The average Joe. Early in Mustansir Dalvi’s engaging biography of Charles Correa, the reader is introduced to Joe, the working township protagonist in You and Your Neighbourhood, an animated film the iconic architect directed as his final Masters’ thesis at MIT. We are given a peek into the then-aspiring architect’s vision, where he backs the power of individual acts and public participation for greater civic good. Dalvi was commissioned to write Citizen Charles (Niyogi Books) that releases today at Z Axis, a conference in Mumbai that honours six decades of Correa’s ideas. “I am glad that I got a chance to reconvene with his life, work and thoughts, as an architect and a true-blue Bombaywallah,” shares the architect, academic and author-poet. The title was chosen, Dalvi explains, because, “he epitomised an involved citizen. Correa’s architecture is an extension of this engagement.”

Kanchanjunga Apartments, Mumbai. FILE PIC