Wednesday, January 5th, 2005
Under a clear blue sky
To appreciate the beauty of Charles Correa’s work, look at the sky.
At Kanchanjunga on Pedder Road, terraces are cantilevered from the building like gardens in the sky. At Sonmarg on Nepean Sea Road, a belt of verandahs runs along the eastern and western perimeters, at once keeping the sun and rain out while letting the sky in. At Belapur, a shared courtyard is the open space that binds groups of 7 cottages.
In a city obsessed with FSI, Charles Correa has preferred to make room for the sky.
“The sky,†he explains, “has carried a profound and sacred meaning throughout human history. The temples of South India are not just a collection of shrines and gopurams, but a movement through the open to sky pathways that lie between them. Such a path is the essence of our experience. It represents a sacred journey, a pradakshina, a pilgrimage. Witness also the walls around Rajasthan palaces and Mughal forts and how they are crowned with patterns that interlock built form with sky. And how chhatris along the roofscape capture fragments of the infinite heavens above.â€
But form quite obviously follows function in the work of a man whose lines are as sparse as a haiku.