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.

Inhabitation is the primary action of becoming rooted with the land through settlement. The dwelling space is an expression of this bond – both inside and out. To feel oneself inextricably linked to a place, to exist in it perceiving it as an integral part of one’s existential reality, is to place the landscape as the fundamental core of the living space. In the ancient forms of living, this core of domestic life was the hearth – archetypal representation of a purely introspective idea of architecture. Conversely, the landscape today represents a characteristic element of modern and contemporary inversions of the housing and typological modalities. The house meant shelter – a protective enclosure whose centralities were the fire and the patio; in the contemporary experience, we look away from the center and gaze towards outside. Reality is no longer impervious. Once changed into art, into a scenario, reality becomes domestic; it becomes landscape, the lifeblood of man’s abode. Therefore, living a space is a conceptual and material expression of this current condition of belonging to places whilst remaining linked to perception.

‘When a work reaches its maximum intensity,’ wrote Le Corbusier, ‘a phenomenon of ineffable space occurs.’ The ultimate quality of architecture would reside, therefore, in the resistance to its description. However, to tell us this, and much more, the Swiss master has published more than seventy books and his so compelling formula in supporting the ineffable also shows how words are able to grasp it. This brief essay investigates the multiple intersections between discourse and design: the way buildings try to ‘talk’ with their own specific means; how architects are trying to remain relevant without building; the paradoxes of architecture description after its completion; the modes of communication during the project processes; the capacity of narrative to act before the project operations start and infiltrate the collective perception, making possible innovative approaches...

First published in 1999, this volume examines India and Bombay, countries which represent some of the world’s most dramatic examples of rapid urban growth. One of the strategies frequently adopted by the Indian authorities to cope with this urban growth is the development of new towns, such as New Bombay, which is India’s largest and most significant urban planning experience since Independence. The New Bombay model, based on a specific planning and financing strategy, is considered highly successful and so is increasingly being copied and implemented in other urban areas of India. This volume makes the first independent evaluation of New Bombay and sets it in a wider Third World urban development context. As well as analysing the processes of physical and economic growth, the volume also examines the process of social development and, in particular, the consequences of this planning concept for the urban poor.

Robert McCarter provides a comprehensive study of Aldo van Eyck's 50-year career, guiding readers through the architect's buildings and unrealised projects, with a focus on the interior spatial experience as well as the design and construction processes. He investigates how van Eyck's writings and lectures convey the importance of architecture in the everyday lives of people around the world and throughout history, and by presenting the architect's design work together with the principles on which it was founded, illuminates van Eyck's ethical interpretation of architecture's place in the world.

Contributed research papers.