Religious Forms: Indian Church Architecture's Modern Encounters

The architect Charles Correa writes about his building ideology in A Place in the Sun thus: ‘I wish it to do: namely, in one fell swoop, lift us out of the freezing North European weather into a faraway clime, swing us into another state of mind…where warm and languid breezes blow…For climate makes a fundamental difference to our need for—and perception of—built-form.’

These words become a guiding influence to understand the localisation of aesthetic modernism in India, following the independence of the country in 1947. After partition Punjab had lost its erstwhile capital of Lahore to Pakistan and needed to create a new centre for the fractured city. Jawaharlal Nehru invited the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier to design the city of Chandigarh, which would make tangible his intentions to project India’s identity as a modern nation.

Palace of the Assembly, Chandigarh, Le Corbusier. Image courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

Le Corbusier’s work in Chandigarh marks one of the most visible moments where a westernised stylistic comes into negotiation with heat, monsoons, light and locality. The adoption of this modernist grammar for the design of the city and its buildings with the support of local architects, builders and engineers would go on to influence the shape modernist architecture took in India. Features like deep brise-soleil (extended exterior canopies), recessed openings, angled front facade and concrete screens which can be witnessed in the Chandigarh Capitol Complex, broke up the rigid geometry of high modernism to cater to climactic demands of the region.

For architects working in post-independence India, the pressing challenge was to build for a rapidly expanding population while rethinking the boxed-in facades of modernism for local conditions and patterns of use. Charles Correa moved away from the monumentality associated with modern architecture towards a more porous and climate-responsive spatial practice. Drawing upon architectural traditions from the subcontinent and beyond, he incorporated courtyards, terraces, shaded corridors, and open-to-sky spaces that responded to the demands of the environment. One of the most compelling examples of these experiments is the Our Lady of Salvation Church in Mumbai’s Dadar neighbourhood. Originally built by the Franciscan Order during Portuguese rule, the church is among the oldest in the region. Having already undergone three reconstructions, the site was commissioned to Correa in 1974 for the design of a new facade.

Designs for the Church by Charles Correa. Copyright: Charles Correa Associates, courtesy: Charles Correa Foundation

At first glance, apart from the crosses and the central bell tower, the building scarcely resembles a conventional church. The traditional steeple gives way to inverted concrete conical domes that lend the structure a dynamic, flowing form. Conceived by Charles Correa in collaboration with the structural engineer Mahendra Raj, these domes were not only an engineering innovation but also an ingenious climate-responsive solution, functioning as exhausts that drew hot air upward and out of the building. Through this design, Correa resisted the legacy of colonial ecclesiastical architecture, turning instead to Christian theology and the spatial language of early churches for inspiration. Ornamentation was pared down in favour of a structure, as Correa noted, ‘based on the life of Christ expressed through Baptism, the Public Life and the Crucifixion.’ Liturgically, these ideas found expression in elements such as the baptismal font, confessionals, pulpit, altar, and tabernacle. The church thus became a site where Correa experimented with translating the enclosed form of ecclesiastical architecture into a distinctly regional modernist idiom.

Charles Correa's sketch of the Church. Copyright: Charles Correa Associates, courtesy: Charles Correa Foundation

Charles Correa divided the church into a series of interconnected sections linked by walkways, creating the impression of a single, flowing tubular structure. He also dissolved the boundary between interior and exterior by incorporating open courtyards into the architectural plan, demonstrating his ability to reinterpret modernist forms through abstractions drawn from the spatial language of traditional Indian homes as well as monuments such as the Jama Masjid and Fatehpur Sikri. These open spaces enabled air to circulate throughout the complex, naturally cooling the interiors and reducing dependence on expensive mechanical systems. When the heavy wooden doors were opened, the entire church transformed into an almost amorphous spatial continuum, intensifying both its public character and climatic openness.

Correa was equally attentive to Mumbai’s heavy monsoon rains. The undulating roof was designed to channel rainwater through designated passages beneath the conical domes, integrating drainage into the architectural form itself. The church also reveals two features central to Correa’s architectural language. The first is what he described as the ‘ritualistic pathway’ — the processional movement from the entrance towards the sacred core of the building. While axial access is a familiar feature of modernist planning, Correa argued that ‘this open-to-sky processional movement is of the utmost religious and symbolic significance.’ From the Mediterranean to Mexico, such pathways recur in religious architecture because of the ‘quasi-mystical sensations’ they evoke.

M. F. Husain's glass painting at the Church. Image courtesy: DAG Museum

The second feature is what architect Rahul Mehrotra identifies as Correa’s ability to work across multiple scales within a single structure. Seen from the outside, the church avoids the imposing monumentality associated with Western ecclesiastical architecture. Yet once inside, the soaring conical roof creates a powerful sense of elevation, directing the eye first toward the fresco above by M. F. Husain and then toward the altar. What is wonderful about the architecture of this church is how climate conscious design also manages to incorporate the awe, humility and worship that a religious space should evoke.

While planning the church, Charles Correa was also attentive to the historical role of ecclesiastical spaces as patrons of the arts. Archival documents reveal that he approached artists including M. F. Husain, Akbar Padamsee, Tyeb Mehta, and Anjolie Ela Menon to create works in response to the church. Although sketches by Mehta and Padamsee survive in the archives, the final artworks installed in the church were by Husain and Menon.

M. F. Husain, Christianity, c. 1990, Lithograph and chine collé on paper, 23.0 x 34.0 in. Collection: DAG

Husain’s initial proposal envisioned a monumental fresco of Christ suspended above the congregation in a gesture of benediction. For reasons that remain unclear, he eventually chose instead to depict the Biblical story of the ‘Loaves and Fishes’ across the glass skylight—the miracle in which Christ multiplies five loaves of bread and two fish to feed a crowd of five thousand. Husain’s intervention resonated deeply with Correa’s desire to draw upon early Christian traditions before their transmission into Western ecclesiastical forms, and to express the life and teachings of Christ symbolically through the architecture of the church itself.

Husain’s artistic language, much like Correa’s architectural practice, fused the formal vocabulary of modernism with a distinctly Indian sensibility. The glass fresco bears traces of ancient Indian artistic traditions even as it embraces modernist abstraction and figuration. By dividing the composition into sections reminiscent of stained-glass windows, Husain retained a recognisably ecclesiastical form, while simultaneously arranging its elements like a mosaic of unfolding symbols narrating the Biblical episode. Positioned directly above the altar—which Correa conceived as the social and liturgical centre of the church—the fresco filters light into a singular luminous column that falls upon the dais, producing an atmosphere of quiet wonder for those entering the space.

View of the interior of The Our Lady of Salvation Church, Dadar, Mumbai. Image courtesy: DAG Museum

While Charles Correa retained the austerity and minimalism of modernism through the church’s exposed concrete exterior, the interiors reveal a tactile engagement with natural materials. Massive monolithic granite blocks were used for the altar and baptismal font, while wooden furniture introduced warmth and texture, creating a striking contrast between the severity of the exterior and the intimacy of the inside. Together, Correa’s architectural philosophy and the artistic interventions within the church produced a sacred environment in which modernism was not divorced from spirituality, but instead became a means of rearticulating it.

Speakers for DAG Museum's 'The City as a Museum' programme at the Our Lady of Salvation Church: Ranjit Hoskote and Nondita Correa, sitting in front of a tableau painted by Anjolie Ela Menon. Image courtesy: DAG Museum

At the same time, this distinctly regional modernism extended beyond questions of style to reconsider how climate, ritual, and materiality could actively shape the production of space. Correa explored fundamental architectural questions through this tropical reinterpretation of the church: how light and air move through a building, how public experience is structured within it, and how architecture might root itself within its environment and community. Through the Our Lady of Salvation Church, one can trace how climate-responsive architecture and Indian modernist art emerged from a shared postcolonial desire to develop a local grammar of modernity—one capable of resonating with the everyday life, environment, and political aspirations of an independent nation.

Aerial view of the Church. Copyright: Charles Correa Associates, courtesy: Charles Correa Foundation