More than a year after our Vertical Walk, Edgar Demello and I find ourselves on the podium of yet another Correa building, this time in the architect’s home state of Goa. “Our podium has similar detailing” I comment looking at the way the steps fold into the corners. “I like how you call it our podium” says Edgar.
For a while, it felt like deja vu. Our walk at Correa’s Visvesvaraya Towers organised with the INTACH Bangalore Chapter in August 2023 enthralled visitors but was also dotted with a sense of lamentation of what could have been against what was imagined for the superb concourse between the two modernist towers. Here, staring at the open air amphitheater and seeing the recent fate of the Kala Academy, a similar lamentation crept in, opening larger questions on how Correa’s buildings, and by extension modern architecture is being perceived and handled today.
We stroll along the edge of the Mandovi with the setting sun in the distance strewing liquid gold across the historic waters. Looking at the changing landscape and eyesores surrounding Reis Magos, the angst persists. But through the haze, we catch a glimpse of another set of Correa’s buildings – his housing at Verem.
“Charles’ own house is at the sangam (confluence) of the Mandovi and the Indian Ocean, much like how the Champalimaud Centre in Lisbon is positioned at the sangam of the Tagus and the Atlantic Ocean”.
We marvel at these unscriptable metaphors and parallels in the ouvre of Correa, from the place from where Vasco da Gama set out in Lisbon to find the sea route to India and here, the historic waters of the Mandovi where the Portuguese disembarked in Goa to change its fate forever.
“That is such an iconic thing, to be able to position your buildings in such a way….”
