Writing in The Guardian
(19 June, 2015), architectural historian Joseph Rykwert hails Charles
Correa as the “premier architect of India whose authentic modernity superseded
stale colonial imports.” Of the many
tributes that have followed Correa’s passing away, Rykwert’s seems most
problematic. Nonetheless, it allows us to reflect on the nature of Correa’s
work.
But
before I proceed to an analysis of Correa’s work and philosophy, we need to acknowledge
the role of Nehru in appropriating modern architecture to represent
post-independent identity of India. He achieved this in one swooping move by commissioning
of the Modernist international architect, Le Corbusier, for the design of the new
city of Chandigarh. The exposed-reinforced-concrete buildings of Chandigarh,
built between 1951 and 1965, stood in complete contrast to the colonial
architecture of pre-independent India. This was a dramatic change from the
styles prior to independence. Consequently this modern style inspired many Indian
architects that followed, and Correa was no exception.
Correa’s post-colonial modernity is
amply demonstrated in the design of New Delhi’s Life Insurance Corporation (LIC)
building, completed in 1986. The building is situated on the outer road of the
historic Connaught Circle. Most of the buildings here belong to the neo-classical
style adopted during the late colonial period. However, the architectural
aesthetics of the LIC building make no effort to blend with the existing
context. Correa’s twelve storey creation is supposedly modern as it is fully
adorned with a glass façade on its north face. But was Correa’s choice of the
modern architectural style for the LIC building simply a personal preference,
or was there a deliberate ideological rejection of the “stale colonial” history
that Rykwert derisively mentions?
As
historian and theorist Kenneth Frampton notes in the introduction to the book Charles Correa (1996), although, in the
initial years of his career, Correa was influenced by Le Corbusier, he moved
away from the French architect’s ideas of international modernism as he found
“inspirational depth in the mythic and cosmological beliefs of the [Indian]
past."
This
shift is unmistakably demonstrated in the project Jawahar Kala Kendra (JKK),
which was completed in 1992. Affirming the same in the above book Correa states
that “the Jawahar Kala Kendra in Jaipur, is a… contemporary construct based on
an ancient perception of the non-Manifest World, as expressed in the vastu-purusha-mandalas - those sacred
Vedic diagrams that have been of seminal importance to Hindu, Buddhist and Jain
architecture over many centuries … [T]he program for the art centre is
disaggregated into nine separate groupings, each corresponding to the myths of
a particular planet: for instance the planet Guru (which symbolises learning)
houses the library… The central square, as represented by ancient Vedic
shastras, is a void.” Although, like many
of Correa’s works, the aesthetics of JKK is also aesthetically modern, subtle Brahmanical
ideas can be gathered from his architectural philosophy, especially in the
plan-form, as in his use of the concept of the mandala. In his book The City Shaped (1991), historian Spiro
Kostof deciphers the use of the mandala for urban design as “a mystical symbol
of the universe in the graphic form … with as many padas as there were to be residential quarters, and only within
each pada, inhabited by members of a
particular professional groups…” And it is here that the mandala as inspiration
reveals its problems. When employed as a design element, the mandala is a means
to divide the area on the lines of caste as understood by the reference to
‘particular professional groups’. If the mandala represents the discriminative varna-based ideology of caste-Hinduism why
then did Correa choose it to feed his designs? Was it merely rhetorical or was
it a measure of his philosophy?
Part of the answer lies in the way in which post-colonial
India embraced architectural modernity to project itself to the world.
Dedicating the Jawahar Kala to India’s first Prime Minister, Correa writes that
in “[g]uiding the new nation in its first decades after Independence, Nehru
also wanted to look backwards and forwards in one decisive gesture:
rediscovering India’s past whilst simultaneously inventing a new future.” Although Nehru had unleashed the modernist Le
Corbusier on India as a catalyst to move away from colonial identity through
the design of Chandigarh, I suspect that Correa’s interpretation of collating ‘ancient’
Vedic concepts with modern aesthetics would have pleased Nehru more. It was
this ability to juxtapose ‘ancient Indian’ concepts with modernism that emblematises
Correa as an ideal Nehruvian architect.
Even though postcolonialism may have wished to represent
itself as departing from the past, it was in many ways just as discriminatory.
So, while it may have liked to say it was different, better, and therefore
modern, it really just carried into the contemporary moment all of the baggage
of the past. In fact, this is itself indicative of the problem, because it
shows how deep-rooted Brahmanical influence is – that even when there is an
intention to break from the past, it continues to imbue the present.
(This article was first published on 16th August 2015 in The Goan Everyday)
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