India’s ‘Miami’: Putting Mumbai’s Art Deco on the map

MUMBAI: The seafront is lined with brightly coloured buildings boasting curved corners, stylish balconies and exotic motifs but this isn´t Miami´s famous Art Deco district -- it´s Mumbai.
Bombay, as the Indian city was formerly called, is known more for its Victorian Gothic edifices than the sleeker architectural designs that swept Europe and America during the 1920s and ´30s.
But now, a group of enthusiasts are making Mumbai´s hundreds of Deco structures, which include residential properties, commercial offices, cinemas and even hospitals, as famous as their 19th century counterparts.
The ambitious Art Deco Mumbai project aims to document every single one and educate residents about the buildings´ origins to ensure the "style moderne" architectural legacy of India´s financial capital is preserved. "Bombay has one of the largest collections of Art Deco buildings in the world. It´s an incredible heritage," Atul Kumar, keen conservationist and founder of Art Deco Mumbai, tells AFP.
Palm trees blow gently along the three-kilometre Marine Drive promenade where Soona Mahal, a symmetrical, yellow-painted building with orange vertical lines and elaborate turret, sits proudly on the street corner.
"It´s an iconic building that looks like a ship pushing through waves," says 70-year-old Mehernosh Sidhwa proudly. He is the third generation of his family to live in it after his grandfather had it built in 1937.
Around the corner, five-storey buildings sporting elegant Deco fonts, marble floors and spiral staircases line the Oval Maidan playing field while nearby are the popular Eros and Regal cinemas.
The areas make up the heart of Mumbai´s Art Deco precinct which in 2012 was submitted to Unesco for world heritage recognition. A short distance up the coast is Breach Candy hospital, also in Deco style.
"There´s an interesting amalgamation of classical European Art Deco and Bombay Deco. You have ziggurats, rounded locomotive balconies,

tropical images, streamlining, speed lines and Egyptian motifs as well as Indian designs," enthuses Kumar.
The buildings were constructed between the early 1930s and early 1950s after wealthy Indians sent their architects to Europe to come up with modern designs different to those of their colonial rulers.
They visited as Deco was taking the West by storm following the 1925 Paris exposition. "Mumbai´s Deco buildings have always lived in the shadow of the Victorian Gothic structures built by the British," such as the main railway station, museum and high court, says Kumar.