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by Vimukthi Fernando

Renowned Indian Architect Charles Correa delivered the keynote address at the

National Conference on Architecture held recently.

His approach to urbanisation covers a spectrum of issues. In the context of rapid urbanisation, he drew the attention of his audience to the decisive correlation between housing densities and construction costs, the inter-relationships of transport and job location. "What is it that we can do about cities as architects?" he questioned, and in answering made those who were present, feel individual responsibility towards the designing of the 'cities' they are to live in.

Low cost and incremental, providing desegregated public and open space as well as personal space, housing at Belapur, designed by Architect Correa.

He is Charles Correa, world renowned architect, planner, activist and theoretician from India. The former Chairman of the National Commission on Urbanisation, India and Chief Architect of the New Bombay Centre for 2 million people, was delivering the keynote address on the theme "urbanisation, housing and reconstruction" at the National Conference on Architecture recently.

"Sri Lanka needs more well planned, well designed urban centres to support its population increasingly searching for better quality of life, which they expect to find in the city centres. Affordability of housing is continuing to be a serious problem.

Reconstruction has become pivotal as the fate of the whole country has become dependant on it," said Dudley Wass, President, Sri Lanka Institute of Architects, hoping that the conference would "debate and discuss all relevant issues in the entire process, which will enable decision-makers to make enlightened decisions."

Informed and intelligent, or rather a viewpoint that is more subtle and meta-physical than that of the immediate and pragmatic, was the one received had one been there. An outlook, all the more rational.

Architect Charles Correa receiving a memento from Architect Dudley Wass, President, Institute of Architects.

What this architect with about 50 years of experience behind him, wanted the Sri Lankan audience to understand was that one has to be responsible for the overall impact on the city, of the individual pieces he or she designs as an architect. The analogy of a machine would describe designing a city, he explained. "I can only design the spare parts when I have responsibility for the machine. And I can only conceptualise the machine when I know how to design the spare parts."

The architects, the townplanners of the great cities of yesteryears, conceptualised the towns. "Today, we have split the two functions. While, urban designers and townplanners do not know anything about spare parts, the few people who can design the spare parts do not hold any responsibility over the machinery," was his viewpoint.

Speaking of the importance of urbanisation Correa stated that urbanisation is the fundamental process of the 20th century and now in the 21st century. It is a very important change and how we deal with it is going to define the next 500 years of our countries. Cities are engines of economic growth, one of our major reasons for hope. Constants such as the climate and culture are crucial determinants of a city architecture. History of a city or a country and aspiration of its people also play a vital role. In toto, a thorough understanding and responsibility over the great "machinery" of city life is the base of creating well designed cities, he said.

Housing though a concern in urbanisation was not the reason why people migrate to the cities. The main reason for migration, but a 'spectacularly missing' item in the discussion of cities is employment. Housing is evolved around job centres and where access is available to job centres, such as railway stations and along the high way. Housing without access to jobs is useless. Housing cannot be discussed without discussing where the jobs are, how they are generated and how to have access to the jobs. In this context, public transport is crucial to any discussion of the city. Public transport could be used as a way of generating housing. Subsidising public transport would be an indirect way to subsidise housing. If you provide the right infrastructure, jobs will be generated in a new pattern which will almost solve the problem of housing by itself. Further, proper land use systems will help reduce cost of housing.

Reconstruction is another very important and a loaded word in city planning. It is very important that we do not just look at what happened and what the form was, but at the deep structure which underlies the form. It is also important not to just imitate the past but to combine the reconstruction with aspirations of the future. In reconstruction, it is also important for the developing countries to look beyond their colonial past and identify the 'deep structure' at the roots.

One good aspect of Sri Lanka as well as India is that there are a number of cities. Though Colombo is very much a primate city there are other cities also. The smaller and middle size towns are growing faster because life is easy there. It is easier to find housing set up business and so on. The National Commission (of Urbanisation - India) encouraged growth of these cities so that they become growth centres.In designing cities, the architect, plays a terrific and a dangerous role for the danger lurks in architects forgetting the individuality and counting people en mass.

However, it is the responsibility of the people as well. It is upto each individual to decide what kind of lifestyle one wants and what kind of lifestyle they can afford.

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