A meandering journey through the archives of one of Charles Correa’s most significant institutional projects.
One of the many courtyards that organize IUCAA’s masterplan. Photograph taken by Mahendra Sinh.
For a novice, at least in the complex fields of astronomy and astrophysics, the most gripping part of outer space is its scale — the sheer enormity, the vastness, the dizzyingly unfathomable extents of ‘nothingness’. Working with an archival masterplan of the Inter-University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, or IUCAA, gave me the same feeling of disorientation. Completed in the early 1990s, IUCAA was the second ‘Inter-University Center’ (IUC) — autonomous centers set up by the University Grants Commission designed to act as national coordinating bodies to create centralised facilities that could be shared by all universities. In July 1988, IUCAA was granted 8 hectares of land near Pune University, and Charles Correa was chosen to design the buildings.
Reading a plan for the first time is a bit like learning the rhythm of an unfamiliar song, and this one — especially at the masterplan scale — was particularly elusive. Correa himself1 describes the structure of the plan as more organic than a strict grid;
“an axis which is actually shifting, yet not breaking off at any point…”
The very apparent asymmetry that this generates is what makes the building contemporary. Compounding this was the sheer scale of the institute; in 1992, just 4 years after being granted a site, it stood as a mammoth 150,000 square foot campus.
The 3 sites of IUCAA, with the central institute, interspersed by campus roads. Archival drawing from the Charles Correa Archives.
When a project is studied as a process rather than an outcome, a retrospective curation becomes all the more complex. Every line I drafted was accompanied by a lingering angst – that I was not correctly capturing the original intention of the architect, that the wall itself was built differently than the drawing, that there was somehow more to these walls that I was blissfully unaware of. This was when I took a deep dive into ‘the IUCAA story’ – how it had been written about, spoken about, critiqued – essentially positioning it in its context. It was quite evident that collaboration must have been essential for a project of this scale to have been executed in such a short time. After realising that Correa accepted the project on the condition that the scientists worked with him to bring the imagery and concepts of astronomy into the builtform, I knew that these were the tenets of this institute, and what made it so unique.
But what does this abstraction – the ‘cosmos’, the mandala – mean for an architect? Correa’s translation of concepts into architectural gestures was not an act of force or imposition, but rather an acceptance of the land, the trees, and the terrain. While IUCAA is known for its imagery, such as the Foucault pendulum and its spiral staircase, there are much subtler nuances that catch one by surprise.
The ‘sweeping lines’ of black stone, articulated as black walls. Archival sketch by Charles Correa, from the Charles Correa Archives.
The first gesture that I noticed in the plan was the sweeping lines – articulated as imposing black walls that are meant to draw a visitor in. Even a CAD drawing reflects the sure movement of the hand that sketched them. An elevation revealed the layers of the walls: local basalt at the base, followed by courses of a blacker kuddapah, and topped finally by glossy black granite, described by Correa2 as
“black on black on black – the infinity of outer space.”
Three layers of black stone allude to the increasing ‘blackness’ of outer space.
L: Archival drawing from the Charles Correa Archives | R: Photograph taken by Rahul Mehrotra.
As I worked my way through the rigour and complexity of the masterplan one block at a time, the organic nature of the grid, flowing and bending for light and openings, began revealing itself. A conscious effort was made to treat each block not as an isolated entity but a part of a system, understanding the whole as much more than the sum of its parts but also the part itself as a whole. The play of scale — unapologetically cosmic one minute and tenderly humane the next — beautifully parallels a layperson’s understanding and perception of the ‘cosmos’.
Slowly, the distinctly ‘Correan’ aspects of the project started to emerge. The interplay of volume and void, the articulation of spaces around courtyards: places in the sun and shade, so to speak. The variation in these open spaces is reminiscent of the hierarchy of courtyards in Belapur Housing, built in Navi Mumbai just a few years prior (the project was completed in 1986, two years before IUCAA began).
L: The play of scale is beautifully seen in the statues in the central courtyard. Photograph taken by Rahul Mehrotra.
R: The figure-ground plan depicts the interplay of volume and void. Archival drawing from the Charles Correa Archives.
The largest of these courtyards — the central square — takes the form of a ‘kund’, or well; another clear indicator of its architect. However, rather than being filled with water, the kund is bound by a delicate pattern of granite steps, with stones set into the grass along one diagonal, almost flying apart. On investigating this further, I saw the careful balance between the allusion to astral imagery and the grounding of an architectural gesture – in this case, directionality.
The stones that span the diagonal of the kund ‘fly apart’ with energy.
L: Archival drawing from the Charles Correa Archives | R: Photograph taken by Mahendra Sinh.
This kund was intended as a metaphor for the expanding universe: the stones are ‘bursting’ with centrifugal energy but also set a directional axis that leads to other facilities in the centre of campus.
The two ‘Pillars of Charles’3 which flank the narrow path at the entrance – columns of exposed concrete melting into the powder blue of the sky – hold the anecdotal memory of one of the young architects in Correa’s office who had climbed the column and poured blue paint on it. These pillars reappear almost 30 years later in an institution halfway across the world; the Champalimaud Centre in Lisbon.
The ‘Pillars of Charles’ at IUCAA in Pune (left) and at the Champalimaud Centre in Lisbon.
L: Photograph taken by Rahul Mehrotra | R: Photograph taken by Colin Mosher.
When I studied the dome that lies to the west of the kund, I saw that it was quite literally a reflection of the heavens. The scientists at IUCAA had calculated, through complex mathematics, the exact distribution of stars as they existed in the sky the day IUCAA’s foundation stone was laid — 8.30 pm on December 29 1988. This ‘star pattern’ was then mapped onto the dome, where small pieces of glass were placed before it was cast. The finished dome was painted black on the inside, creating the effect of standing in bright daylight under a bedazzled, ‘starry’ sky. Far from being alien and unknown, IUCAA now felt so familiar; I could see how astronomers sometimes referred to faraway stars as their friends.
The bedazzled dome with glass-puncture stars of sunlight. Photograph taken by Mahendra Sinh.
If, as Correa describes4, “the entire building is like a painting”, then its archival study has been more like a dance. My perception of scale transformed from the disorientation of reading the masterplan to the intimate familiarity I had with each block and its unique gestures. In reconstructing from the Archives, engaging with the project clarified my responsibility: not to recreate the most correct drawing or convey the most accurate version of events, but rather to tell a story — to someone who may not speak the language of space, architectural or scientific. One where the collaborative nature of the program was first reflected in its design and construction, where symbology, science, and structure found a common home.
The story of IUCAA.
– Written by Amrita Goyal, Research Fellow
IUCAA is one of close to 200 projects that the CCF team has been curating for the upcoming monograph on Charles Correa, scheduled for release later this year. If you have any information or drawings related to any of Charles Correa’s works, please reach out to us at connect@charlescorreafoundation.org.
Footnotes:
1, 4 ‘Charles Correa – Traditional Concepts, Astral Effects’, and ‘Profile – Charles Correa’, cover story by Chintamani Bhagat, Indian Architect & Builder, Bombay – August 1991, pg. 31-32.
2 ‘Pradakshina: The Works of Charles Correa’, by Charles Correa (Special Report), Approach, Tokyo – Summer 1994, pg. 5.
3 ‘Architecture, Astronomy and the Cosmos: From Conversations to a Masterpiece’ by Ajit Kembhavi, presented at the Z-Axis Conference 2024, Mumbai — October 13, 2024. Kembhavi’s talk was instrumental in gathering anecdotal evidence of the project.
