Mumbai’s Glorious Art Deco Heritage at 100 Years

It was at a historic architecture exhibition in Paris in 1925 that the Art Deco aesthetic first exploded onto the scene.

Over the next 100 years, this glamorous building style – evoking neon-lit jazz bars and the golden age of big movies – quickly spread around the world.

It has moved from the famous pastel facades of Miami’s South Beach hotels to the sprawling necklace of mansions along the waterfront of Mumbai’s Marine Drive.

The distinctive motifs of Art Deco – characterized by geometric patterns ziggurats (stepped towers), sweeping curves, sunburst designs, nautical elements and circular or turreted roofs – symbolized an unequivocal break with the past, celebrating the dawn of a new, unapologetic post-war modern era.

In a short time, the style transcended architecture to influence the design sensibilities of interiors, furniture, typefaces, jewelry and some of the world’s most iconic cinemas – from New York’s Radio City Music Hall to the Regal, Liberty and Eros cinemas in Mumbai.

“It represented hope, optimism and speed, coinciding with the emergence of the automobile and also concrete as a building material which, compared to stone, could be worked in a tenth less time and a fifth the cost,” Atul Kumar, founder of the Art Deco Mumbai Trust and curator of a new exhibition celebrating the centenary of Art Deco in the city, told the BBC.

“It was not elaborate like the Victorian Gothic design that preceded it, but it had a classicism and simplicity that has survived the test of time,” he said.

And nowhere has this been more evident than in Mumbai, which Mr. Kumar says is home to the largest documented collection of Art Deco buildings in the world. Other estimates place Mumbai second behind Miami.

What made Mumbai’s tryst with Art Deco particularly interesting was the way the city embraced its characteristics in a truly global way.

Much like Miami, the style emerged in the city during a time of economic flux and transformation, spurred by its modern, mercantile energy as a port city.

But unlike Miami where it “arrived as a leisure or spectacle projection,” in Mumbai the “style found resonance in various building typologies, including schools, cinemas, bungalows, gas stations and banks,” Mr. Kumar said.

Mumbai’s Art Deco buildings were, and often still are, hidden in plain sight, with even their occupants often blissfully unaware of their cultural moorings.

But their omnipresent architectural shadow over the city is perhaps the reason why Art Deco “seeps into the public imagination at large and remains relevant in the emotional quotient of Mumbai”, Mr. Kumar added.

The style was introduced to Mumbai at a time when it was under colonial rule.

It was the first group of local architects in India – landmark figures like Chimanlal Master, Laxman Vishnu Sathe and Gopalji Mulji Bhuta – who incorporated it into their designs after returning home with degrees from the Royal Institute of British Architects in London.

“They were suddenly exposed to new European sensibilities and wanted to bring them back to their country, deeply colonized by the imposition of Victorian buildings,” Mr Kumar said.

But they adapted Art Deco and vernacularized it, incorporating local design patterns, drawing inspiration from disparate local elements, including ocean liners docked in Mumbai’s ports and even the latticework screens so typical of Mughal architecture.

The British were initially dismissive, calling Art Deco “lesser architecture,” but were likely threatened, Mr. Kumar said, because it signaled the dawn of a new era and new identities that were shaping India’s public spaces.

It was only a matter of time before South Mumbai’s skyline became a rich confluence of Indo-Saracenic, Gothic and Art Deco buildings.

Today, Mumbai is once again a rapidly changing city – its building code governed by real estate tycoons trying to maximize floor space index, giving way to utilitarian rather than stylistic considerations.

Dozens of Art Deco buildings have been erased to make way for glass and steel facades, and hundreds more are under threat.

Over the past decade, Mr. Kumar has documented more than 1,500 truly representative buildings of this style, but only 70 of them are protected.

The authorities are apathetic about their preservation, so his organization engages directly with people, offering voluntary advice on repairs and restoration to prevent them from handing over their properties to builders for redevelopment.

“The response was positive as people saw the value of their properties increase after the renovations,” Mr Kumar said.

There are others, like the architect and designer Nidhi Tekwani, who reinvents Art Deco objects and hopes to adapt them to a contemporary context.

For example, Art Deco furniture was often bulky, its lighting fixtures intended for high ceilings, and its dressing tables too elaborate for today’s compact apartments. Ms. Tekwani aims to design and launch more elegant products while preserving the fundamental principles of Art Deco.

“The hope is to translate it into something modern and well-suited to our current lifestyle demands,” Ms. Tekwani said of her efforts to keep Art Deco a living tradition in a city that is being remade with one wink of an eye.

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