Through her lived experiences and a lifelong study of the city’s cultural history, Shanta Gokhale explains what makes this Deco neighbourhood special.
Gallery
May 16, 2023

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.
May 16, 2023

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.
May 16, 2023

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.
May 16, 2023

Vandan, with its simple geometric profile highlighted only with the two-tone colour scheme, fits right into the original tranquil vision for this neighbourhood.
May 10, 2023

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.

Inventory
An inventory of Art Deco buildings with an interactive map showing you where they are located. Explore neighbourhoods, buildings, features and elements.
Browse AllResearch

An Architecture of Style, Not Ideology: Popular Criticisms of Art Deco
A look at various opinions, discourses and views opposing what we know today as Art Deco, at the time of its emergence and retrospectively.

CONSERVATION EFFORTS
Lessons from the Field: The Repair and Restoration of Swastik Court, Oval MaidanGet a glimpse of the process behind repairing and restoring an 85-year-old Art Deco apartment building in Mumbai.

Advertisements and Consumer Culture: An Illustrated Glimpse of Modern Life in 20th Century Bombay
An illustrated glimpse into consumer culture and modern life in 20th century Bombay, as seen through print advertisements.

Liberty Cinema: The Showplace of the Nation - A Short Film
This film is a tribute to Habib and Nazir Hoosein, the makers and custodians of Liberty Cinema who gave Bombay much more than a theatre.