Vandan, Shivaji Park, Dadar. Situated quaintly in the second concentric ring around Shivaji Park, Vandan enjoys the best of both worlds, being in close proximity to the park, yet located on a quiet street of its own. Impeccably finished, a powder blue coat of paint highlights its elements like the curvaceous eyebrows, handrails and the balusters of the balconies. The name of the building appears on the stairwell, in neat Art Deco lettering adapted to the Devanagari script.

Vandan retains much of its original character – a modest Ground+2 structure which would also have been the building mandate for the apartment systems around it. One of the largest Art Deco precincts in the city, Shivaji Park boasts of a vast open space, and a unique public culture prompted by infrastructural elements like the katta, a low boundary wall around the park’s circumference which becomes a makeshift seating – a place for meetings, leisure and rest on a hot Mumbai afternoon.

Part of a vision to create hygienic living conditions, in the aftermath of the Bubonic plague in the late 19th century, the precinct was developed in the 1920s, with the park opening to the public in 1925. The modest scale and ornamentation of the Art Deco buildings around the Park, when compared to the Oval and Marine Drive precincts, is perhaps a reflection of the quiet, leisurely, middle-class culture of the neighbourhood.

Vandan, with its simple geometric profile highlighted only with the two-tone colour scheme, fits right into the original tranquil vision for this neighbourhood.

R. A. Podar College, Matunga; Year: 1941. Ramniranjan Anandilal Podar College of Commerce and Economics is one of the most sought after colleges for commerce in the city. Built in 1941, with a donation of 1.5 lakhs (a considerable sum at the time) from industrialist and philanthropist Ramdeoji Anandilal Podar, the college was established in honour of his late brother.

Upon completion, the campus was gifted to the Shikshan Prasarak Mandali, which already ran the Ramnarain Ruia College next door (established in 1937). In the backdrop of a spirited independence struggle, the college was set up with an aim to “inculcate indigenous values” in education.