History

In the 1860s the British colonial administration of Bombay undertook a monumental transformation of the city’s eastern esplanade. Following the demolition of the old fortifications, a sweeping seafront promenade was created, and along it the colonial government constructed a series of public institutions in the then-fashionable Gothic Revival style — the same style then reshaping the centres of London, Paris, and Vienna. The Bombay architects adapted it boldly: open arcaded verandahs replaced solid stone walls to prevent tropical overheating; local Kurla basalt and Porbandar limestone replaced European stone; decorative programmes blended pointed Gothic arches with Hindu and Saracenic motifs. The buildings that resulted — the Bombay High Court (1878), the University Library and Rajabai Clock Tower (1878), the Secretariat (1874), Elphinstone College (1888) — were unlike anything in Britain.

From the 1920s onward, the newly reclaimed Back Bay seafront (Marine Drive) became the canvas for a second architectural revolution. Mumbai’s emerging middle class — Parsi, Hindu, Muslim — commissioned apartments in the international Art Deco styles sweeping from Paris and Miami. The result was Asia’s largest concentration of Art Deco residential architecture, built in a remarkably short window and preserved almost intact to this day.