vistas,charles correa

8/3/2019 Vistas,Charles Correa

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VistasCHARLES CORREA

The architect who builds a glass tower in the middle of theArabian desert will justify the design with a hundreddifferent reasons - except possibly the real one, which isthe unconscious attempt to recreate the mythic imagery ofwhat is perhaps the quintessential city of the twentiethcentury: Houston, TexasSuch is the power of the mythic image - and the control

it exercises on our lives And this of course is the key issueat the heart of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture Howcan architect and client free themselves from this colonisa-tion of the mind? The task is not easy, nor is it one thatconcerns only the Islamic world On the contrary, it is anarena in which every architect dwells, including those whobuild in the western world, where the dichotomy betweenthe Modern movement and Post-Modernism, or betweenei ther of them and the Deconstmctivists, can be perceivedas analogues of this paradigm Thus the agenda of thisAward is really quite central to our profession; and not justthe exotic Disneyland hothouse that many assume it to beIndeed, working on the Steering Committee has providedan insight into many of the most crucial questions thatconfront architects here in India, as well as in other parts ofthe world This essay addresses some of those issues, andthe perspectives they have generated

For most people, these are the images of Islamic Archi-tecture that spring to mind Yet, ironically enough, themajori ty of Muslims do not live in countries where this kinof built form is relevant They live east of Delhi; in fact, eaof Calcutta! They live in Bangladesh and Indonesia andMalaysia They live in hot humid cl imates \'V'hat they needis not dense massing, but l ight free-standing structures andcross-ventilat ion So what is the relevance of the greatdomed mosque of Isfahan to them? In their part of theworld, they cannot build masonry arches and domes; theymust instead use sloping tiled roofs in order to keep out theavy monsoon rains What should their mosques looklike? Right now, most Musl ims deal with the problem bybuilding a tiled-roof structure and then sticking a small t indome on top (often just a flat two-dimensional cut-out) tosymbolise what their effort is all about Can the Muslimarchitect in Indonesia or Bangladesh be free of such imageor accept them as an essential part of the imagery of faith?Yet, is that a fair question? After all , a symbol cannot be

made to order as and when we want, like a piece ofclothing Its power and meaning slowly accrues, downthrough the centuries, and cannot be changed overnightThus the Cross of Calvary is but a machine for puttingpeople to death, therefore in nations around the worldwhere it has been replaced by the guillotine or the electricchair, should Christian churches follow suit? Or morepertinently, can they?

Mythic ImageryTo begin with, the power of mythic imagery is of coursemuch older than Texas, it is one of the basic mechanismsinvolved in the design process Every architect has anassortment of images on which to draw during the designprocess Islam provides a particularly rich reservoir of suchimagery As it came out of the desert and spread eastwardthrough Yemen and India and westward to Morocco andSpain, it brilliantly internalised the various architecturalsystems it encountered, integrating them into a languagewhich is unrivalled for sheer lyrical beauty in the history ofarchitecture Certainly these typologies, based on the hot,dry climate which prevails from Granada in the West toDelhi and Agra in the East, generated the kind of built formwhich appeals immensely to our contemporary sensibili-ties: clusters of courtyard houses, closely packed together,sheltering each other from the sun, around large-domedpublic buildings built of thick heat -resisting walls

Deep StructureTo answer this question, let us start by examining the wayan architect designs At work everyday in a somewhatbanal world, the architect faces quite commonsensicalproblems dealing with clients who have particular requirements, budgets, time schedules and so forth Within theseparameters the architect tries to arrive at suitable arrange-ments of built form

But at another level, just below this surface, architects-at least some of them - seem to have access to that worldof compulsive, near-mythic, imagery which we have justbeen discussing These images act l ike powerful elixirs,transforming the dross of everyday construction intosomething far more vivid and exciting:

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FROM AB01'E Distant tieu: oj Houston, Texas Downtown, taken in1988, Sana 'a Yemen, 'Yemen brilliantly internalised ':indigenousarchitecture, while seemingly modest, has a subtle 1icbness thatreueals itself tbrougb careful stud)'

EVERYDAY \'(.'ORLDCOIlIPULSIYE IMAGERY

But is this the whole picture? Surely the very existence ofthe 'grab-bag' implies the presence of a third stratum: a farmore profound deep structure, which, throughout history,has nourished the arts

-~ - ~~ '~~~~~~ ':;ERY- - - - - - DEEP STRUCTl'RE

This deep structure is the wellspring of architecture, aprimordial force that underlies the middle level andgenerates its compulsive imagery For example, FrankLloyd Wright created his Usonian houses not by raiding themiddle level ( ie the existing Tudor and Cape Cod vocabu-lary) , but rather by his intuit ive understanding of theaspirations of middle America in the Midwest In otherwords, his path seems to cut right through the middle layer,penetrat ing to rock bottom mythic images of UsoniaDeposited at the middle level, they become accessible toarchitects and developers, forming the new lifestyle of mostNorth American suburbia throughout this century, twosteps up to the dining area, the carport, the picture win-dow, the open plan and so forth

RegionalismIn the process, Wright challenged the cultural elitism ofAmerica's East Coast establishment and its Beaux Artsclones Because of the nature of their mandate, architectsare sensi tive to cultural bullying Thus when asked to buildthe US Embassy in India, for example, the architect may tryto design an 'Indian' looking building that will fi t into thecontext of Delhi On the other hand, if asked to design theIndian Embassy in Washington, the same architect will prob-ably come up with a design that conveys Indian culturalvalues, and not American ones So we do not really per-ceive these twin tasks as mirror images of each other . Bothour responses are biased, but not symmetrical We vaguelysuspect that in the power struggle going on around theworld, there are those cultures which are 'underdogs' andthose that are 'bullies', and that the imbalance has nothingto do with intrinsic cultural value but with economic clout

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Hence the great emphasis among architects today onregionalism; which, in itself, unfortunately, is not a panaceasince regionalism in architecture can come about in twoquite different ways The first consists of those designerswho bounce off the middle layer. The main differencebetween them and the so-called 'International' stylists isthat their 'grab-bag' of images is somewhat more localisedBut essentially, it is the same superficial process.

On the other hand, there isanother process, quite differentfrom the first, that also generates a regional architecture,expressing strong cultural roots This process involvesreaching the deep structure in the lowest layer It is a farmore difficult but far more rewarding path. Such architec-ture does not merely transfer images (whether of local orforeign origin) but transformstuesu, by re-inventing themTo understand how this happens, we must examine the

forces that generate architecture The first of these is, ofcourse, culture This is l ike a great reservoir , calm andcont inuous, changing only very gradually over the yearsThe second is aspirations, which is dynamic and volatile Itisvery different from culture, though of course they interactcontinuously Thus while some aspirations can be quiteephemeral, others may become an integral part of culture

All the arts are profoundly affected by shif ts along theaxis that runs between these two forces Thus if we repre-sent a piece of architecture we al l admire (for instanceRegistan Square in Samarqand or Chartres Cathedral inFrance) by a central point in a schema, then we candiagram their relationship in this manner:

change, but only gradually In architecture on the otherhand, the prevailing technology changes everv few dec-ades And each time this happens, that point in the centreof our diagram moves to a new position:

TECHNOLOGY

Architecture comes into being at the point of resolution othese four forces Sometimes this point moves because oshift in the basic cultural paradigm This happened in Indwhen the Vedic concept of architecture as a model of thecosmos was replaced by the sacred values and imagery othe Islamic Garden of Paradise, which in turn was overrunby the arrival of the Europeans with their mythic belief inscience and rat ionality In European history, the changefrom Romanesque to Gothic is probably the expression oa change in technology, but that from Gothic to Renais-sance is clearly the fall-out of a decisive shift along thecultural-aspiration axis

Transfer and TransformationChanges along this cultural-aspiration axis are shared byarchitecture with all the other arts, many of which, suchpoetry and music are indeed much purer arts, since theynot have to deal with the exigencies of the pragmatic andcommercial world we live in No, it is the frequency anddecisiveness of the technological changes that are uniqueto architecture, and that make it such a sensitive barometeof the health and robustness of a particular society Thiswhy cities, and the buildings they contain, are of suchdecisive importance to the cultural historianFor when we have to substitute stone with steel, or

wood with concrete, we are faced with a challenge: weeither use the new technologies to superficially transferiiold images (hence the fake Gothic arches and Islamic domthat we see all around us), or we can transform them, reinventing the architectural expression of the mythic valuethey represent Both options work, but there is a differenThe process of transfer is facile but debilitating Transfor-mation, on the other hand, challenges society and renewsas well This is the challenge, and the reward, that architeture represents in society every time the technology change

There are two other forces that exert a far more primaryinfluence on architecture than they do on any of the otherarts One of these is climate This is a fundamental andunchanging force The architect must learn to master itspractical implications (sun angles, wind directions, etc) andgo much further than this For at a deep structure level,climate conditions culture itself, its expression, its rites andrituals In itself, climate can become the source of myth, aswitness the metaphysical qualities attributed to open-to skyspace from Mexico to Arabia and from India to JapanThe fourth force acting on architecture is technology No

other art feels its influence so directly Musical instruments

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A prime example, in our own century, is the work of LeCorhusier Each one of his projects is the work of 'unhornme mediterraneen', yet none uses a sloping red-tiledroof \,;rhat Corbusier did instead was to re-inrent siieMediterranean ethos in twentieth-century materialsSimilarly in North America, the work of Louis Sullivan andhis colleagues in Chicago generated the energy which hasfuelled US architecture for a century or more But themodus operandi of Post-Modernism (looting the middlelayer of '\~(,Tham-O'magery) has weakened that samesociety because, at a fundamental level , it provides nonourishment

architecture they seek, an architecture which, at one andthe same time, is both regional as well as universal

In this search, we should be open to new technologies,whenever appropriate and available, keeping intact ourown self-confidence \\lhen, and why, does a society pausemid-str ide and doubt itself? The matter is indeed a delicateone In the early eighties, when they started drinking PepsiCola in China, one sensed instinctively that this was goingto be the beginning of the end, that eventually all of Mao'sChina must unravel On the other hand, when you see NewYorkers eating in a Chinese restaurant, do you panic andthink that this is the first step in the Chinafication ofAmerica?The difference of course is one of self-confidence \ 'x/hen

Islam came out of the Arabian desert and spread towardsIran and Yemen, it was full of confidence in itself It foundwonderful architecture which already existed in theseplaces, which it just absorbed, ingested, made its very ownThus when Islam arrived in India, it discovered all kinds ofexotic marbles and precious stones which it had never seenbefore, and these again were assimilated and internalisedwith great self-confidence And so we get Agra, Fatehpur-Sikri, Mandu and many other masterpieces And we get thestunningly beautiful housing typologies we find in the hil ltowns of Yemen and the wind-catching houses of Iran, allof which, regardless of origin we identify today with IslamWhere has that self-confidence gone today?

The Sacred and the BanalThus through recognising the value of architecture which isregional, we can address issues which are universal For alltrue architecture is, by definit ion, regional Not because itretreats into a Disneyworld of faci le imagery (History asCaricature), hut because it expresses those prime forces(culture, aspiration, climate) through using the technologyavailable at that particular point on our planet In thisprofound sense, all the finest examples of architecture inhistory, from Fatehpur-Sikri in Agra, to the temples of Nara,to the Oak Park houses of Frank Lloyd \X/right, are allregional Not because they exploit the superficial layers offacile imagery but because they make contact with thedeep structure that lies beneath

For it isthrough this process that architecture expressesthe sacred invisibilia that underlie society By sacred, one,of course, means not only that which is evoked by religion,but also by nature, by the primordial and the mythic TheJapanese tea ceremony and the bull fights of Spain are buttwo examples These obviously deal with elements burieddeep in our subconscious, such as the riveting centrality ofa house around a courtyard To cross the hot desert plainand arrive at such a house is an experience beyond themerely photogenic Something deep is stirred in our mind -perhaps the memory of a lost paradise?In this layer of invisibilia lie the roots of architecture

Perhaps this is what Louis Kahn was referring to when hespoke of his yearning of the non-existent Volume Zero ofHistory 'Architecture' he said 'deals with the recesses of themind With that which is not yet said, and not yet built'

In this context, are Islamic domes eternal symbols of areligion, or accidents of technology? Ifthe latter, thenperhaps it might be better for the architects of Bangladeshto search in a deeper stratum of mythic intuition, as forinstance, the Koranic Garden of Paradise How can theChar Bagh be expressed anew in the lush tropical climateof Bengal? Perhaps from such questions may arrive the

Housing and HabitThis brings us to another range of issues with which theAward is vi tally concerned, and which is also of fundamen-tal importance to much more than just the Muslim worldThese are the issues which concern our housing, our citiesand our environmentThe building of the habi tat we have just been discussing,

as everywhere in the world, is an organic process, involv-ing society as a whole The incredibly beautiful houses inMykonos, Rajasthan and Tahiti are not the brainchild ofindividual architects, but the product of the ent ire commu-nity and its history For people can indeed produce thehousing they need as naturally and inst inct ively as birdsbuild nests In fact, habitat which addresses just aboutevery one of our contemporary concerns (balancedeco-systems, recycling of wastes, human scale, culturalidentity and so forth) alreadv exists in the vernacularbuilding systems of people throughout the world Whatdoes not exist is the urban context where these solutionsare viable This then is our primary responsibility: to helpgenerate this context

This is 'why we must always pay the keenest attention toefforts that attempt to provide the support structure, the

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Architecture for Islamic Societies

subsystems, which generate habi tat This is of crucialimportance to urban centres, not only in the Third \X'orld,but increasingly in the industrialised nations as well As ourcit ies decay, the situation worsens Those who suffer mostof all, of course, are the poorHow can the architect, using professional skills, help in

this process and not simply express a feeling of compas-sion, like Florence Night ingale among the wounded? Theanswer is by not act ing like a prima donna professional,but more modestly and anonymously It is a role which hasvery important precedents Throughout Asia, and else-where in the world as well, the architects' prototype wasthe site mistri, that is an experienced mason 'carpenter whohelped with the design and construction of habitatThe extraordinarily high quality of these master artisans

is evident not only in housing, but also in the architecturalmasterpieces of history In fact, without these peerlesscraftsmen, the Taj Mahal and Fatehpur-Sikri would havebeen an impossibility; not only in their construction, but inthe very conceptualisation of the architectural languageitself By totally undervaluing the decisive contribution ofthese craftsmen to architecture, we have, over the last fewdecades, discouraged them to the point of extinct ionOur arrogance stems from a lack of understanding of

architecture and its relationship with the other arts So wedesign a building and then put some art into it, or a pieceof sculpture in front of it, which is indeed myopic. A muralneed not just adorn a room, it can, through the tension itgenerates, totally change the dynamics of the space This iswhat the frescos of Fra Filippo Lippi do to those courtyardsin Florence, or the cave-paintings in Ajanta do to thelandscape without , or , for that matter, the white and goldencherubs of the rococo churches of Austr ia, flying in fromthe windows, beckoning in the daylight It is important thatwe understand and clarify in our minds the roles of thevarious players such as builders, architects and clients,involved in the creation of architecture and why sometimesit succeeds, and why sometimes it fails

FROM ABOt'E nell' along the side of the facade oj FranlzlFrigbt 's Robie House, cupola fresco by Damiam in tbe rorYeltenbUig Abbey Cburcb; the use of local red sandstoneFatebpur Sikri seem to blend uttb its surroundings, particudawn and dusk

The Processes of ArchitectureThis is indeed an important question When one looks atthe architecture in the countries around the Gulf, one isaware of the incredible mismatch between the high quali tyof the architects who were commissioned for the projectsand (in far too may cases) the low quality of the resultsWhy does this happen? It is irrelevant that a number of thearchitects involved are foreigners On the contrary, whenthe city of Chandigarh in India was being designed by LeCorbusier forty years ago, many people wondered: don'tIndian architects object to this key project being assigned to

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a foreigner? I always replied: No, on the contrary \Xle arelucky to get Corbusier He takes architecture very seriouslyWe can only profit by his example This indeed proved tobe true; in two important ways Firstlybecause LeCorbusier'swork was at the cutting edge of architecture, and Indiasuddenly moved to centre stage as the focus of attentionfor the whole profession People came from all over theworld to see Chandigarh and Ahmedabad Far from feelingthey were working in some weird corner of Disneyland,Indian architects fel t part of the mainstream and st ill dotoday Secondly young Indian architects had an extraordi-nary opportunity to learn from Le Corbusier's architectureThis was indeed true Not only did young Indian archi-

tects learn from his extraordinary buildings, but also fromexposure to the man himself His contract with the Govern-ment of Punjab stipulated that he spend a month on site inChandigarh, twice a year This was in addition to hiscollaborators Pierre Jeanneret, Jane Drew and Maxwell Fly,who resided there full -time on contracts which lastedseveral years Thus the interface with India (and withIndian architects) was considerable, and mutually benefi-cial We had in-depth access to creative processes of thehighest order At the same time, being exposed to thecl imatic and living conditions of the Punjab was of im-mense benefit to Le Corbusier not to mention the feedbackfrom the users of his buildingsThis arrangement was not unique In their design of New

Delhi in the twenties the contracts of Edwin Lutyens andHerbert Baker stipulated that they reside continuously forsix months a year in Delhi for the duration of the project.This was of decisive importance to the success of the ven-ture, since it allowed them to absorb a far more vivid under-standing of the country, its climate, its culture and its peopleIn contrast, most architects in the Gulf get by with a kind

of parachute planning and designing which is quitehorrendous They fly in for a few days (or hours) onprojects much larger than Chandigarh What is theirexposure to the locals? And vice versa? It seems clear thatthere is (or should be) a difference between architectureand carpetbagging. And the clients should be astuteenough to understand this. They must not only insist on afar more lengthy interface, but they must also take anintelligent interest in what the architect is trying to achieve.If they don't, then they have only themselves to blameNo building can be better than the architect who designs

it, or the contractor who builds it, or, one could add, of thecl ient who commissions it This is where the rich clientsaround the Gulf have some soul-searching to do Yearslater, reading some of Corbusier's writing from the thirties,in which he appeals somewhat effusively to 'the Captains

of Industry', one suspects that all he may really have beentrying to do was solicit for clients - who, luckily for him,did not swallow the bait If the Gulf Boom had occurred inthe thir ties, Corbusier might well have got involved - andruined - in the process As I said before: India was lucky toget Corbusier But he, too, was lucky to get India Here hemet clients who believed in the seriousness of architecture,and what it could do to our lives

CodaI can never forget the brilliant address that the scientist andhumanist Jacob Bronowski gave at the summation of the1967 Aspen Design Conference on 'Order and Disorder'Computers were then the newest buzzword amongarchitects and designers, and there seemed to be no end tothe wonders they would achieve Bronowski took a lessoptimistic view He illustrated this by examining the oldproposition that 'a monkey pecking randomly at a key-board would, sooner or later, type out the entire works ofWilliam Shakespeare' Bronowski was sporting: he tooknot the whole works, but just the sonnets; and not all thesonnets but the celebrated one which starts with:Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?Thou art more lovel), and more temperate

In fact, Bronowski took only the first two lines - andshowed itwould indeed take a great deal of time to finishthese two lines by random selection, even if the monkeywere to by replaced by the fastest mainframe computerBronowski gave us his calculation for each consecutiveword, but when he reached the last word of the secondline, he stopped and said: 'You know, any of us wouldknow that this word must have three syllables - but onlyShakespeare would have thought of this extraordinarvword: temperate' To Bronowski, neither Art nor Science isthe product of random action As he put it: 'If Nature wantsto produce honey, it first produces the bee. If Nature wantspoetry, she first produces Man.'

So perhaps when Nature wanted the exquisi te architec-ture of the Alhambra, she first produced the Muslim Forwhen we look at the incredible range and beauty of IslamicArchitecture down the centuries, are we not also looking atsocieties who through the elimination of sculpture andpainting and the reliance on calligraphy, through the non-availability of tensile materials and the reliance on masonryvaults and domes were meant to produce architecture of anincredibly high order? Not just the great architects who arejustly celebrated in history, but also more humble practi -t ioners. To return to those standards, might it not necessi-tate an analysis of that programming, and its re-invention inthe context of the aspirations and technologies of our times?

vistas,charles correa

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