Contemporary Architecture in India (Lower house)

A building as prominent as the one
 for the new Vidhan Bhavan in Bhopal in the state of Madhya Pradesh had to take a form imbued
with an especially timeless symbolic force transcending
functional considerations. Charles Correa and his
colleagues actually won the competition in 1980, but building
did not start until 1983. After political turmoil,
completion
of this major building project was delayed until 1997. Realising this extraordinarily remarkable design demonstrated a new self-confidence not just for the individual state and its local government, but for the whole of India, even though Correa had completed his intellectual work on the project long before the phase of economic upswing, India’s economic miracle. The new sense of self-awareness was quite obviously
present in a design that pulls the whole complex history of the country into focus and conveys it most impressively, in the spirit of the times and yet timelessly, in its realised form.
This can also be measured against the fact that it is very difficult to make a precise estimate of the date the design came into being, as it completely eschews fashionable categories and has lost none of its expressive force, indeed its magic, in 2006, 26 years after it was developed. Correa’s synthesis of elements that are deeply rooted in tradition and abstract-modern creative force does, in this intensity, indeed remain a typically Indian or even Asian phenomenony. But it could easily become a model for other cultures: here cultural
history is perceived and used in the present as a process of future continuity. Correa’s design shows the very presence of history as a respected heritage in India. His design process is still intelligible: not primarily as an analysis of function optimisation generating a form almost of its own accord, but as a prefigurative approach in which the dominant form is worked out first. So following Western linguistic usage, a so-called Postmodern concept was being used here. Assumingly the starting point for the design was the Navgraha Mandala, a square as a symbol of the cosmos, divided into nine additional squares to symbolise seven real and two mythological planets.
This ancient motif, much cited in the pages of this book, is one of the great primal signs of Indian architecture, and has been constantly varied over the centuries to create a spiritual frame of reference. This symbol developed into a preferred sign in Charles Correa’s formal vocabulary, one that he used directly and expressively in his design for the cultural centre in Jaipur. But here in Bhopal the Mandala mutated into a fragment: the architect throws an arc of a circle around the square, making the outer corners blunt and
incomplete. Thus the circle dominates, as ultimately it forms the outer wall surrounding the building. Within this universe the functional areas are subordinated to the Mandala structure:
the great parliamentary chamber for the lower house as another circular figure with foyer; the small chamber for the upper house as a diagonal square; the cabinet area with hall, courtyard and offices; the library; the administrative area with ministerial offices and a large courtyard; a multipurpose hall; the courtyard for the public and the central hall at the heart of the project. The symmetrical axes are emphasised by three main entrances for the various user groups.