An Indian architect and urban planner, Charles Correa undertook a wide range of projects that adapted local forms, materials and culture into a Modernist idiom. His approach favoured low-rise structures with natural light and ventilation, emphasising the human scale and community interactions, and rooted in India’s climatic, economic, and social contexts. 

Education and career

Correa was born in 1930 to affluent Goan parents in Secunderabad, in present-day Telangana, and attended St. Xavier’s College in Bombay (now Mumbai) from 1946 to 1948. He obtained a bachelor’s in architecture from the University of Michigan, followed by a master’s in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1955. He established his own architectural firm in Bombay in 1958.

Correa’s early career coincided with a critical period for Indian Modernist architecture, when a number of foreign architects such as Louis Kahn and Le Corbusier were undertaking government commissions in the country. Though influenced by their work, his style distinguished itself, particularly from Corbusier’s, by juxtaposing modern architectural aesthetics with principles of vernacular South Asian architecture. 

In the 1970s, during his tenure as chief architect of the City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra, he helped conceive the satellite township of New Bombay (now Navi Mumbai) as a consciously built, less congested, and financially sustainable extension of Bombay; his envisioned design remained unrealised, however, due to infrastructural and bureaucratic hurdles. He founded the Urban Design Research Institute in Bombay in 1984, with a view to archive and analyse the processes of urbanisation and town planning. His other appointments included serving as chairman of India’s National Commission on Urbanisation (1985–88) and as consulting architect to the Government of Goa from 1999 until his death. He also lectured and taught intermittently at MIT, Harvard University, and other institutions.  

Institutional projects

Many of Correa’s institutional projects, besides responding to the local climate, often incorporated elements, references or organising principles from local vernacular architecture, history and culture. One of his first projects, the Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya (1963) at the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad is conceived as a modular, extendable arrangement of small, single-storey units dispersed around a central water pool, in an informal organisation referencing a rural layout. Serving for the exhibition of memorabilia as well as for visitors’ rest and meditation, the square pitched-roof units — some walled, others open — are simple constructions using brick, concrete, stone, and Mangalore tiles, with louvred wooden windows. 

For the Jawahar Kala Kendra in Jaipur (1992), a state art and heritage museum commissioned by the Rajasthan government, Correa replicated the medieval plan of the city of Jaipur based on the navagraha, or nine-planet, mandala. The grid squares are assigned to various institutional functions according to the planets’ respective astrological associations, with the central square serving as an amphitheatre-courtyard referencing the baoli or stepwells of northern and western India. The units are demarcated by 8 metre high red sandstone walls recalling the city’s fortifications, and decorated with mosaics of astrological symbols — among the building’s many elements executed by the city’s traditional artisans. His design for the Madhya Pradesh parliament building Vidhan Bhavan (1980–97), with a cruciform plan inscribed within a circular building envelope, also reflects a complex, layered geometry. Transitional spaces played a key role in Correa’s designs, with ramps, stairs and walkways envisioned not simply for circulation and movement, but also as informal gathering spaces. This is especially evident in the large, open courtyards and terraced walkways of the Madhya Pradesh cultural centre Bharat Bhavan (1982).  

Some of his other institutional projects take a more archetypal Modernist approach, with prominent material and technological innovations. Correa collaborated with structural engineer Mahendra Raj to design the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Stadium (1960s) in Ahmedabad, a pioneering sports arena that featured the world’s largest folded-plate cantilever structure at the time — a reinforced concrete roof that achieved the stiffness required for an uninterrupted 20 metre span without becoming excessively heavy. He later designed the Jeevan Bharati (1986) office complex for the Life Insurance Corporation of India in New Delhi, as a pair of twelve-storey wings clad in red sandstone and glass facades, connected by a 98 metre long space-frame pergola. Correa’s international commissions include the Institute for Brain and Cognitive Science (2005) at MIT; Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown (2011), a biomedical research facility in Lisbon, Portugal; and the Ismaili Centre (2014) in Toronto, which received the Ontario Association of Architects Design Excellence Award in 2015. 

Housing and urban planning

Correa’s residential design is known for its response to India’s generally warm climate and sociocultural realities, typically facilitating natural light and air circulation and incorporating open and semi-shaded spaces even in a small footprint. The prototype for the Tube House (1961–62), submitted for the Gujarat Housing Board’s low-cost housing competition, was a small elongated, double-height structure with an open plan: it was ventilated by air convection through adjustable louvred windows and the pergola in the sloping roof — with minimal use of walls and doors, privacy was achieved by distributing spaces between the lower and upper levels. The design was later used for the Ramkrishna House (1964) in Ahmedabad, which featured skylights and internal courtyards to allow for controlled, ambient sunlight and ventilation while polished Kota stone kept the floors cool. The Parekh House (1968) in Ahmedabad was modelled on Correa’s unrealised design for the Cablenagar Township in Rajasthan. The two-storey structure is organised into three distinct sections — the summer and winter sections, and the service bay — each with terraces shaded by pergolas, along with a barsati or rooftop room. 

Correa’s plan for the low-cost, high-density Tara Cooperative Group Housing (1978) in New Delhi staggers two rows of duplex housing on either side of a central green area. The low-rise blocks, executed in exposed concrete and brick, are made of two stacked residential units, the upper one offset to create a terrace on the upper level and an overhang shading the lower level. Balconies in each unit overlooking the internal green belt; shade, air circulation, and natural humidification are ensured in both the private and common spaces. Wide, clustered stairs in common areas encourage community interactions and exchanges among residents. A similar concern for natural light, air circulation, and open space is also seen in Correa’s twenty-eight storey Kanchanjunga Apartments (1983) in Mumbai, comprising thirty-two luxury apartments forming interlocking units, each provided with cantilevered, double-heighted terraces; these shield the interior living areas from the direct sunlight and rain while also allowing cross-ventilation of sea breeze and panoramic views of the city. 

Correa’s low-cost housing sector at Belapur (1983–86) in Navi Mumbai comprises one- and two-storey independent units, each on its own plot ranging between 45 and 75 square metres, allowing for incremental building. A standard plan, accommodating a small private courtyard for each house, is rotated and mirrored to form clusters of a few houses sharing a common area, which further open out onto an expansive open space for larger gatherings. Modelled on principles of rural or vernacular planning, the design balances privacy for the family unit with open spaces, both private and public, and shared infrastructure, while attempting to bridge the gap between widely varying income groups. Various aspects of this approach were also embodied in Correa’s corporate housing projects of the 1980s, such as the Malabar Cements Township, Kerala (1982), and housing for The Associated Cement Company, Wadi, Andhra Pradesh (1984) and HUDCO, Jodhpur (1986). 

Awards

Correa’s accolades include the Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in 1984; the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (1984), and the Praemium Imperiale (1994) from the Japanese royal family. He is also a recipient of the Padma Shri (1972) and the Padma Vibhushan (2006) from the Indian government. In 2013, Correa donated his documents, architectural drawings, unrealised plans, and other materials to RIBA, which hosted a retrospective exhibition of his work and ideas in the same year, titled Charles Correa: India’s Greatest Architect. 

Correa died in Mumbai in 2015.