SESSION 01- A PLACE IN THE SUN
‘There are no great men,’ said Stendhal apropos of Napoleon, ‘there are merely great events.’ And, one could perhaps go further and say that there are great issues. For we are only as big as the questions we address. And this, to my mind, is the central riveting fact of life for architects in the Third World. Not the size or value of the projects we are working on but the nature of the questions they raise — and that we must confront. A chance to grow – the abiding virtue of a place in the sun.
Charles Correa, A Place in the Sun (1983)
SPEAKERS –
Nondita Correa Mehrotra | The Conversations Continue: CCF and the Archives
Our first talk of the conference questions – How does one take forward the conversations – engaging with the ideas that for the most part were ahead of their time? What are an architect’s archives? Are they just the tangibles – the drawings, models, photographs, and writings? Or are there others? This presentation will highlight the work of the Charles Correa Foundation which focuses on extending the spirit of his ideas and continues the conversations.
William J. R. Curtis | Taking the Long View: Charles Correa in Historical Perspective (Keynote Address)
The talk attempts to overall assess the life and works of Charles Correa. While it is desirable to recreate each context and to reconstruct the anatomy of intentions and guiding ideas of Correa’s individual buildings, it is also necessary to see his work as a continuing experiment with guiding principles. With this as the key premise, the speaker touches upon various facets of Correa’s architecture and urbanism – his key design principles and influences, all while exploring a sort of mythological concept of ‘Indian identity.’
Kulbhushan Jain | Charles Correa: Meaning and Pertinence
With the aspirations for a post-independent modern India in the foreground, this talk focuses on the dual influence of modernity and traditional inheritance seen in Correa’s architecture.
The speaker attempts to look at three museums/art centres designed by him namely Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya, Ahmedabad (1963), Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal (1982) and Jawahar Kala Kendra, Jaipur (1986).
Rahul Mehrotra | Charles Correa and his Idea of India
The lecture will examine the spectrum of Charles Correas project in the context of his idea of India. It will attempt to situate his vision in his understanding and response to the political conditions in which he practised as an architect, planner and most importantly as an activist. The projects that will be covered would include his institutional work, housing as well as ideas about urbanism and his theoretical suggestions for practitioners in India. That is to examine Charles Correa’s legacy for India and his contribution of articulating a clear agenda for architects in India. That is to theorise the everyday in productive ways for designers and construct a clear idea of India.
Discussant – Ranjit Hoskote
Session 02 – Volume Zero
It refers to what Louis Kahn meant when he spoke of ‘Volume Zero’. What Kahn would say to his students goes something like this: ‘I love English history; I love the bloodiness of it. I’ve got eight volumes which I enjoy reading.’ Then, after a pause, he would add, ‘Well, actually, I haven’t read all eight — I’ve read only Volume One…and even that, I haven’t read more than just the first few pages.’ And then, more fiercely, ‘Actually, I don’t think history started the way they say it did. I think it started before that. I want to read Volume Zero.’ And then he would finish with this truly extraordinary sentence: ‘Architecture is magnificent because it deals with the recessions of the mind…with that which is not yet said, and which is not yet made.’
Charles Correa, The Pietro Belluschi Lecture, MIT, Boston (1998)
SPEAKERS –
Mustansir Dalvi | Citizen Charles
This talk will focus on how Charles’s architecture and urbanism are rooted not in the flourishes of design or notions of legacy and posterity but more in being a citizen of a city, a country and the world. Very early in his career, he moved away from the enticing possibilities of materiality and universalism, away from the ubiquity of Corbusian international Modernism and more towards the appreciation of the socio-cultural situation of his countrymen. Both his successes and failures, his built and unbuilt work are testament to this political location, that an architect is a citizen first.
Malvika Singh | The Quintessential Polymath A True Renaissance Person
This talk outlines Correa’s influence with his comprehensive identity as an architect, public intellect and importantly, a humanist. Highlighting the synergy between Correa and his partner Monika as his other half, his ardhangini. They together injected the structures with the metaphors that marked their life. His architectural philosophy advocates for designs that respect local contexts while promoting sustainability. The talk asserts that his ethos lives on and is palpable in our everyday lives.
Rajnish Wattas | The View from Chandigarh
Charles Correa was and remains a colossus. His persona is etched on Chandigarh’s hearts and the béton brut concrete facades of Corbusier, whom he loved to rub the wrong way. This talk is a reversed telescopic view of Charles, as to how we saw him then and read his views on the city of Chandigarh along the lines of his brilliant article ‘The View from Benares’.
Tridip Suhrud | A Memorial for Mr Gandhi
A man who aspired to be a mendicant, whose striving was to attain a state of desire less, who eschewed statues and idols equally is assassinated and his associates embark on a mission to memorialize him. This conversation seeks to ask a question, what is a memorial to Gandhi? This will be done with the memorial at Sabarmati and the Gandhi Smarak Sanghrahalaya designed by Charles Correa.
Discussant – Ranjit Hoskote
Session 03 – Blessings of The Sky
The sky has always carried a profound and sacred meaning. Through some instinctive process, man has perceived it as the abode of the gods. Hence to climb a sacred path to the top of the hill, where the immortals dwell, is a paradigm of such mythic power that it has been central to the beliefs of almost every society, since the beginning of time. Such spaces have an infinite number of variations: one step out of a room…into a verandah…and then on to a terrace…from which one proceeds to an open courtyard, perhaps shaded by a tree…or by a large pergola overhead. True Enlightenment cannot be achieved within the closed box of a room – one must be outdoors, under the open sky.
Charles Correa, February, 1995
Part of the ‘CHARLES CORREA’ exhibition catalogue held in BORUSAN Art Gallery, Istanbul, May 22 – June 24, 2000
SPEAKERS –
Catherine Desai | First works: Charles Correa in Gujarat
This talk focuses on the early phase of Correa’s career in Gujarat, among the first five constructed projects, four were built in Ahmedabad or surrounding towns. Examining both his seminal and less often discussed buildings, we see that far from being hesitant beginnings or false starts for mature work to come, they are powerful, diverse and sophisticated statements of architectural intent, that remain of relevance to contemporary practice. What might an analysis of these first buildings, overshadowed by more famous works, reveal?
Liane Lefaivre | Charles Correa and Regionalism of the Global South
Talking about the architect and planner Charles Correa within the rise of regionalism as a major movement following WWII in the Global North and the Global South. Highlighting how Correa distinguished himself from many Northern architects by addressing environmental concerns in his designs. He experimented with more efficient techniques adapted from his early mentor and life-long friend Buckminster Fuller. Also discuss how Charles became committed to the idea of large-scale top-down planning, exemplified in projects like Navi Mumbai and lastly see how his towering contribution only gets more relevant with time in this present era of horrendous climate change and wretched poverty and homelessness.
Ranjit Hoskote | Charles Correa’s Approach to the Sacred Everyday
Charles Correa’s lifelong preoccupation with the sacred – not as a counterpoint to normal experience, but as a current within the every day – has remained under-regarded in the study of his vision and oeuvre. This talk will reflect on the interplay between inquiry and wonderment, and the hope of cosmic belonging, which animate many of Correa’s projects, including Salvacao Church in Mumbai, IUCAA in Pune, the Jawahar Kala Kendra in Jaipur, and the 1986-87 exhibition project ‘Vistara’.
Discussant – Mustansir Dalvi
Session 04 – Buildings As Ideas
For architecture is not created in a vacuum. It is the compulsive expression of beliefs (implicit or explicit) central to our lives.
Vistara, The Architecture of India (1986)
SPEAKERS –
Pradeep Dalal | Like the shade of a great tree: Howard Hodgkin’s Mural for the British Council Library in New Delhi, 1987-92.
Many of the buildings designed by the architect Charles Correa from the 1980s onward feature visual art as a significant aspect of the architecture. This talk will focus on the collaboration with the artists such as Janghar Singh Shyam who was commissioned to paint the shell domes of the Bharat Bhavan and walls of the courtyard at the Vidhan Bhavan, Bhopal. He also worked with the artist Howard Hodgkin to produce an immense mural for the façade that the artist later described as an “ecumenical tree of no particular species and no specific symbolism.”
For both Correa’s architecture and Hodgkin’s mural, this collaboration was “the product of an infinitely refined imagination in the face of nature.”
Kaiwan Mehta | Humility and Multiplicity – Architecture’s Tryst with Indianness
The talk will build a conversation on two buildings by Charles Correa – the Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya at Sabarmati Ashram, in Ahmedabad, and the Jawahar Kala Kendra in Jaipur. The Sangrahalaya exemplifies humility in architecture, reflecting Gandhi’s core value- the self is public, and the public is not out of the self. Its simplicity and structure foster introspection and connection. In contrast, the Jawahar Kala Kendra represents multiplicity and creative expression, embodying Nehru’s vision of ‘unity in diversity’ and emphasizing the enjoyment of knowledge and not being trapped in myopic traditions. Correa captured a nation, in a tryst with its destiny – the difficulties and pleasures of being Charles Correa in India.
Sunil Shelar | The Ritualistic Pathway – 3 projects with different topologies
Since the earliest civilization, the ritualistic pathway was, and is, the central aspect of life on the subcontinent. Planetary positions held great importance and meaning in planning a building or a city. This talk will focus on how Charles Correa was fascinated by this knowledge and its significance regarding the design and organisation of buildings. The 3 buildings here are different in terms of their function, yet the ritualistic pathway, the climate, and the quintessential square remain central to their genesis.
Ashok Vajpeyi | A Home of Arts as a Non-building
This talk will be about Bharat Bhavan, a multi-arts centre in Bhopal designed by Charles Correa, to come up at a place that almost joined the old city to the new city. He called it a non-building since the whole building could not be seen in its entirety from anywhere. The presentation would trace the Correan aesthetics, imagination, and the multiple artistic uses many spaces could provide for and gently provoke.
Ajit Kembhavi | Architecture, Astronomy and the Cosmos: From Conversations to a Masterpiece
In his talk, he will recount the heady days when the ideas were first conceived in Mumbai and Bengaluru, the twists and turns through which the project of the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) progressed in Pune, the eventual completion, and the additions which have been made to the buildings from time to time, all in coherence with the original conception. He will end by summarising the progress of the IUCAA 2.0 building, which is now under construction and is probably the last design by Charles Correa.
Discussant – Rajnish Wattas
Session 05 – An Urban Manifesto
“For the city which we experience is, of course, much more than just a physical plant – it is also a set of powerful mythic images and values…that give sustenance, and enrichment to our lives. This, in the final analysis, is what cities are about. What culture is about. And what, hopefully, urban centres will once again become.”
Charles Correa, The City as: City, Housing and Urbanisation (1999)
SPEAKERS –
Vidyadhar Phatak | Charles Correa – An Urbanist
Though committed to his architectural practice, Charles Correa made significant contributions to urban development in India. Notable of these are the planning of Navi Mumbai, policy initiatives of MMRDA, National Commission on Urbanisation, Delhi Arts Commission, and Regional Plan of Goa. In this talk, the speaker intends to present his understanding and interpretation of Correa’s thinking about three themes viz. Indian Urbanisation, Urban Structures and Role of Land, Markets and Governance in shaping cities.
Jagan Shah | The National Commission on Urbanization: An Unfinished Project for Modern India
Through his talk, Jagan Shah will highlight the quality of the NCU’s contribution to modern India’s urban history. In stark contrast with more recent attempts at national policymaking, the NCU is overt in its affirmation of constitutional values, social justice, and equitable growth, which is a testament to the deep influence wielded by its Chairman, Charles Correa. The talk correlates the NCU’s work with Correa’s writings and with contemporaneous events such as the planning of Navi Mumbai to argue that the 1980s were a decade of tremendous progress on the urban policy as a lever for livelihood creation and poverty alleviation and that the progress has been subverted by the forces of globalisation and neoliberalism that have dominated policy discourse over the past three decades. The talk will conclude with reflections on the guiding principles of the NCU and their continued relevance for the future of India’s cities.
Discussant – Rahul Mehrotra
Session 06 – Space As A Resource
SPEAKERS –
Rohan Varma | The Bill of Rights for Housing in the Third World: Charles Correa’s Manifesto for Housing the Masses
This talk de-centres and expands this debate on habitat beyond its typically limited geography and timeframe by focusing on its development through an understudied manifesto written from the context of the Global South: Charles Correa’s 1985 ‘Bill of Rights for Housing in the Third World’. It also makes a case for revisiting Correa’s work and writings that advocate for an approach to housing that blurs the dichotomies between the formal and informal and top-down and bottom-up practices.
Dirk Van Gameren | Housing Lessons Charles Correa’s patient search for a habitat for all
A remarkable part of Charles Correa’s built, and unbuilt work are his projects for housing. His ‘recherche patiente’ is arguably one of the main contributions in our times to that most crucial challenge for both architects and urban planners: to address the continuing demand for good, accessible and affordable housing. The talk will focus on this long and patient search for optimal models for housing. Different lenses will explore how to understand his thinking and designing, looking from the way the built form shapes public and collective spaces, the inclusion of open space in the private realm of the dwelling, to how material structure and detail emphasise the climatic and functional experience of space in and outside the individual dwelling.
Rohan Shivkumar | Lovely Villa: A film on growing up in Charles Correa’s LIC Colony
Every house is haunted by the spirits of those are yet to come, and of those that came before. We are all marked by the architecture of the homes we live in. ‘Lovely Villa’ is the name of the apartment building where the filmmaker grew up, as he studied to become an architect. It is in the LIC colony designed by Charles Correa and represents an imagination of the ideal community for a modern India. This is a film about the relationship between architecture, everyday life, family, coming of age and the memory of ‘home’.
Discussant – Catherine Desai