You Can Revisit Mumbai's Iconic Art Deco Buildings Through This New Website

South Mumbai {or popularly known as SoBo} is rife with beautiful Art Deco heritage buildings. A new website launched only a month back by the name of Art Deco Mumbai is not only documenting it, but is also spreading awareness on it.

Mumbai {or previously known as Bombay} has been known to be a proud repository of Art Deco Heritage buildings, taking after the likes of New York, Paris or even London. The architecture, typical of the Victorian era,  covers almost 200 buildings in South Bombay aka the art district of Mumbai.

In fact, Mumbai is home to the second largest structures of Art Deco buildings {only after Miami}. The charm of these buildings lies in the intricacy and the complexity of the architecture {akin to the ones in Europe}. Take a walk down SoBo, and see Eros, Regal Cinema or even The India Assurance building in Fort which form part of the Art Deco style.

To capture all of these buildings, and educate more and more people about the style & history, Art Deco Mumbai which started off as an Instagram account by Atul Kumar, is now a full-fledged website. Atul, a finance professional and an architecture enthusiast has been photographing these buildings, and is hoping to make the website a digital library of sorts which will be easily accessible to everyone.

Art Deco Mumbai is in a way preserving the lost past that we may neglect on daily basis. SoBo is lined with these Art Deco buildings, some popular and some, more often than not, the non-descript ones. From marbled floors, to wooden convex and winding corridors, or asymmetrical windows on a building, Atul has been capturing them all {no matter how mundane}. Then there are the  popular ones like the Strand Hotel or Liberty Cinema- with gorgeous exteriors.

The website in itself is highly informative, with a gallery and an interactive map that has pinned the Art Deco buildings across the city. Easy to browse through, we found ourselves scrolling through it for hours on end. Then there’s more than just structures, there’s the old-age vintage furniture that completes the look – old teak wooden cupboards and posters beds to Art Deco name boards.

In fact, they also organise guided tours with five to six people in a small group that lasts for over an hour.  These tours are led by an architect and are highly informative and detailed – and you can choose your timings, and days. To book these tours, go here.

It’s a great initiative to bring back the charm of  grand old buildings on a digital space and to delve deeper into what they are all about. Perhaps you pass those regularly, but if you’ve been following the website, maybe you’ll stop and admire them – one building at a time.

Follow them on Facebook here, and on Instagram here.

Check out their website here for the tours and more information.