Plea against ‘botched’ restoration at CSMT

MUMBAI: An

online petition

moved after photographs emerged of renovations to the

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus

showing faces of classical sculptures reconstructed in a “cartoonish” manner has garnered over 500 signatures.


Among the signatories to the petition that urges Central Railway to “acknowledge this error and employ well-qualified architects” is Diana Robertson, the great, great granddaughter of

CSMT

’s architect Frederick William Stevens. Robertson — whose visit to Mumbai in 2017 was greeted with much fanfare including a special lighting scheme for the terminus — left a comment on heritage enthusiast Vinayak Talwar’s petition on change.org: “So sad to see this being done to the beautiful building built by my great, great grandfather.”




Completed in 1888 in the Gothic Revival style, CSMT (formerly Victoria Terminus) was listed as a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2004.

An architecture professor, who asked not to be named, critiqued the sculptural restorations. “The realism normally seen in sculptures of this type is just not there. The replacements seem very naïve and flattened-out versions of the originals,” he said. “They should have understood the architectural style and found somebody who can actually sculpt in that style.” Bharat Gothoskar, founder of city-walks group Khaki Tours, pointed out that an elephant relief carved on a Great Indian Peninsular Railway shield now looks like a mouse. “This is terrible,” he said.

Other criticisms include the fact that original Minton tiles are being replaced without attempting to preserve the originals and the replacements don’t match the originals; the stained glass replacement is in copper foil when it should be in lead; no research was done to find out what the coloured glass in the concourse originally looked like before creating a replacement; and the original circular wooden windows were much thicker than the replacements, and so withstood the westerly rains for 130 years.

“Authenticity plays an important role in conservation of world heritage sites and this aspect seems missing though the intent is good,” said conservation architect Vikas Dilawari, who has recently been co-opted on to the city heritage conservation commission.

Responding to the criticism, CR’s senior public relations officer Anil Kumar Jain said: “Restoration work is still in progress and shall be done with highest standards. All concerns shall be duly taken care of. The contractor and architects involved in the work have vast experience of restoration and have done similar work for CSMT in the past.”

Gothoskar was aghast. “This is like saying, ‘A ward boy and nurse have been assisting a doctor for years together so they can do an open heart surgery… It is a World Heritage Site, so there has to be the involvement of a qualified conservation architect.”

This isn’t the first time that CSMT’s Rs 51-crore restoration project has received flak. In January this year, the Mumbai Heritage Conservation Committee raised concerns about the painting of the external Porbandar stone. This charge was denied by CR, which insisted that only a jet of potable water was used to clean the façade. It claimed the work has been undertaken by a “renowned heritage contractor under the supervision of senior railway engineers based on a heritage consultant report of M/s Intach & ACC…”

However, Tasneem Mehta, who is on INTACH’s executive committee, had told TOI at the time, “We wrote the fabric status report, which we were supposed to execute. Now, the railways has decided to do it themselves, but they don’t have the conservation knowledge required to do such a complex building.”