Charles Correa PDF

Charles Correa
Charles Correa.
• Charles Correa, in full Charles Mark Correa, (born September 1, 1930, Secunderabad, Hyderabad, British India [now in Telangana
state, India]—died June 16, 2015, Mumbai, India), Indian architect and urban planner known for his adaptation of Modernist tenets to
local climates and building styles. In the realm of urban planning, he is particularly noted for his sensitivity to the needs of the urban
poor and for his use of traditional methods and materials.
• Correa attended (1946–48) St. Xavier’s College at the University of Bombay (now University of Mumbai) before studying at
the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (B.Arch., 1953) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge,
Massachusetts (M.Arch., 1955). In 1958 he established his own Bombay-based professional practice.
• Correa’s early work combined traditional architectural values—as embodied in the bungalow with its veranda and the open-air
courtyard—with the Modernist use of materials exemplified by figures such as Le Corbusier, Louis I. Kahn, and Buckminster Fuller. In
particular, Correa was influenced by Le Corbusier’s use of striking concrete forms. The importance of the site was a constant in Correa’s
approach. Complementing the Indian landscape, he worked on an organic and topographic scale in early commissions such as his
Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya (1958–63) in Ahmedabad and the Handloom Pavilion (1958) in Delhi. Considerations of the Indian
climate also drove many of Correa’s decisions.
• For residential commissions, he developed the “tube house,” a narrow house form designed to conserve energy. This form was realized
in the Ramkrishna House (1962–64) and the Parekh House (1966–68), both in Ahmedabad, which has a hot and arid climate. Also in
response to climate, Correa often employed a large over sailing shade roof or parasol, an element first seen in the Engineering
Consultant India Limited complex (1965–68) in Hyderabad.
• In the late 1960s Correa began his career as an urban planner, creating New Bombay (now Navi Mumbai), an urban area that provided
housing and job opportunities for many who lived across the harbour from the original city. When designing in the midst of
overpopulated cities, he tried to create quasi-rural housing environments, as is evident in his low-cost Belapur housing sector (1983–86)
in Navi Mumbai.
Awards.
• 1961 Prize for low-income housing.
• 1972 PadmaShri by the President of India
• 1980 Awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Michigan
• 1984 Gold Medal- Royal Institute of British Architects
• 1985 Prize for the Improvement in the Quality of Human Settlements from the International Union of Architects.
• 1986 Chicago Architecture Award.
• 1987 Gold Medal- Indian Institute of Architects
• 1990 Gold Medal (International Union of Architects)
• 1994 The Premium Imperial from Japan society of art.
• 1999 Aga khan award for vidhan sabha, bhopal
Principles.
Few cardinal principles in his vast body of work
• Incremental
• Identity
• Pluralism
• Income generation
• Equity
• Open-to-sky space
• Disaggregation.
Kanchanjunga Apartments Mumbai.
• By developing climatic solutions for different sites and programs, Indian architect Charles Correa designed the Kanchanjunga
Apartments. Located in Mumbai, the U.S. equivalent of New York City in terms of population and diversity.
• The 32 luxury apartments are located south-west of downtown in an upscale suburban setting embodying the characteristics of the
upper echelon of society within the community.
• The Kanchanjunga Apartments are a direct response
to the present culture, the escalating urbanization, and
the climatic conditions for the region. They pay
homage to the vernacular architecture that once stood
on the site before the development in a number of
ways.
• The old bungalows solved these problems by
wrapping a protective layer of verandas around the
main living areas, thus providing the occupants with
two lines of defence against the elements.
• Correa pushed his capacity for ingenious cellular
planning to the limit, as is evident from the interlock
of four different apartment typologies varying from 3
to 6 bedrooms each.
• Smaller displacements of level were critical in this
work in that they differentiated between the external
earth filled terraces and the internal elevated living
volumes.
• These subtle shifts enable Correa to effectively shield
these high rise units from the effects of both the sun and
monsoon rains. This was largely achieved by providing
the tower with relatively deep, garden verandas,
suspended in the air.
• such an arrangement had its precedent in the cross-over
units of Le Corbusier's Unite d' Habitation built in
Marseilles in 1952, although here in Mumbai the
sectional provision was achieved without resorting to
the extreme of differentiating between up-and-down
going units.
• The building is a 32 story reinforced concrete structure
with 6.3m cantilevered open terraces.
• The central core is composed of lifts and provides the
main structural element for resisting lateral loads. The
central core was constructed ahead of the main structure
by slip method of construction. This technique was used
for the first time in India for a multi-storey building.
• The concrete construction and large areas of white
panels bears a strong resemblance to modern apartment
buildings in the West, perhaps due to Correa's western
education.
• the garden terraces of the Kanchanjunga Apartments are
actually a modern interpretation of a feature of the
traditional Indian bungalow: the veranda.
Gandhi Smarak Sangralaya (Sabarmati Ashram).
• This memorial museum is located in the ashram where the Mahatma
lived from 1917 to 1930. Housing his books, letters and
photographs, this modest and humanly scaled memorial uses brick
piers, stone floors and tiled roofs to find a contemporary expression
for the spirit of swadeshi.
• The commission was the architect's first important work in private
practice. In order to reflect the simplicity of Gandhi's life and the
incremental nature of a living institution the architect used modular
units 6 metres x 6 metres of reinforced cement concrete connecting
spaces, both open and covered, allowing for eventual expansion.
• The modular simplicity of the structure is continued in the use of
basic materials: stone floors, brick walls, wooden doors and
louvered windows devoid of glass, and tiled roofs.
• The units are grouped in a consciously asymmetric manner to be
analogous to the Indian village with its pathways and seemingly
randomly placed buildings and its meeting points; in this instance
the central water court.
• The initial construction consisted of 51 modular units. Some of the
units are enclosed by walls; the exhibition spaces so created
counterpointed by areas for rest where the visitor can sit .
• In this work Correa demonstrates the uncompromising execution of
an idea as a powerful statement of form, an approach found in many
of his works such as the ECIL Office Complex and the later
Kanchanjunga apartments - where single overriding concepts
become the major organising element of the architecture.

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