Honouring the architects and firms that built Bombay in the past century, city-based Art Deco Trust will be organising a nine-day exhibition, including curatorial walkthroughs around the historic buildings in the city. The exhibition will include interactions with renowned architects and owners of these historic buildings along with showcasing unseen documents and photographs of the buildings.
According to Atul Kumar, founder-trustee of the Art Deco Mumbai Trust, the organisation has been working to document and educate people about the architecture and beauty of the vintage buildings around the city. Along with the Mumbai Research Centre at the Asiatic Society of Mumbai, the trust will be organising an exhibition on ‘Architects and Firms That Build Modern Bombay’.
The 'Architects and Firms That Build Modern Bombay’ exhibition
The exhibition aims to honour the architects and firms who built Bombay from the 1930s to 1950s with a progressive vision for a modern way of life. It is also an attempt to transition the narrative from the masters of Neo-Gothic and Indo-Saracenic architecture and bring attention to the architects who eventually had a much wider footprint on the city.
The exhibition will start on March 2 with Jean-Marc Sere-Charlet, the Consul General of France in Mumbai as the chief guest and Sameep Padora, Dean at the Faculty of Architecture, CEPT University Ahmedabad as the keynote speaker. The exhibition which will continue till March 10 will host renowned architects as speakers along with owners of famous art deco buildings in the city that include Karfule at Ballard Estate and Soona Mahal at Marine Drive.
The exhibition also includes different curatorial walkthroughs for architecture lovers on every day of the exhibition. A special walkthrough of Liberty Cinema will be organised on March 5, while public historian and educator Alisha Sadikot will lead a special walkthrough on the concluding day of the exhibition.
Kumar said, “Several of these were the first generation of Indian architects, graduating from homegrown schools. Much of the built form of the city they designed and envisioned still stands tall and has provided Mumbaikars with a quality of life they have enjoyed for decades. Yet they have never been identified or acknowledged for their singular contribution in shaping modern Bombay.”
