2022 Memorial

    Announcement

    The Annual Charles Correa Memorial Lecture in Kolkata celebrates architecture and art that have drawn from human-centric values, nature, folklore and myths and have narratives and spatial constructs that transcend the manifest. The lectures have been delivered passionately by speakers of global repute who, while showcasing their works have established and shared their allegiances with ‘Correan values’ in their intellectual and creative forays into architecture.

    After the very successful fourth edition in 2019, just as preparations were on for the fifth edition in June 2020, the pandemic struck! The memorial lecture had to be cancelled for two consecutive years in 2020 and 2021. Disruptions caused by it have been of such an unprecedented scale that it has altered priorities of governments, enterprises and individuals irreversibly. After taking a heavy toll, it has finally shown signs of letting up – gradually releasing its vice like grip on all spheres of human life and engagement.

    The organising committee after long deliberations has decided to re-start the memorial lecture and is happy to announce – the fifth edition to be held this year on 25 June at 5.30 pm at Altair, Ecocenter Saltlake. This much awaited event, will present to the followers, supporters and enthusiasts, two extremely talented and sensitive practioners. They by their own rights and endeavours have charted their paths and created bodies of work that has added to the global legacy of architecture and design in thought and action.

    C. Anjalendran

    The celebrated Sri Lankan architect, after completing his academic preparations in Colombo and London returned to his war-torn motherland in 1978 and started his practice from his mother’s verandah and simultaneously apprenticed with Geoffrey Bawa for 10 years. Over the next three and half decades he has produced architecture that is a living embodiment of his classless and free thinking, his inclinations to nature, to the local idioms and cultural inspirations. Anjalendran is an enlightened modernist thinker in terms of space and spatial interpretation and in encompassing the idea of the public in these spaces by way of art

    Anjalendran has consistently invoked the ideas of the “public” and “bridging the societal differences” in his work, thoughts, and gestures. He manages to bridge class and cultural differences between the producers and the consumers of art. Like Correa, he has shunned elitism and brought art and architecture to the public in an inviting and inclusive way.

    His work has been presented at the Royal Institute of British Architects in March 2010. In October 2011, he has also been honoured with “Golden Award for Global Contribution to Architecture” in New Delhi. His work has been exhibited worldwide and he has been decorated with several awards and citations.

    Prof. KT Ravindran

    Popularly and affectionately, KT amongst all his peers, contemporaries, students and admirers in India and beyond, is an Urban Designer practicing from Delhi. He is, and has been involved with several national and international institutions in various capacities – as member, director, advisor, mentor, trustee and chairman. These include – Urban Arts Commission and Heritage Conservation Committees Delhi, Institute of Urban Designers India, Smart City Mission on Public Open spaces, United Nations Capital Master Plan, New York.

    His tryst with academics and teaching is several decades long and illustrious- Urban Design for three decades in SPA, Delhi, Dean and Senior Academic Advisor, RICS School of Built Environment for seven years. He has been a long standing collaborator of Charles Correa in various capacities. He has been a member of juries for a large number of competitions in urban design – nationally and internationally.

    His current practice includes design of green-field cities, cultural buildings, memorials, adaptive reuse, Urban Conservation. He was also member of Unnayan Kolkata an NGO working with the low income communities in East Kolkata and rural contexts for two years. His works and research are published in journals and books internationally. He has consistently pursued Sustainability, Indigenous Urban Design and Urban Conservation, championing the causes in multiple international forums and academia.

    Ashish Acharjee
    Principal, Organising Committee
    Charles Correa Memorial Lecture, Kolkata