‘Citizen Correa’, a rich tribute to a beloved architect
Correa is known for designing the modern version of the colonial-era Portuguese church in Dadar, the Brutalist tower, Kanchenjunga Apartments, among others
MUMBAI: “What defines Charles Correa best is that he was a Bombay architect,” said author Mustansir Dalvi on Monday evening, at the launch of his latest book, a biography of an architect whose work has left an indelible imprint on the city’s visual landscape.
“If you wish to be a Bombay architect in the truest sense, you first have to be a Bombay citizen. And Correa is the exemplar of that; a good Bombay citizen, manifesting as an architect.” Hence, the title of his book: ‘Citizen Correa’.
The biography was commissioned by publishing house Niyogi Books as part of a biography series called ‘Pioneers of Modernity’. And Dalvi, a former professor at the Sir JJ School of Architecture, a poet and a translator, has authored a rich tribute to Correa, aimed at citizens of Mumbai, much like Correa’s work itself was.
Born in Secunderabad, Telangana, in 1930, a few days after the death of his father, Correa’s mother soon moved to Ballard Estate in Mumbai. Correa grew up here, in one of Bombay’s most atmospheric precincts, designed by one of the most well-known colonial-era architects, George Wittet. It was Correa’s initiation into Bombay’s architecture.
“When he starts going to school at St Xavier’s in Dhobi Talao, he has to cross Pherozeshah Mehta Road, which was still being built and had buildings coming up on either side,” said Dalvi, in conversation with Kaiwan Mehta, dean of NMIMS’s Balwant Seth School of Architecture, at bookstore Kitab Khana at Fort. “On the other side, one step away, was the native town, Girgaon, Bhuleshwar, Dongri, the highly dense and vibrant parts of the city.”
Correa had a front-row seat to some of the most defining changes being made to Bombay at the time. These included large reclamation projects, which pushed the edges of the city into the sea. “Small town planning schemes crop up on those edges, and buildings arise in the extremely precise layouts that have an amazing sense of similarity, creating the family resemblance we still see in the Art Deco buildings today,” explained Dalvi, touching on events that shaped the young architect’s mind.
Correa is known for designing the modern version of the colonial-era Portuguese church in Dadar, the luxury Brutalist tower, Kanchenjunga Apartments, in Cumbala Hill, LIC Colony in Borivali, among others. A precursor to Kanchenjunga was his own home, Sonmarg Apartments.
“He was the chief architect of the city of Navi Mumbai, within which he built a housing project in Belapur that was meant to be added to – incremental housing,” said Dalvi. “He was also a very public architect. He made designs that were never built, for Backbay, the mill lands, for hawkers. These were spaces for the average public, open-ended, with great possibilities.”
Outside Mumbai, Correa designed Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya in Delhi, the Legislative Assembly building in Bhopal, the Jawahar Kala Kendra in Jaipur, National Crafts Museum in Delhi, Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal, Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Pune, among a long list of other iconic projects. Overseas, his imagination is immortalised in the Champalimaud Centre for The Unknown in Portugal and the Ismaili Centre in Toronto.
Correa was not limited to his role as an architect. “Correa was much more than the sum of his parts. He was an architect, a designer, an academic, a filmmaker, writer, policy maker, activist, urban planner, a music lover,” said Dalvi.
Mehta echoed this, saying, “Correa’s thinking was way beyond architecture, but the strand of architecture was constant in his thinking, extending into policy, planning and civic issues, resulting in a much broader idea of what architecture can be.”
Correa died in 2015 at the age of 84, having spent most of his life, including 57 years as an architect, in a city whose legacy will forever bear his name.