THE RITUALISTIC PATHWAY — FIVE PROJECTS BY CHARLES CORREA

Author(s): Peter Carl and Eric Parry

Source: AA Files, No. 27 (Summer 1994), pp. 67-74
Published by: Architectural Association School of Architecture
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/29543899
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The Ritualistic Pathway - Five Projects by Charles Correa
AA EXHIBITION GALLERY 3 NOVEMBER -18 DECEMBER 1993

Charles Correa received the RIBA Gold Medal in

1984 for a body of work which included houses
subtly attuned to climatic conditions, elaborate
urban design accommodating disenfranchised
urban immigrants, as well as commemorative
and institutional buildings. The material for this
exhibition of five projects emphasized issues of
iconography and the explicit representation of
meaning, which began to appear with the Hotel
Cidade de Goa, of 1978-82. The exhibition was
supported by the British Council, whose Delhi
headquarters were prominent among the proj?
ects. It was supplemented by a pamphlet of plans
with brief commentary by Correa and a lavish
'Portfolio' of photographs and essays. The im?
portance to Correa of this group of buildings may
be measured by the appearance of four of them in
a recent television documentary on his work.
The tide of the exhibition arises from Correa's
rendering of the term pradakshina: 'a movement
through the sacred open-to-sky spaces [of the
temples of South India] that lie between [the
shrines and gopurams] ... a ritualistic pathway
... a pilgrimage . . . towards a sacred centre.'
His interest in this pathway derives from the
more general concern to reconcile India's tra?
ditional culture (Hindu and Muslim) with its
participation in political, economic and techno?
logical modernity ? a programme seen as
India's destiny by Gandhi, Nehru and Tagore.
Understanding the issue in terms of ancient
and modern testifies to the discontinuity or es?
trangement, and experience has taught us how
very difficult is this intention to fulfil. A proposal
for its architectural interpretation was laid out in
an earlier exhibition (Bombay, 1986) on the
architecture of India, called Vistara, of which the
Chairman of the Exhibition Committee and Installation in the AA Exhibition Gallery
author of both the Introduction and the Tra?
ditional Section was Correa. The opening para? architecture without any care whatsoever for the a plant (two supplied by Correa) and such second?
graphs of his introduction are quoted in the profound mythic values from which it sprang.' ary articulations as a nineteenth-century Jain cos
Portfolio entry on the Jawahar Kala Kendra, a According to Correa, therefore, the violent mological map on the inside surface of the dome
new museum in Jaipur. Correa argues that, with conflicts of historical renewal must be negotiated at the centre of the administrative square devoted
the metamorphosis of the myths in history, 'a with care, and the more profound interpretation to textiles and costumes; as this is an arts
new area ? vistara ? opens up to our sensibil? results in a heightening of consciousness. The museum honouring Nehru, it is perhaps not acci?
ities . . . expansion outward into space is also, profound interpretation depends upon a proper dental that the planning within each square de?
simultaneously, a journey inward into our own attunement to archaic material and its capacity to rives from the earlier work of Correa himself,
selves. Experiencing these expansions, these vis sustain our relationship with origins, both what Correa terms the three 'axes mundi' of the
tar as, heightens our consciousness' (p. 6). The temporal and ontological. 'Proper' attunement
British Council headquarters, which are in?
metamorphosis itself is identified as Manthana, resides in the distinction between Transfer, the
tended to mark a linear historical regression
'the resulting conflict, tension, churning'. unmediated importation of iconography, and
through the site, celebrating the three most im?
Correa continues: 'in this churning, it is cru? Transformation, a reinterpretation of the issues.
portant of India's Manthanas: a floor pattern
cial that we distinguish between a process as With Correa's criteria in mind, we may turn to from Lutyens (via the chapel at Anet), a four
basic and structural as a Transformation, and one the exhibition, where the viewer's attention was
quartered garden recalling a Mogul Chahar
as superficial as a mere Transfer' (p. 9). For called to: Bagh, and a Vedic Bindu, carved by Stephen
Correa the exemplary case of Transformation in
a nine-square mandala set in a circular perimeter Cox, set over a pool by Correa, the spiral portion
architecture is the Diwan-i-khas in Fatehpur
wall referring to the stupa at Sanchi in the plan of of which is possibly a recollection of the Mogul
Sikri, where the Mogul emperor Akbar pos? the Vidhan Bhavan (new State Assembly for the appropriation of the Hindu spiral snake pools at
itioned his throne 'at the centre of a mandala on
Government of Madhya Pradesh), Mandu (Vistara, p. 76),
a column which clearly represents the mythic
axis of the universe' (p. 11). Conversely, the the high boundary walls making a nine-square icons invented by Correa attempting to reconcile
exemplary case of superficial Transfer is mandala in the plan of the Jawahar Kala Kendra traditional themes with twentieth-century astro?
Lutyens's Rashtrapati Bhavan at New Delhi: 'a (one segment inflected to recall that of Jaipur, physics at the Pune Inter-University Centre for
mere transfer of some imagery from Buddhist where it is located), with each square named after Astronomy and Astrophysics: black masonry

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('the colour of space'), courtyard paving laid ac? ambiguous than it perhaps appears. Correa's Accordingly, it is not surprising to see the stu?
cording to a fractal pattern, a dome perforated to assimilation of Western representational proced? dents pursuing the endless possibilities of the
give constellations, and another mandala ? con? ures is a phenomenon familiar enough through? contingent, but it is perhaps not immediately
forming to Correa's interpretation from the Vis out the East. More significant are the profound apparent that iconography can be among these
tara catalogue: 'its centre is "both shunya similarities between, say, Western and Indian possibilities. On this reading, the same problem
(nothing) and bindu (the source of all energy) ? philosophy, which affect any judgement regard? appears in both exhibitions, whose visual differ?
a truly mind-blowing concept, astonishingly ing rupture or reinterpretation of the traditions. ences help to document the potential scope of the
similar to the black holes of contemporary Without wishing to discount either the differ? emancipated contingent.
physics'" (p. 8). ences or the complexity of the debate on this
issue since ancient times, we can say that the The problem arises in the relation of architecture
Most visitors to the exhibition seem to have
similarities arise from the fundamental, ever to language, and the manner in which this prob?
regarded these quotations or citations as ex? open issue of accounting for the relation between lem in turn depends upon the relation of the par?
amples of Transfer (even Kenneth Frampton, in particular situations and their universal context. ticular to the universal. If the universal is by
his essay for the portfolio, identifies the pradak This is the issue to which all others may be definition transcendent, and therefore can be
shina with Le Corbusier's promenade architec related. manifest only within the particular, the relation?
turale, although without further comment), To the extent that representation provides a ship itself is always open, non-dogmatic. Archi?
whereas the entry of the British Council Head? mediating structure for this relation, the reper? tecture is, similarly, more permanent (more
quarters with Howard Hodgkin's stone mural toire in recent Western architecture includes the universal or eternal) than language, which is
was regarded as exemplary of Transformation. persistence of formal preoccupations augmented more volatile, ephemeral and precise (more par?
Is this a judgement which reflects upon the by post-colonial morality, the pleasures of the ticular or temporal). This relation has been ob?
viewers or upon the architecture? text and the unfolding of iconography into the scured by conceptions of language which see it as
In large measure, the exhibition placed such nuances of media culture. These strategies have, some variety of code (with the emphasis upon
great emphasis upon the referential aspect of the
through sustained attention to the problem of quasi-grammatical interactions among linguistic
work that other aspects of meaning ? for ex? freedom, managed to make clear its limits, and objects, leading, in architecture, to comparisons
ample, socialer ecological issues, construction,therefore helped to prepare the ground for a with the interactions among architectural
the orchestration of 'background' sequences ? renewal of interpretation of the deeper context. elements) and by efforts to circumscribe archi?
were suppressed. The strategy inhibited proper With respect to the buildings of Charles tecture by written discourse, most notably archi?
appreciation of the work, which is often highly Correa, therefore, the choice is not between the tectural theory. The alternative is to regard
successful in just these areas. architectural equivalent of Tandoori cooking in architecture and discourse as aspects of a broad
Tottenham and some radically different authen? representational spectrum whose continuity de?
It was possible to visit on the same day both this ticity imprisoned in gods unlike our own (a pends fundmentally upon the differences be?
exhibition and that at the RIBA of work from the fantasy detectable in the argument attending tween, for example, architecture and language:
schools towards the RIBA Silver and Bronze Foucault's conception of a Chinese encyclo? architecture establishes the conditions for the
paedia). Regrettably or otherwise, we have
Medals, sefected by Daniel Libeskind and Nigel practical life and reflection upon it.
Coates. Obvious differences: the Correa exhib? allowed historical circumstances to present us The anti-theoretical stance of much of the stu?
ition comprised a selection of recent buildings with issues such as the possible ground for the dent work has the effect of preserving theory as
presented in sumptuous photographs and models, mutual illumination of, for example, the Aristo? the primary reference, and iconography displays
the work of one of the world's distinguished telian rendering of temporality and Kala's dia? in its very name the degree to which it seeks to
architects, whilst the second comprised specu? logue with Mahaveda (the Hindu four-faced god predescribe the behaviour of images (eikones) by
lative studies with an emphasis upon drawings of time and the Great God, respectively), or even writing (graphein). It is among the lessons of
and analogical models, produced by several stu? the possible necessity of Descartes to a proper post-modernism that the discontinuity between
dents who could not have been born before understanding of the Upanishads. the laconic space of modernist architecture and
Correa's office was already a dozen years old. For the most part, this sort of issue is ignored, iconography from more embodied cultural con?
Correa's Post-modern ironies, diversions, or negotiated at a superficial level of repre? texts leaves the iconography stranded, reduced to
allusions and complexities arise from an archi? sentation (Correa's justifiable disdain, in the the status of allusion. Similarly, it would seem
tecture of authority and the integrity of old Vistara catalogue, regarding the banalities of air that the history of the mandala confirms it as a
myths, which the students evidendy take it as a conditioned tower blocks in Islamic countries, vehicle of understanding or interpretation before
requirement scrupulously to avoid. The impli? originates with the social and architectural vacu? it could be made the basis of an architectural plan
cation is that the two exhibitions embodied con? ity of the originals). Since Francis Bacon, sci? ? the more the mandala is seen to signify, the
trary approaches to architecture. ence and technology have been able to pursue less its own pattern can be read literally (the same
The contrasts between the two exhibitions can? their hypotheses and procedures without regard could be said for Kahn's possible use of the
not be written off to a coincidence of gallery for ontology, however much the regular moral Sephirothic Tree in the plan of a synagogue). The
schedules in the museum culture of infinite possi? and epistemological queries may seem to require universality of a religion or the profundity of its
bilities, nor are the exhibitions usefully dismissed it. Adherents of the market economy have gen? temples lies less in their own inherent attributes
as mere reminders of generational differences or erally taken the same line, in so far as any effort than in the life of the secular world they seek to
of recent architectural history. With respect to is devoted to the matter, with the result that a fan? illuminate (an issue confused by, for example,
architecture, rather than authors, both exhib? tastic playground is offered to semioticians and Le Corbusier's effort to 'make the home a
itions comprise 'recent work', both also make a cultural anthropologists. Roughly speaking, this temple', which effaces the reciprocity by reducing
case of being concerned with meaning, Correa playground is what is meant by the expression its other half, the temple, to a metaphor). The
with the reinterpretation of traditional material, 'the real world'; and it has become mainly of transformation of tradition into a past susceptible
the students with the possibilities of creating academic interest (that is, barely relevant) to to dogmatic prescription in writing deflects at?
more implicit contexts centred on their own acknowledge that traditionally the opposite view tention from the real source of authority in the
projects. prevailed ? that the 'real' was not the contingent openness of the relation between historical con?
Similarly, the question of East and West is more but the eternal. ditions and possibilities.

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BRITISH COUNCIL HEADQUARTERS,
DELHI

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VIDHAN BHAVAN, BHOPAL
New State Assembly for the Government
ofMadhya Pradesh

1. Entrance 6. Vidhan Sabha 10. Chief Minister 15. Courtyard

2. Court of the People 7. Vidhan Parishad 11. Cabinet Room 16. Map of Madhya
3. VIP Entrance 8. Ramp to visitors'12. Ministers' offices Pradesh
4. MLA Foyer galleries 13. Library
5. Central Hall 9. Visitors' galleries14. Combined hall

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INTER-UNIVERSITY CENTRE FOR
ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS,
PUNE

^ f . f IT t.j .?

6. Faculty offices 12. Student hostel

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 All of this is intelligently summarized in the Hodgkin was a mosaic of a British flag dissolving
Portfolio essay on the National Crafts Museum into the Indian flag. Hodgkin demurred at this
by its director, Dr Jyotindra Jain, whose collabor? suggestion, and began to develop a proposal of his
ation with Correa produced one of the most own. The building was designed approximately
intense and successful segments of the exhibition: five years before construction began, and there?
fore Hodgkin worked on the commission at inter?
Indians themselves did not have a tradition of setting vals over the course of several years. The design
up museums of fragmented sculptures, rusted swords
evolved in drawings and maquettes (the final
and out-of-context paintings. Broken images were im?
maquette ? white card into which the black had
mersed in holy waters, worn out metal objects were
melted down to cast new ones, and terracotta votive been laid ? appeared in the exhibition with photo?
objects were left to decay and merge with the very graphs of the completed portal). During this
earth from which they were created. Literature was period, it was established, negatively, that there
composed and retained in oral tradition for centuries. would be neither colour nor paint or ceramic and,
positively, that the mode of construction would
... What was rendered into script at a later date, repre?
sented only a highly limited version of a much broader derive from Mogul inlaid stonework.
tradition. But owing to their more obvious presence Construction began in earnest with the arrival
and availability, the written versions were considered of the British Council's Alan Dixon on the scene.
to be the sole sources of understanding of Indian cul?
ture. The written sources were considered to be the The lateral of the three upper-floor windows
shastras or canons, theoretical or codified texts, al? were displaced to the corners, a small but crucial Detail of mural by Howard Hodgkin for the entrance
though in the oceans of unrecorded prayoga, or real change which not only allowed the windows to of the British Council Headquarters, Delhi.
practice, the shastras were like miniscule drops. . . . participate better in the topography of black, but
As we blindly adopted the archaeological museum also intervened in the cascade of frontal re? dignity and violence, intimate and sublime, etc.
concept, we forgot that, unlike the West, the 'past' and cessions, creating intimations of enclosure. If
? suggests that the banian tree, taken for granted
'present' are not so severely divided in our case . . . this adjustment is removed, along with the other
by John Russell in his contribution to the Port?
made at this time ? bringing the black to the
Correa designed 'an invisible building', a build? ground above the main entry ? it is obvious that folio entry for this facade, is not necessarily one
ing which/defied the concept of "museum" it? the outcome would have been more passive, less of the primary readings. Hodgkin himself is will?
self, in order to resolve this conflict between a precisely violent, less capable of awakening the ing to entertain this reading (and the possibility
natural cycle of death and renewal and the ter? implicit spatial conditions which inundate the of teaching under trees), but relates an anecdote
mination of meaning in the Western concept of facade. which suggests that the theme originated with
museum. To the historicistic understanding, it is one of the workmen. Hodgkin, who is very fam?
Although it has been called a mural, Hodgkin's
paradoxical that this natural death of artefacts work is actually the cladding for the walls, com? iliar with Indian culture, speaks of the presence
should be a vehicle for sustaining a living tra? prising large tiles of black and white marble laid of this sort of inlaid stonework in the places of
dition. We seem to be dealing with two styles of to a running bond, with carefully interlocked water and coolness in Mogul gardens. It would be
death. However, the cultural conditions for pieces at the complex boundaries between black consistent with the other oppositions in this piece
which historicism is the norm account for this and white. It is a tribute to the Indian craftsmen to imagine the most urban and vertical portion of
problem; and it is reflected in the remorse which the site transformed into metaphoric water; but
that they were able to work this out from the
attends the destruction of 'historic' buildings and the search for any single reading would seem to be
maquette, since Hodgkin could not provide con?
quarters ? the fear that the tradition is not re? struction drawings. These walls meet Correa's misguided. Rather than references or allusions,
newed but effaced in the subsequent construction pink sandstone screen wall at a virtual knife-edge what are in play here are questions regarding
(thereby confirming the desiderata of certain above the second-storey level, although its full order. As the straightforward passage from a
members of the modern movement). In this con? thickness is declared at the pillars which frame the street to an internal garden, the portal is the initi?
text, the resort to any form of museum acknow? entry. The reciprocity of this wall with Hodgkin's ation or origin of the several coincidentiae opposi
ledges the threat posed to the celebrated resilience walls is crucial to the overall result. It orchestrates torum, the limiting conditions or horizons of any
of India's traditional cultures by the myriad a sequence: from surface, where the wall acts like assertion. As the entrance to a species of acad?
charms of the Western culture emancipated from a colour, through thickness, where it becomes emy, it eloquently embodies the conditions for
ontological concern (the museum is indeed our autonomous, to depth, where it participates in the discourse while resisting any definitive account
of itself on those terms.
own customary defence against this threat, and illusions instigated by its great openings. The
may be seen to commemorate the problem). screen wall's stack-bonding (augmented at the pil? Peter Carl and Eric Parry
What grants this emancipation is the misplaced lars), the square openings and the flank walls at
confidence in our articulative abilities, the con?
entry all support a rhythmic flatness which is re?
fidence that we can comprehend, grasp, explain ceived by the terraces, recesses and fragments of The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of
Sir Howard Hodgkin and Mr Vivek Nanda in the prep?
or possess the culture through our texts. openings (viewed from the ground) caught up in aration of this review.
the swirl of black, white, cast shadow and light.
The exhibition was originated by the British Council,
The determining moment in the question of What launches these readings is the superimpos
and jointly presented by the British Council and the AA.
Transfer and Transformation, therefore, is not ition of two discontinuities of scale: in the archi?
Exhibition designed by Sudharkar Nadkarni. Specially
accuracy of knowledge concerning ancient tecture, between the openings and horizons of a commissioned photographs by Mahendra Sinn. Draw?
iconography, but rather the re-embodiment of four-storey building and a portal enlarged to the ings by Harshraj Mane, Charles Correa.
meaning in the new cultural conditions. The scale of the whole, and, in the stonework mural,
Charles Correa ? Five Projects
Correa-Hodgkin collaboration on the British between the intimacy of a brush stroke and some? Introduction by John Hanson, Director General of the
Council entry seems to offer something genu? thing at the scale of the weather. British Council. Essays by Kenneth Frampton, John
inely creative with respect to this issue. The coincidence of opposites in play here ? Russell, Jyotindra Jain, Gautam Bhatia. Photographs
The collaboration was mediated through the red between green grass and blue sky, black/ by Mahinder Singh, Rahul Mehrotra, Dinesh Mehta.
British Council, and Correa's original proposal to shadow and white/light, geometry and nature, Price ?20. Distributed by A A Publications.

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