FILMS IN CORREA’S LIFE
Charles Correa had a lifelong love for cinema! He often remarked that films—along with toy trains—had inspired his journey toward becoming an architect and urbanist. While studying at MIT, Correa wrote, directed, and animated a 10-minute film titled You and Your Neighbourhood (1955), which became the first-ever film submitted as a thesis at the institute.
Two decades later, when the Films Division of the Government of India invited him to make a film about his architectural work, Correa instead chose to explore a larger urban vision. He wrote and directed City on the Water (1975), a film about the planning of New Bombay (now Navi Mumbai)—a city he co-conceptualized as a response to the overcrowding of Bombay. The film examines the strategies developed by urban planners to create less congested, more humane environments for the city’s constantly mobile workforce.
In 1986, Correa curated the landmark exhibition VISTARA: The Architecture of India in collaboration with the Government of India. For this, he also conceived a nine-projector audiovisual presentation (directed by Imtiaz Dharker) that formed a central part of the exhibition experience.
His final film, The Blessings of the Sky (1995), which he wrote and directed, reflected his enduring fascination with space, light, and the metaphysical dimensions of architecture. Beyond these four works, Correa’s ideas and buildings continued to inspire other filmmakers, many of whom explored his vision, advocacy, and life through their own cinematic lenses.
FILMS BY CORREA
YOU AND YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD
1955 Director, Scriptwriter, Animator, and Photographer for ‘You & Your Neighbourhood’, Correa’s Masters Thesis, MIT.
“This is a story of rehabilitation — one of the most urgent needs in our cities and towns today.”
Drawing from the condition of Bostonian neighborhoods in the 1950s, Charles Correa made a 10 minute animated film titled “You and Your Neighborhood: The Story of Urban Rehabilitation”. Using hand drawn images and diagrams, he presented this film along with a 30-page report as his final Master’s thesis at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1955.
CITY ON THE WATER
1975 Director and Scriptwriter for the documentary ‘City on the Water’, Films Division, Government of India.
“Half a million people arriving every morning … nobody leaving”
With this line, Charles Correa’s film, ‘City on the Water’, sets the stage for a city that is reaching its limits and builds a case for its solution. Correa made this film exactly 50 years ago, in 1975, as part of a larger effort to bring out the urgent need for expansion to the city’s authorities.
VISTARA: THE ARCHITECTURE OF INDIA
1986 Scriptwriter for Audio-Visual ‘VISTARA: The Architecture of India’
The film – scripted by Charles Correa and Imtiaz Dharker has been digitised and re-mastered with great personal efforts by Imtiaz Dharker and Alpesh Taylor.
VISTARA was part of ‘The Festival of India’ – a series of major exhibitions in the 1980’s organised by Pupul Jayakar, that the Govt. of India presented around the world: in London, New York, Moscow, Tokyo, Berlin, and so forth. This particular exhibition on the Architecture of India was put together by a small committee headed by Charles Correa, which included Pravina Mehta, Devangana Desai, Uttam Jain and Dilip Purohit. This is an attempt to resurrect and preserve one of the most crucial and complex comments on the Architecture of India.
THE BLESSINGS OF THE SKY
1995 Scriptwriter and Director for Video ‘The Blessings of the Sky’
Throughout human history, the sky has earned a profound and sacred meaning. Man intuitively perceived it as the abode of the supernatural. Hence to climb a path to the top of the hill, where the Gods dwell, is a paradigm of such mythic power that it has been central to the beliefs of almost every society, since the beginning of time.