Celebrating 100 years of Art Deco: India's unique architectural legacy

A hundred years ago, Paris hosted the 1925 Exposition that gave Art Deco its name. The movement would captivate the world. Its language — sunbursts, zigzags, a blend of lavish curves with sharp symmetry, ancient motifs with modern materials — turned architecture into theatre. Unlike past styles that clung to tradition, Deco was restless. It travelled fast and shapeshifted easily, absorbing local flavours from Madras to Mumbai. On its centenary, a look at this iconic aesthetic.

In Mumbai, A Global Style gets A Local Avatar

Few cities have worn the style quite like Mumbai, with the aesthetic shaping the city’s skyline in a way that has lasted well beyond its initial boom. In fact, Mumbai is home to the world’s second-largest collection of Art Deco buildings after Miami. But how did this architectural movement take root here and why does it still hold such sway? One big reason is that it stayed true to global design principles while adapting to the city’s pulse. In cities like Paris and New York, Art Deco was all about luxury — marble, chrome, and glass — but in Mumbai, the materials used were sturdier like concrete, stone, and tiles, while the wide verandas, open balconies and airy spaces were designed to battle heat and humidity. Mustansir Dalvi, architect and trustee of Art Deco Mumbai Trust (ADMT) that has been documenting and advocating for this legacy since 2016, says, “The design wasn’t just for show but practical, to make life easier.” Architect Claude Batley, he adds, described them simply as ‘this new architecture’.

That ‘new architecture’ entered Bombay’s shores through multiple doors — cinema halls, community centres, residential buildings on newly reclaimed swamp land. These semi-circular buildings with sweeping curved balconies seemed to float above the street, with distinctive features like sunrise and wave motifs worked into wrought iron grilles and gates, porthole windows and vertical bands of glazed windows that lit up stairwells. “They were in sharp contrast to the dominant British neoclassicism of the time in colonial cities,” Dalvi points out.

The tide of time and redevelopment has claimed many of these structures over the years. The latest casualty may be Khar Municipal Market, the city’s only known Art Deco public market facing possible demolition. But across neighbourhoods — from Vile Parle to Matunga — some residents, architects and conservationists are pushing back with community-led restoration efforts to save what they can, before it’s too late.
Metro Cinema in Dhobitalao, built in 1938 by Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) as part of their expansion into the Indian film market, was restored to its former Art Deco glory in 2016. Eros Cinema with its curved lines and red sandstone V-shaped facade reopened last year with its heritage structure restored. For Dalvi, the fight isn’t just about nostalgia. “It’s about preserving not just buildings but neighbourhoods. These buildings all work together in some sort of an urban harmony,” he says. “And if you change the profile, height and the shape of any one building, the entire neighborhood loses its essential spirit, which is unfortunately happening in many places now.”

While Marine Drive and the Oval Maidan often steal the spotlight, the style took root in unlikely corners too. Take the Sumati Maternity Home (1945) in Vile Parle founded by Dr Chhaya Hindlekar in the post-war years. Tucked inside the unassuming Sumichha building, it brought Deco elegance to women’s healthcare in the suburbs. In Matunga, Kerala Bhavanam, built in 1958 by the Bombay Keraleeya Samaj, became a gathering point for Malayalis during Onam and other festivals. Dadar’s Sugat Niwas, with its curved balconies, frieze bands, and quiet red facade, is easy to miss but hard to forget.

In Sion, Vishwa building stands tall with its stupa domes, decorative brackets and clean modern lines — a textbook case of ‘Indo-Deco’ which, according toUnesco, is: Western in form but Indian in spirit. Dadar’s Gayatri Nilayam looks like a ship docked on land with its marine-inspired fish motifs, porthole windows and ship-like curved balconies. But what makes it radical is that it was among the first to bring toilets into the home with ‘self-contained’ flats that upended caste-driven ideas of purity and pollution.
In a city where so much is being torn down, Karfule in Ballard Estate is Mumbai’s only surviving Art Deco petrol pump, and a great example of how the design touched even the most everyday spaces. Built in 1938 by architect Gajanan B Mhatre, it has an octagonal kiosk, a long concrete canopy that seems to float overhead and a tall central tower — all classic Deco features. Inside, the star-shaped terrazzo flooring and brass grilles have been carefully preserved by the Sequeira family, who still run the station, In 2018, they hosted an exhibition with archival photos, original drawings, and vintage memorabilia for Karfule’s 80th anniversary to keep the pump’s legacy alive.

Dalvi warns that only a small fraction of the city’s Deco buildings are protected. “The only safe buildings are those that have the Unesco tag,” he points out. “Redevelopment can take place in any of the other buildings or neighbourhoods.” The only real defence, he believes, is awareness: “When people themselves understand that they are living in something special, they will protect it. As, in fact, happened with the Oval Maidan where citizens rallied to save the precinct. We need more such localised citizen-based initiatives.”

ADMT, which was founded by Atul Kumar in 2019, has also been guiding residents through restoration projects and offering archival and aesthetic expertise. Till date, the trust has documented 1,477 Art Deco buildings across Mumbai. “If you don’t know what you have, how can you preserve it or assign value to it?” says Kumar.

Their repair and restoration practice has assisted around 15 projects. “Some want just the original Art Deco lettering restored. Others find old photos and ask us to help bring back colour palettes from the 1930s. And then there are the full-scale facelifts,” says Kumar. Their interdisciplinary team includes conservation architects, historians, researchers and outreach specialists.

One standout success is Swastik Court, a five-storey Deco apartment from the 1930s near Oval Maidan. By 2019, it had fallen into disrepair. But in a rare collaboration between landlords, residents, contractors and the ADMT team, the building was revived from “decrepit” — as its residents put it — into a “showpiece.” Another example is Empress Court, a majestic 1936 structure on a corner plot along the Oval, where residents worked with the trust to restore its original name lettering.

“We’re seeing what I call the third pivot,” says Kumar. “People are now saying they don’t want to lose their property to redevelopment. They’re asking if they can grade their building as heritage.”
Policy, however, remains a stumbling block. “So, the colonial buildings all get listed quite easily. But these buildings are relatively young and have been in constant use so it’s not easy to get heritage protection. That needs to be re-looked at,” says Dalvi. Beyond heritage status, there’s also the economic pressure to rebuild.
It’s not the same thing, but Kumar observes that Deco design is enjoying a quieter resurgence, be it in the lobbies of multiplexes or high-end developments in Worli. “We’re getting proposals now from developers who want to theme their projects around Art Deco,” he says. “There’s definitely a resurgence but in a different avatar.”

Mapping Delhi’s Hidden 'eyebrow' Marvels

Can buildings have eyebrows and eyelids? In Art Deco architecture, eyebrows are overhangs or 'chhajas' above windows and balconies that shield the interior from sun and rain. 'Eyelids' are sweeping canopies or projecting roofs that lend entrances a theatrical flair. A 2023 pocket guide map of Delhi’s Art Deco buildings illustrates these features through hand-drawn details, mapping 20 examples — from St Stephen’s College and Dholpur House to Safdarjung Airport and Delite Cinema’s tripartite elevation.

The map is the handiwork of DecoInDelhi, a digital archive created by arts researchers Geetanjali Sayal and Prashansa Sachdeva. When they began documenting Delhi’s urban heritage in 2020, Art Deco wasn’t their focus. But walking through Daryaganj and Chandni Chowk, they began noticing streamlined balconies, porthole windows and stylised grills. They later realised they had uncovered a scattered, little-known substrata of Art Deco in the capital, hidden in plain sight.
Most people associate Delhi with grand Mughal, neoclassical and modern brutalist landmarks. “But Art Deco flourished wherever ordinary citizens had agency. It’s the quiet antithesis to what was officially imposed,” says Sayal.

“Pusa Road, in particular, became a street where Art Deco buildings came through a mix of Delhi Improvement Trust (DIT, which was a predecessor of DDA) projects and private commissions. Architects from DIT were Anglo-Indians or of mixed ethnicities so they had exposure to the style,” adds Sayal.

With a grant from the India Foundation for the Arts, DecoInDelhi’s work has expanded into documentation, photographer collaborations, archival work with backstories about the buildings, architects, homeowners etc, and a glossary (including signage typography).

Sayal says the current focus is working with homeowners. “For instance, someone whose house we documented earlier on Pusa Road is now collaborating with us to tell the story of her Deco-style maternal home which was demolished.”

Hyderabad’s Multicultural History Deco-ded

In the 1930s, Austrian architect Karl Malte von Heinz, a refugee from Nazi Germany where Hitler’s regime was cracking down on the Bauhaus movement, introduced Art Deco to Hyderabad. He was invited by Raja Ram Rao of Wanaparthy to design a house in Banjara Hills, later known as Mount Pleasant and now part of Muffakham Jah College. Architects like Mohammed Fayazuddin and Eric Marrett later helped popularise the style across the city. Marett also designed the Raj Bhavan (then the Governor’s residence), which recently became the fitting location for kickstart ing celebrations to mark 100 years of Art Deco.

Architect Srinivas Murthy, founding president of Architecture & Design Foundation India (ADFI), has led extensive documentation of the style. “We’ve now documented 148 key Art Deco buildings in Hyderabad of which around 60% are private residences,” he says. “Hyderabad’s Deco is unique because of its multicultural roots. You find Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist, and European architectural influences fused into Deco forms. Few other cities have this layered expression... Many Deco homes are perched on hills or near these ancient granite formations, which makes the buildings especially interesting and construction quite challenging.”

But like in several other Indian cities, it’s a struggle to save these structures. “Since these buildings aren’t protected by law, they can legally be demolished. In the past 4-5 years, 12-15 Deco buildings in Hyderabad have been lost,” says Murthy. “It is ironic that while the whole world is celebrating 100 years of Art Deco, a landmark like Secunderabad railway station was demolished earlier this year. That’s why we’re urging for more awareness campaigns and incentives for owners," says Murthy. He led Hyderabad’s first Art Deco walk on April 29 through Secunderabad’s Jeera Colony, with stops at Rashtrapati Road and Monda Market, home to the twin cities’ Art Deco-style clock tower.

Murthy has tracked Deco across India. “We’ve found structures in Punjab, Kerala, Goa, even in rural and semi-rural stretches. In Kerala and Goa, you see ‘Tropical Art Deco’ with sloping roofs. In cities like Hyderabad or Patiala, the Deco style is closer to its original geometric form. Each place has absorbed and interpreted it in its own way.”

In Chennai, Revival Begins With Memories

Chennai, once rich in Art Deco architecture, has lost many of its gems to redevelopment — among them, the iconic Dasaprakash Hotel in Egmore, known for its porthole windows and wood-paneled interiors. But today, a new generation is attempting to rediscover this legacy. Artist Abhilaasha N and architect-turned-writer Archita S recently held a sketching workshop to mark 100 years of Art Deco. “In the 100th year of Art Deco, this felt like a fitting way to introduce people to the style,” says Archita. Using archival photographs, participants drew the original facade of Casino Theatre, which used to be one of Chennai’s finest Deco cinemas but its renovated avatar bears no trace of its Art Deco roots.

Prathyaksha Krishna Prasad, founder of Art Deco Madras and The Heritage Art Collective, has given many talks on Chennai’s Deco history and is now curating a Deco-specific walk. “If I had limitless resources, I’d have conserved the Dasaprakash Hotel,” she says. “But my dream is to create a dedicated Deco museum that captures not just the architecture, but life in 1920s Madras.”
Kolkata’s Metro-Style Bari Get New Life as cafes, boutiques
Kolkata’s Art Deco is more domestic and personal rather than institutional. “What’s unique here is how the middle class adapted Art Deco,” says writer and former MP Jawhar Sircar, who has led public walks and tours through South Kolkata.

The Calcutta Improvement Trust’s redevelopment schemes in the 1930s set the stage for this architectural flowering. “Around the 1950s, the corporation didn’t require an architect’s signature for house plans. People could simply hire masons and build,” says Sircar. And build they did — across Hindustan Park, Southern Avenue, Keyatala, Lake Road and New Alipore. It was often the women of the house who directed the design. “They’d call the mason and say, ‘Metro bari chaai’. That meant they wanted geometric lines, a breeze-catching frontage and a circular veranda.” These homes have proven surprisingly resilient. “Almost all of them [are] still standing. That’s the most heartening part.”

In fact, they’ve found new life — as boutique cafés and designer stores and even modern jazz clubs that use the signage style. “It’s young people running these cafés in Art Deco homes. Menus are experimental. The vibe is youthful. When I walk in, they look at me like I’ve walked in from another era,” says Sircar. From the ‘jahaj bari’ (ship-shaped houses) of Elgin Road to hundreds of homes documented by Instagram accounts like Calcutta Art Deco and Calcutta Houses, the city’s democratic embrace of the style is finally being seen. If he could, he says, he would advocate for an official Art Deco district that spans Alipore, New Alipore and Rashbehari Avenue.
Writer Amit Chaudhuri also helped bring attention to Kolkata’s Art Deco in 2015 with an essay in The Guardian that led to the formation of Calcutta Architectural Legacies (CAL). “I think Calcutta has — along with Bombay — among the greatest number of Art Deco buildings in the world,” he says. That year, he joined INTACH in a PIL against the demolition of Roxy Cinema, a historic Art Deco structure, now being restored after a successful campaign. CAL and INTACH are also working to save the Lake Temple Road cluster, a well-known pocket of Art Deco residences in South Kolkata.

"But things move slowly,” admits Chaudhuri whose first novel, ‘A Strange and Sublime Address’, was about a Calcutta house that was “magical in its ordinariness”. He says the civic body needs to recognise that Art Deco often defines neighbourhoods, not individual landmarks.