trying. Correa believed that we must design with
where we came from in the back of our mind and produce Architecture for
todays needs that will be a meaningful heritage for the architecture of
tomorrow.