Mumbai Art Deco Heritage

Mumbai has the second-largest concentration of Art Deco buildings in the world (after Miami Beach) — over 200 buildings in the Fort and Marine Drive areas that were built between 1930 and 1950, when Bombay (as it was then) was one of the wealthiest cities in the British Empire and its architects embraced the Deco style with an enthusiasm that produced some of the finest examples of tropical Art Deco anywhere.

The Art Deco buildings along Marine Drive (the Soona Mahal, the Eros Cinema, the apartment blocks whose curved facades create the 'Queen's Necklace' profile) and in the Fort area (the Regal Cinema, the New India Assurance Building) represent an adaptation of European and American Deco to the tropical climate — the buildings use horizontal bands to create shade, curved balconies to catch the sea breeze, and the decorative motifs (sunbursts, geometric patterns, stylised flowers) that distinguish Deco from the Victorian Gothic that dominates the rest of the Fort district.

The Art Deco Mumbai trust offers guided walking tours that explain the architectural and social history of the buildings, many of which are residential and still inhabited by the families who moved in when they were built.