“Nehru was equally at ease in Hollywood and Disneyland, attending film premieres in India and hobnobbing with the glitterati of his time. His interests were wide as his curiosity was deep. Only a generalist by temperament could have dared to write books like Glimpses of World History and The Discovery of India while in prison.

What is this generalist mindset? It is one that accepts – even while seeking to know as much as possible – the limitations of knowing everything. One important trait is a discomfort with certitudes, and the courage to accept tentativeness as a state of being.

Another is the wisdom to know that there are multiple ways of looking at any one thing, and the realization that the present is the result of several iterations of history.”

First published in the National Herald.

The city’s buildings were once laid out in a way that formed a rhythmic pattern. Today’s structures are tone-deaf.

Bombay poet Nissim Ezekiel seemed to know this all along. In 1983, at around the time Mumbai was changing from an inclusive city into a real estate cash-cow, he wrote these prescient lines: “I cannot save Bombay/ You cannot save it/ They don’t even/ want to save it.”

Charles Correa, one of India’s foremost architects, blended modernist design with Gandhian principles of simplicity and frugality. He achieved early prominence through projects like the Handloom Pavilion and the Gandhi memorials.

Lesser known in the canon of modernists who designed the buildings of independent India, Patel’s work bookends a period that started with the Nehruvian vision of what the Nation State was to look like and ended with liberalization in 1990. In 1958, he attended the International Congress of Architects in Moscow as the only Indian representative, and went on to work for Alvar Aalto, the great Finnish architect and designer. Patel imbibed Aalto’s vision of architecture as a complete work of art, with functionalism and materiality as its rationale. I recall Patel’s resistance to the right angle, his insistence on the right material for the right place and using geometry as an unerring guide to create original-looking designs. All these principles could be seen in his conception of the iconic Stock Exchange building.

First published in the National Herald.

“One of the last remaining buildings of its kind, the Regal is a reminder of an age when people across class chose to spend three hours in a darkened hall. The Regal can, even today, cater to more than a thousand cinephiles, but are there that many people thronging the theatre on any single day any more, with OTT offering you the world?”

First published in the National Herald.

“Citizen Charles is less than 200 easy-to-read pages, but outstandingly comprehensive nonetheless. For this, huge credit to Dalvi, another quintessential ‘Bombaywallah’ – he recently retired after 21 years on the faculty of the storied Sir JJ College of Architecture – whose unbeatable mastery of his subject matter shines throughout. A familiar and well-loved annual presence at the Goa Arts + Literature Festival in his distinguished parallel career as poet and translator, here is the multifaceted author in yet another avatar: the highly polished academic and architectural historian, who has given us an instantly invaluable portrait of the city of Mumbai, of architecture in India after 1947, and also the paths not taken which have come to define our current era, while at the heart and spine of this fine new book, of course, is the proud son of Goa and his “lifelong advocacy for an egalitarian and uniquely.”

— Vivek Menezes. O Heraldo

During its heyday, the Light of Asia epitomized the cosmopolitanism of a growing city that was a magnet for international and up-country visitors.

“As a child, Charles would love to walk down to watch ships, big and small, come and go at the Ballard Pier. He was especially fond of the dry docks, where ships would be lifted out of the water in their entirety. He would be in awe of the massive hull, rising above him like an upside-down roof.”

An excerpt from ‘Charles Correa: Citizen Charles’, by Mustansir Dalvi.

In his biography of architect and urban planner Charles Correa, Mustansir Dalvi lets us into the life and practice of another kind of nation-builder.

दळवींनी चार्ल्स कोरिआ यांच्याबद्दल लिहिलेलं हे पुस्तक, केवळ व्यावसायिक किंवा अभिकल्पकार म्हणून कोरिआ यांची महती सांगणारं नसून ‘सिटिझन चार्ल्स’ या नावाला जागणारं आहे.

In the first biography of Charles Correa, one of modern India’s greatest architects, Mustansir Dalvi showcases not just his visionary genius but also his zeal to improve the lives of the common man, particularly in Mumbai.

On several occasions in his career as an architect, Correa would encounter resistance with ideas that pushed the envelope of public acceptance, whether in his additions to Rajghat, or providing for the homeless on the streets of Bombay.

The buildings on Marine Drive responded to the early 20th-century urge for long-distance travel by presenting a variety of nautical references.

In the rush to redevelop, Mumbai is losing old architecture as well as the skills to fix it.