Charles Correa: Citizen Charles

This is the first biography to be written on Charles Correa (1930-2015), an architect, urban planner, filmmaker, and true-blue ‘Bombaywallah’. He was a man of many talents and one of the most globally honoured architects of his time. Today, Correa’s designs remain with us as exemplars of a distinctly Indian modernism, which used contemporary international technologies to create buildings uniquely adapted to India’s climate and customs. Correa’s life work is significant because of his zeal to work for urban equity in post-independence India, to uphold the claims of every Indian citizen to decent, egalitarian housing, and access to public space.

This monograph is an important contribution to scholarship on Post-Independence architecture in India, given that it provides a wealth of contextual detail about the factors shaping Correa’s aesthetic and structural decisions, which remain unique exemplars of Indian modernism, even today.

About the Author: Mustansir Dalvi was born in Bombay. He teaches architecture in Mumbai. He studied architecture at the Sir JJ College of Architecture and has a PhD from IIT-Bombay. An architect, academic and author, Dalvi’s research interests include Mumbai’s built history and its urban transformation. He is a well-regarded columnist and an expert on Mumbai’s Art Deco architecture. Dalvi is also a published poet and translator.