An exhibition on the architects and architecture firms which built some of the best buildings in Mumbai ended at the Asiatic society on March 10. A laudable venture . Sadly, the architecture community is silent on the bad work being produced by some of its members in Mumbai.
The most outrageous is the torturous make over of the area in front of the Bandra heritage suburban railway station. The station building with its recent renovation now looks quite pretty, next in looks to the Chhatrapati Shivaji terminus. The photographs are being widely shared on the social media.
But there is no criticism whatsoever of the extremely shoddy changes made at much expense to the area in front of the station on the Western side. It is a torture to walk, take a bus , an auto rickshaw or a taxi here.
Extremely bad engineering and design have led to congestion, noise, pollution, confusion. But architects remain silent, it is almost a conspiracy of silence, the spirit of self criticism, analysis is missing.
That apart let us look at some of the landmark areas in Mumbai.
As one looks around the Eros cinema theatre building reopened recently after refurbishing for years, one is struck by one oddity that Churchgate suburban train terminus presents. This in an area surrounded by charming buildings. The station building is so prosaic, bland with badly maintained surroundings. They talk of last minute connectivity but here the connectivity at the starting point itself is so poor.
The best in the area is of course the wonderful heaquarters of western railway built in black stone in the 19th century right opposite Churchgate station. What a contrast.. Next to Eros is the Industrial Assurance heritage stone building and on the other side is the Indian Merchants Chamber which one has taken for granted all these years, it is much nicer than Churchgate and unlike Churchgate it is pre independence.
A plaque in the porch on the ground floor of the IMC building says was built in 1939 by architects Master, Sathe and Bhuta. Was wondering who these were when I realised during the current exhibition of art deco buidings at the Asiatic Society that they were quite prominent figures of the time.
The building was built in memory of Lalji Narainji out of funds collected from the public. The Walchand Hirachand hall came up later in the building and was opened by the then chief minister Morarji Desai in 1955.
Laxman Sathe 1893-1965 studied at J.J. school of architecture and also played a big role in the making of the adjoining Laxmi Insurance building.
Gopal Bhuta 1896-1963 was responsible for work on the Bombay Central station, TIFR and IIT Powai.
At Hutatma Chowk, the oddity amidst several heritage buildings is the government-built videsh Sanchar bhavan.
It is a pleasure to walk in the heritage area in south Mumbai including from the police commissioner’s office and Crawford Market, past Times of India, BMC, Chhatrapati Shivaji terminus, to Colaba, Marine Drive and several other areas. Such a contrast with much of suburban Mumbai.
Dattatray Chaudhari of Gregson Batley designed the LIC Yogakshem semi circular building near Mantralaya. Another prominent architecture firm was Merwanji, Bana, was glad to know senior journalist and vocalist Sarosh Bana comes from this family.
But Dadar and Matunga have some of the finest and much larger number of buildings than in South Mumbai, they are not so imposing and are comparatively neglected and less studied. Some chawls like the one at the Plaza cinema junction are in good condition and are of much heritage value. The architects were the trio of Marathe, Kulkarni and Patki.
Also Gajanan Baburao Mhatre was a big name, Claude Batley called him Silent because he often lent his expertise to others without claiming credit, much of his work did not get enough recognition. He had studied architecture in London while working to earn his livelihood. I particularly remember one of his buildings, a residential one, in Chowpatty which so much care is taken of details, like even providing a resting place for domestic help.
Narayan Pansare’s sculptures adorn several buildings in the Fountain area.
Aurora cinema theatre at King’s circle is a landmark art deco building made by Marathe, Kulkarni and Virkar in 1942, it is closed for many years and is in a sad state. It showed Tamil films since the beginning.
Right now, we are in a very ugly phase of construction and little is being written about this. Many new buildings are utterly faceless, dull with very bad frontage, dominated by car parking with little human element, very unfriendly to the street. Inreased automobilization is a major contributor to this.
Some of the most unfriendly bungalows I noticed are in JVPD, imposing with high compound walls, heavy gates, , completely cut off from streets, shows the arrogance, unfriendliness of the owners.
Street friendliness of buildings is valued in more democratic countries in Europe, I just read that in Belgium, some people go out of their way to make insides of their houses very visible to people on the street.
Devendra Mohan, senior journalist, says some time in 1956 or ’57 and in my growing up years when my family lived in then Bombay I remember the construction of the present Churchgate Station building. Even with a child’s eye I could feel there was something incongruous there in the construction of the building and this in view of the multi-styled architecture surrounding it. But the area gave a pulsating, vibrant and even a sensational feeling which was due the very nature of Bombay city. And then for decades together I travelled by train to Churchgate and felt its masticating overtures to people disgorged by the local trains. It no longer gave the sensation of yore. On the contrary, it overwhelmed you with the feeling of endless struggle of human existence necessitated by a compulsion-driven urge to eke out livelihood put forward by force of circumstances of life…
I have observed and felt that most Scandinavian homes on the streets of their cities are far more open than in colonising countries such as Great Britain and France where everything has been habitually and traditionally kept under wraps. One can see the difference between homes in England and Paris and Stockholm and Copenhagen, and in towns and cities of Norway or even the Netherlands. The difference between homes is so distinct. I can say this after having lived in some cities of these countries. The countries that colonised other countries and people and the ones that did not or less colonised others. The British and the French always kept their homes “private” and the others in Europe did not. People who occupy JVPD in Mumbai and various colonies in Delhi and other big cities elsewhere suffer from the same “privacy” malaise.
That apart much of the architecture community is silent on the rank bad planning being resorted to by two top planning bodies in the Mumbai region, MMRDA, Mumbai metropolitan region development authority, and CIDCO, city industrial development corporation.
MMRDA is ideologically as well as financially bankrupt and has run into heavy debts with grandiose projects serving vested interests. CIDCO is now chosen to plan for the entire Konkan coastal belt extending hundreds of km. This is feared to be a disaster, it has inflicted immense harm with bad planning of the former green belt of Vasai-Virar on the outskirts of Mumbai which is now becoming a concrete jungle.
Vidyadhar Date is a senior journalist, culture critic and author of a book on public transport
