चाळ and Chawl

Abstract 

In Bombay, chawls were made due to the increase in city population after the growth of mills and industries in the 19th century. During British rule in India, insufficient housing for migrants working at mills led to the growth of chawls. This paper depicts how settlements were started by indigenous practices of traders and migrants, which gave rise to chawl settlement and inspired different living scenarios. Further, the paper investigates how the form of chawl is derived from the spatial organization of onion trading companies, which can also be seen in the present time period.

Historical context

In the 1700s, during the colonial period when the British started trading in India, Bombay was a center for trade. This eventually led to the growth of textile mills and trading companies, which created a job opportunity for people, and migrants started to come and settle in south Bombay. British merchants and officials used to live in bungalows, but very little space was given for workers to accommodate. The space was constructed by the Bombay Development Department, with the basic type of chawl consisting of one or two room tenements strung along a corridor with a staircase and common toilets at one end. These chawls can be ground story structures and can go up to 4 stories, having 8 to 16 dwellings separated by a wall, where each dwelling is known as ‘Kholi’. There can be different variations of this type, including single or continuous buildings with a linear or courtyard formation..

Space - Typology and typological variations and affordances and how they work for spatial justice

Little is known about the genealogy of the chawl. One can only speculate where this type must have developed from. One speculation is that it must have come from soldiers' barracks, where multi story blocks are placed in quadrangles around the courtyard or parade ground. This form is also seen in the Wadi, which is characterized by small nodes and space with a shop on the ground floor and a residence above, consisting of single room tenements with common corridors and shared toilet.

However, interestingly, this type can also be seen in the चाळ of onion trading companies to store onions. U and L shaped chawls can be seen in the onion godowns, where the product is stored at edges for ventilation and gets loaded into the vehicles at the center, with a sloping roof on top that prevents water from entering, proper light and ventilation from all sides, and a toilet at one end. 

The basic form of the chawl remains the same, even in different types. Chawls have distinct architectural features, such as the room, also known as ‘kholi’, consisting of a living space with a kitchen, which opens into a long corridor that serves as key access to the room, with a staircase and sanitary facility at either end of the chawl. Due to the smaller housing space, corridors become an extension of the living space where people store their furniture and childrens use the space to play. This makes the space transactional and allows light and ventilation to pass through. The Courtyard at the center becomes extremely important as festivals, religious functions, as well as day to day activities of children and discussions take place. It becomes the subject of interest because of its position. Living space gets extended into corridors and courtyards, performing various activities, which blurs the lines between private and public space. 

The trading companies were started first, and then the idea of living space emerged. Chawl is organized in such a way which resembles to the organization of onion चाळ, does it mean that the chawl is an idea taken from onion चाळ ?

L Shape

Linear 

Parallel 

Reworking of type in the contemporary context

In the late 1900s, Baithi chawls were made with brick masonry, a load bearing wooden framework, and finished with a sloping thatched roof and a ground structure with many activities spilling over onto the ground. Later, these chawls were replaced by 3-4 stories, due to the high population density. The structure was built with a timber framework and brick masonry, and the thatched roof was replaced with a slab and terrace. Later in 1930, government agencies started building chawls as a solution for mass housing problems with brick and concrete for speed of construction. Similar typologies of chawl can be seen around the world, with the use of semi open space and social ethos. 

Aranya, which is the low cost housing in Indore, India, made by B.V. Doshi, uses the idea of courtyards and cluster levels to induce cooling, ventilation, and create space for people (Bhatt, n.d.). On the other hand, the Pedregulho housing in Rio, built by Affonso Ridy, resembles the chawl greatly with winding corridors, which provide communal space to the people living there (Reidy, n.d.). KJ Somaiya College of Information Technology, made by Sameep Padora, has two courtyards with a veranda like circulation that promotes chance of interaction and air ventilation along with light ventilation (Padora, n.d., #). Different architectural elements from chawl typology are seen in the present time period.

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