How city got an iconic centre

KOLKATA: The City Centre mall at Salt Lake, considered a modern architecture marvel, would have turned out very different had its architect, the famed Charles Correa, not changed the original plan dramatically at the eleventh hour.
Architect Partha Ranjan Das, who was appointed resident architect by Correa during the planning and construction of City Centre 1, recounted to TOI the dramatic changes that the master architect had made when everyone, including developer Harshvardhan Neotia, believed the design had been frozen.“It was on the eve of Durga Puja in 2001 that I reached Correa’s office in Mumbai to show him the sanction drawings of City Centre 1 before submitting it to the Bidhannagar Municipality.
The plan comprised a cluster of six buildings. After a long hard look at the drawing, he turned towards me and asked point blank: ‘Partha, frankly say how do you like it?’ I was frank. I told him it was a nice shopping mall but lacked the flavour of Kolkata. I think he, too, had sensed something was amiss for he seized the opportunity to make alterations. The buildings were shifted to make way for the kund and step wells. Correa sent the revised design later for the municipal drawings. The impromptu changes did delay the project by a couple of months but it turned what would have been just another mall to an architectural masterpiece,” Das said.
By introducing two traditionally Indian features in the otherwise contemporary cubist design, which defined the mall buildings, Correa altered its very character, creating spaces that juxtaposed the buildings to fashion a modern version of the city’s linear shopping streets.
Neotia also talked about the striking changes that Correa ushered in at the eleventh hour, giving him and the rest of the team many sleepless nights. “Initially, he did design a mall kind of project. But then he suddenly decided to change it into a marketplace, something that I was not planning. I wanted to build a mall. We stuck to our positions, with him concerned about aesthetics and me about the project’s marketability as retailers had fixed requirements. We somehow managed to reach a compromise, which is a big achievement, considering it was Correa. He finally decided to create something that was partly mall and partly marketplace,” Neotia said.
Though the developer was initially concerned with the design, being a man with aesthetic sense, Neotia too resonated with Correa’s emotions that the mall needed big and small shops and places for people to sit and hang around. Also, Correa’s passion for energy efficiency long before green buildings became a fad meant that half the mall’s space would be open to air, and hence, non-air-conditioned. Neotia acknowledged that they were not in accordance with the idea of a mall, prevalent at the time and caused much anxiety. “When we opened the mall, only 50% space was leased out. Many retailers were not excited about the idea,” he said.
But all that changed in six months when the place began to draw huge crowds. Retailers soon made a beeline. Awards followed. While malls sprouted up all over the country, City Centre 1 became an icon.
“I am happy with the unique mall that turned out eventually but it was a very uncertain journey in the beginning. The roller-coaster journey lasted four years. There were a lot of challenges during the construction. Sometimes, Correa did not like what we did. At others, we perhaps, did not understand what he wanted. Then there were times when he also changed his mind. Whatever be the case, he made us undo what was done to get things the way he wanted. I was on tenterhooks and had the most trying times on the work front. But personally, he was extremely warm and I must concede that he has always been affectionate towards me,” said Neotia.