Zaver Mahal, Marine Drive, Bombay.

It is a very little known fact that today’s Mumbai plays host to the second-largest number of Art Deco buildings in the world after Miami. Most visitors gape in awe at the city’s monumental Victorian Gothic buildings, and oftentimes overlook this other part of the city’s architectural heritage.

Bombay’s Art Deco buildings attest to a time when the city was a glitzy, glittering, fabulous, paradise of a metropolis (which Mumbai still is, of course, but in a different way).  Many of these buildings – particularly the residences – were built by wealthy Parsis from the 1920s to the 1940s. The early ones have Arcadian English names like Oceana, Fairlawn and Green Fields.

There are two main areas where one finds residential Art Deco – the first is on the western flank of the Oval Maidan, where a row of residential Art Deco buildings stands facing the monumental Victorian Gothic civic buildings on the eastern flank of the Maidan.

The second is Marine Drive – Bombay’s jewel of an esplanade; 3 kilometres of exquisite Art Deco residences, echoing Miami Beach.

The tour takes the intrepid tourist across both these areas, and then, since we are there anyway, we take a leisurely jaunt up Malabar Hill – the abode of Bombay/Mumbai’s rich and wealthy – ending our tour at the Hanging Gardens where one gets a panoramic view of not only Marine Drive, but all of Bombay.

For a detailed inventory of all of Mumbai’s Art Deco buildings, visit the excellent site Art Deco Mumbai at http://www.artdecomumbai.com. This is a non-profit that has been meticulously photographing and documenting Art Deco buildings in Mumbai, in the hopes of securing conservation status for them.

Churchgate, Oval Maidan 

Eros Cinema, 1938.

Industrial Assurance Building Clock Tower.

Court View.

Fairlawn.

Green Fields.

Empress Court.

Rajesh Mansions

Rajjab Mahal

Shiv Shanti Bhuvan

Marine Drive

View of Marine Drive towards Malabar Hill. The three kilometre walk can be taken in

Shanti Kuteer

Oceana

Sea Green Hotel

Suna Mahal (right) and Sunder Mahal (left)

View of Marine Drive, with its row of Art Deco residences.

Krishna Mahal

Keval Mahal

Sonawala

Al-Sabah Court

From right to left: Al-Jabreya Court, Matruchchaya, Giri Kunj, Bharatiya Bhawan

Backward glance at Marine Drive

Gobind Mahal

Meghdoot – this is the very last Art Deco building on Marine Drive proper.

Chowpatty Beach and Malabar Hill 

Chowpatty Beach

Chowpatty Beach

Purandare Hospital, on the Chowpatty Beach waterfront.

View to Malabar Hill

Residences at the foot of Malabar Hill

Historic buildings at the foot of Malabar Hill

Memorial to the Parsis who died during the Great War 1914 – 1918.

Residences on the way up Malabar Hill.

Residences on the way up Malabar Hill

Antilia – private residence of the Ambanis.

Hanging Gardens

View of Marine Drive, from the Hanging Gardens in Malabar Hill.

And finally…a backward glance at Marine Drive.