MONIKA AND CHARLES

INDIAN ARCHITECTURE AND TEXTILES SO WE MUCH ΤΟ THE CORREAS. FOR THEIR TALENT AND VISION, WE ARE RICHER. HERE, FOR AD'S TEXTILES SPECIAL ISSUE, WE HEAD TO GOA, TO THE HOME OF MONIKA CORREA, DESIGNED BY HER LATE HUSBAND, WHERE OUR COUNTRY'S FINEST TEXTILE ARTIST SPENDS HER TIME, BY THE SIDE OF THE MANDOVI RIVER, IN A HOUSE THAT HOLDS MEMORIES OF CREATIVELY PIVOTAL TIMES.

- MAYANK MANSINGH KAUL

The late Charles Correa's first commission when he set up his own practice, was for the Handloom Pavilion, in 1958, at the Industries' Fair in New Delhi. Around the same time, he was asked to design the interiors of the Mumbai branch of Handloom House, an iconic central government-owned brand. It was here that the young Monika Sequeira, a microbiologist and teacher, often went to buy saris, riveted as she was by the colours and diversity of their weaves. The two met in 1960, and were married a year later. Had they, back then, ever imagined how intricately their lives would bring together the worlds of architecture and fabric?

He, a prodigious design talent, a philosopher, writing and debating passionately about questions of tradition and modernity, voicing the subcontinent's ethos to the world, and sensitively imbibing from its layered histories and spatial concepts, only to so seamlessly merge them with the requirements and affordances of a new age...? She, with no formal training in textiles, inspired to learn weaving through an epiphany and a chance encounter, doggedly pursuing their exactitudes to their ends, creating the most painstakingly large, ambitious and wondrous tapestries that defy the logic of the loom...?