Chronicling Mumbai's Art Deco

UNESCO took some time to acknowledge what Atul Kumar, creator of @artdecomumbai, always knew: Mumbai’s Art Deco buildings deserved special status.

- Cynthia Lewis

THE ICONIC OVAL MAIDAN in the south of the city is flanked by two Mumba is. One side is mostly Victorian New-Gothic from the late 19th century, with buildings covered in turrets, gargoyles and curlicues; on the other side is a stunning panorama of Art Deco buildings from the early 1900s, with curvilinear structures, pastel coloured walls, marble corridors inlaid with teak and sweeping balconies with stern brows.

Art Deco may have originated in France in the early 1900s, but it was the architects of what was then Bombay who embraced it with unbridled enthusiasm, starting in the 1930s. They gave it their own unique flavor, often adding elements in the design that gave it a distinctively Indian character, creating a style often referred to as Indo- Deco. The south and central areas of the city and some of the northern suburbs, which were largely built in that era, are still strewn with these architectural gems, many of which have now gone to seed.