Charles Correa is arguably India's most renowned architect and urban
planner. From the Mahatma Gandhi Museum in Ahmedabad to the Brain and
Cognitive Sciences Centre in Boston, his buildings have covered a wide
spectrum. On the 50th anniversary of setting up his office in Mumbai,
Rahul Singh spoke to Correa about his career and concerns:
Everybody who watched the Beijing Olympics was enthralled by the Bird's
Nest stadium. Why doesn't India have such iconic buildings?
Chinese artist was the inspiration. Then, a Danish structural engineer,
Ove Arup, who lives in England, did the actual interweaving structure
(he also did the Sydney Opera House). For great buildings, you need a
client with imagination, whose objective is excellence. In the 1960s and
1970s we had a lot of good buildings through government patronage of
architects like Le Corbussier, Raj Rewal and Balkrishna Doshi. We need
to find a way for public agencies to involve more private architects.