The architectural and urban planning solutions of Charles Correa, the brilliant Indian architect, effectively combine traditional spiritual and symbolic themes with the environmental and cultural demands of a modernized society. They have gained him a global following. His projects have been as wide-ranging as they are impressive: low-rise, low-cost, high-density housing, entire townships and extensions to major cities, but also many individual buildings, such as the Gandhi Museum. In addition to the architect's own presentation of his ideas, Kenneth Frampton provides an overall assessment of his achievement, and this model study of an increasingly influential figure is completed by a detailed chronology and bibliography.
This book celebrates the work of India's greatest architect, Charles Correa. Born in 1930, Correa is an Indian and international architect who, in a lifetime of achievement, has created work which is consistently beautiful, human and enduring. He played a defining role in the architecture of post-Independence India and has designed some of the most outstanding cultural and civic monuments, science institutes, schools, housing developments and new cities, based on a profound understanding of his country,s history, needs and aspirations. Correa's work has provided inspiration for future generations of architects at a time of vertiginous population and economic growth in the region. For this, he has received many awards including Britain's highest architectural accolade, the Royal Gold Medal in 1984. Rooted in India but educated as an architect in the United States and steeped in the modernist teachings of Le Corbusier, Correa has concentrated on the living patterns in communities where he worked, achieving remarkable results with simple but effective means. Tradition and modernity are not opposites for him. Always contemporary, he has subtly layered the history of the land and of ideas in his designs. His sources range from the railway models of his childhood to conceptions of the Cosmos and to street-hawkers' use of the Mumbai pavements. Throughout his career, he has demonstrated a remarkably consistent approach, guided by a respect for the given conditions, a desire to effect change without forced interference, and a passion to combine fitness for purpose with beauty and spirituality.
Charles Correa – seen by many in India as a sort of guru, as someone capable to transcend and grasp the ineffable reality that surrounds us – has left his noteworthy architectural heritage across the globe. In 2013, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) celebrated him as one of the greatest contemporary urban planners showcasing his work in an exhibition called: “Charles Correa: India’s greatest architect”. Profoundly tied to my Indian origins, to me Correa has been the master over distance, a personal benchmark to set my goals against. He was my inspiring thinker, architect and urbanist, or simply said, the designer I would have liked to be. Many of Correa’s last works show his deep-rooted search of the highest spiritual dimension in the attempt to trap part of the cosmic energy surrounding us into architectural works that were – and are – the shadow of his soul.
Charles Correa (*1930 in Secunderabad) has played an instrumental role in the shaping of postcolonial architecture in India. He has also been a pioneer in addressing crucial issues of housing and urbanization in the Third World, including the proliferation of squatters. This anthology assembles a selection of essays and lectures whose subjects range from the metaphysical to the decidedly pragmatic and deal with architecture, urban planning, landscape, and individuals such as Le Corbusier, Isambard Brunel, and Mahatma Gandhi. It also contains a reprint of his seminal book The New Landscape (1985), long out of print, on urban development in the Third World. Correa has been awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, and the Japanese Praemium Imperiale. Language: English CHARLES CORREA (1930–2015) played a pivotal role in the shaping of postcolonial architecture in India. He has also been a pioneer in addressing crucial issues of housing and urbanization in the Third World, including the proliferation of squatters.
A place of astonishing contrasts, India is home to some of the world’s most ancient architectures as well as some of its most modern. It was the focus of some of the most important works created by Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn, among other lesser-known masters, and it is regarded by many as one of the key sites of mid-twentieth century architectural design. As Peter Scriver and Amit Srivastava show in this book, however, India’s history of modern architecture began long before the nation’s independence as a modern state in 1947. Going back to the nineteenth century, Scriver and Srivastava look at the beginnings of modernism in colonial India and the ways that public works and patronage fostered new design practices that directly challenged the social order and values invested in the building traditions of the past. They then trace how India’s architecture embodies the dramatic shifts in Indian society and culture during the last century. Making sense of a broad range of sources, from private papers and photographic collections to the extensive records of the Indian Public Works Department, they provide the most rounded account of modern architecture in India that has yet been available.
As the first inclusive study of how women have shaped the modern Indian built environment from the independence struggle until today, this book reveals a history that is largely unknown, not only in the West, but also in India. Educated in the 1930s and 1940s, the very first women architects designed everything from factories to museums in the post-independence period. The generations that followed are now responsible for metro systems, shopping malls, corporate headquarters, and IT campuses for a global India. But they also design schools, cultural centers, religious pilgrimage hotels, and wildlife sanctuaries. Pioneers in conserving historic buildings, these women also sustain and resurrect traditional crafts and materials, empower rural and marginalized communities, and create ecologically sustainable architectures for India. Today, although women make up a majority in India’s ever-increasing schools of architecture, it is still not easy for them, like their Western sisters, to find their place in the profession. Recounting the work and lives of Indian women as not only architects, but also builders and clients, opens a new window onto the complexities of feminism, modernism, and design practice in India and beyond. Set in the design centers of Mumbai and Delhi, this book is also one of the first histories of architectural education and practice in two very different cities that are now global centers. The diversity of practices represented here helps us to imagine other ways to create and build apart from "starchitecture." And how these women negotiate tradition and modernity at work and at home is crucial for understanding gender and modern architecture in a more global and less Eurocentric context. In a country where female emancipation was important for narratives of the independence movement and the new nation-state, feminism was, nonetheless, eschewed as divisive and damaging to the nationalist cause. Class, caste, tradition, and family restricted—but also created—opportunities for the very first women architects in India, just as they do now for the growing number of young women professionals today.
An Architecture of Independence: The Making of Modern South Asia presents the work of four pioneering modern architects from the Indian subcontinent -- Charles Correa, Balkrishna Doshi, and Achyut Kanvinde of India, and Muzharul Islam of Bangladesh. An introduction by Kenneth Frampton and essays by the editors situate the work of these architects within the intellectual and aesthetic traditions of the subcontinent. Also included are statements by the architects and documentation of 27 projects, chosen to give a sense of the strategies they have developed for undertakings us diverse as private houses, settlements, major institutional buildings, and even a gallery devoted to the work of one artist. Each of the four has also played a major role in creating the contemporary architectural culture of South Asia, through teaching and influence on important government and cultural policies. Each represents a model of the architect as engaged artist, intellectual, and citizen.
