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Restructuring with soul intact
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The St. Sebastian Church at Thoppumpady, Kochi, is to be renovated under the expert guidance of Mr. Sidney Corrie. PRATIMA ASHER meets the architect and gets a first hand report.
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ONE OF the best-known pieces of information about Mr. Sidney Corrie is that he shares his birthday with President Eisenhower, a fact acknowledged by the latter. What is less known about Mr. Sidney Corrie is that he was an army man who studied Eisenhower's and Montgomery's battle tactics with great attention, had an interesting career with the South Eastern Asian Command in Burma and was part of the team that planned the Burma Command Headquarters. It was perhaps his Burma experience, combined with the fact that his father was already a builder who incidentally carried out expansion work at the Bishop Palace heritage building in Fort Cochin, that prompted him to join this field.
From Burma, Mr. Corrie went on to Poona and then onto Madras, Bangalore and Shillong, a journey which, as one of his family members says, was long and hard, but in Shillong, Mr. Corrie, his teacher-wife Dorothy and their children came into their own.
Mr. Corrie soon established himself as one of the leading architects in Meghalaya and has been responsible for giving shape to many of the hill state's landmark institutional buildings. With a background in planning, execution and modernisation of industrial, educational, health, and technical buildings very often on a large scale, Mr. Corrie's first major brush with planning a church building came with his design of the Sacred Heart Novitiate complex in Nambur-Guntur in Andhra, where the complex is built around a small chapel from which the rest of the structures radiate.
About to turn 80, Mr. Corrie's involvement with the reconstruction of the St. Sebastian's Church in the Thoppumpady area is, he believes, a challenge as he desires to incorporate necessary structural changes into the building without, as far as possible, incorporating any visible signs of change. He is however happy that the restoration of this over-a-century old church came his way because like most families living in this mid-Cochin area, the church holds for him many precious and sentimental memories. "I got married in this church, had my silver anniversary celebrations here, and God willing, will see my golden one here too", he says while reiterating with conviction that his family's faith in God has been the foundation on which its life has been built.
St. Sebastian's Church is situated in St. Sebastian's Parish, which was constructed in 1931 to give succour to the religious fervour of the people of Karuvelipady. Very few facts are known about St. Sebastian who was believed to be from Gaul and these few facts are heavily intertwined with legend, but he has been over the centuries a popular figure and has often been depicted in art. The Karuvelipady chapel contained the small but famous statue of St. Sebastian, which was moved to a larger church, constructed at Palluruthy in 1870 and was named after the saint.
This church, constructed mainly with lime and laterite, was largely approachable by waterways and is built in a Portuguese influenced style. It is the façade of the church that Mr. Sidney Corrie and others believe, should be preserved as it is, while taking into consideration the renovation of the church to accommodate over 1,300 people, which is greater than its present capacity. Flanked by St. Sebastian's school on one side and a burial ground on the other, the church could not be expanded by mere conventional extensions.
So what has been proposed is to restructure the inside by making the veranda walls on either side into the main walls. The structure will be fortified, using RCC while leaving the original intact. It will incorporate two matching belfries. "We want the traditional Portuguese façade to remain for the coming generations to view it as it has always been. We couldn't change it to any modern church", says Mr. Corrie. Even the insides would be subject to only minor modifications because he believes that "when you walk in you should see the same church". The prayer hall and the balcony would allow for a total area of 5.755 sq ft.
Mr. Sidney Corrie hopes that his wide travels and observations of churches around the world, together with his architectural experience will guide him well in what is for him a labour of love.
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Bangalore
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Thiruvananthapuram
Visakhapatnam
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