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 concrete planner recognized for his adaptation of Modernist tenets to native climates and constructing types. In the realm of city planning, he's significantly famous for his sensitivity to the wants of the city poor and for his use of conventional strategies and supplies.
Correa attended (1946–48) St. Xavier’s College on the University of Bombay (now University of Mumbai) earlier than finding out on 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 personal Bombay-based skilled follow.
Correa’s early work mixed conventional architectural values—as embodied within the bungalow with its veranda and the open-air courtyard—with the Modernist use of supplies exemplified by figures corresponding to Le Corbusier, Louis I. Kahn, and Buckminster Fuller. In specific, Correa was influenced by Le Corbusier’s use of hanging concrete varieties. The significance of the location was a relentless in Correa’s strategy. Complementing the Indian panorama, he labored on an natural and topographic scale in early commissions corresponding to his Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya (1958–63) in Ahmedabad and the Handloom Pavilion (1958) in Delhi. Considerations of the Indian local weather additionally drove lots of Correa’s choices. For residential commissions, he developed the “tube house,” a slim home type designed to preserve vitality. This type was realized within the Ramkrishna House (1962–64) and the Parekh House (1966–68), each in Ahmedabad, which has a sizzling and arid local weather. Also in response to local weather, Correa typically employed a big oversailing shade roof or parasol, a component first seen within the Engineering Consultant India Limited advanced (1965–68) in Hyderabad.
In the late Sixties Correa started his profession as an city planner, creating New Bombay (now Navi Mumbai), an city space that supplied housing and job alternatives for a lot of who lived throughout the harbour from the unique metropolis. When designing within the midst of overpopulated cities, he tried to create quasi-rural housing environments, as is clear in his low-cost Belapur housing sector (1983–86) in Navi Mumbai. In all of his city planning commissions, Correa prevented high-rise housing options, focusing as a substitute on low-rise options that, together with widespread areas and amenities, emphasised the human scale and created a way of group.
His later works, which continued his long-standing pursuits, embody Surya Kund (1986) in Delhi; the Inter-University Centre for Astrology and Astrophysics (1988–92) in Pune, Maharashtra; and the Jawahar Kala Kendra arts advanced (1986–92) in Jaipur, Rajasthan. From 1985 to 1988 he served as chairman of India’s National Commission on Urbanisation, and from 1999 he served as a consulting architect to the federal government of Goa.
Correa taught in lots of universities, each in India and overseas, together with MIT and Harvard University (each in Cambridge, Massachusetts) and the University of London. His many awards included the Padma Shri (1972) and Padma Vibushan (2006), two of India’s highest honours; the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture (1984) from the Royal Institute of British Architects; the Praemium Imperiale prize for structure (1994), awarded by the Japan Art Association; and the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (1998).