Visual Histrionics or Bombay Baroque

You may be wondering what this means, but I am merely stating my own confused reaction to the unique phenomenon of the predilection among Bombay architects and builders for glass facades in a hot, humid climate like ours. It8217;s fine that we have airconditioning systems to take care of the fact that the windows are not openable, but for heavens sake, why does the glass facade have to face the western side, which is responsible for the greatest heat gain in the building?

Climatic responses are seemingly no longer the concern of the structural engineers and architects, but the domain of air-conditioning experts. All glass facades not only create an overheated glass house effect within the building, but also contribute in a major way to the ozone layer depletion, thanks to the use of CFCs in air-conditioning systems. All this is yet again leading us to that crossroad in history where it becomes imperative for us to take stock of our depleting resources.

Today technology has given our buildings a reckless irreverence for nature. And to complicate matters further, we seem to be as confused about our architectural expression as we are about everything else. Architecture has become a matter of facades8217; and isms8217; as fads are the prime movers, the context being no longer significant and fundamental planning tools are thus thrown to the wind.

At times one wonders where architectural sensibilities are heading today. So we have an apartment building in Bandra which the builder proudly advertises as a Hacienda8230; Gosh, if memory serves me right, the term is a Spanish rural house form, generally low-rise and the image that is proudly exhibited in a quarter-page advertisement is that of a high-rise concrete apartment tower with contorted balconies, humungous brackets and a visual melange that doesn8217;t even vaguely remind me of anything as domestic as a hacienda.

In fact, browsing through the property pages of the local newspapers, one gets as good an idea of the architectural scenario, as you get about the social hang-ups by reading the matrimonial columns. For in the same manner that we read Indian society8217;s preference for 8220;fair girls with a convented background,8221; or our skin-deep non-casteism through adverts that show very modern families still qualifying a sub-caste eligibility for their prospective 8220;bahus,8221; similarly the local builder8217;s advertisements qualify the architectural scenario of the city. Mumbai8217;s contemporary architecture today truly reflects our confused times. As in our politics and films, our architecture today is of the 8220;masala mix8221; where you can sometimes match up a Jayalalitha with a Vajpayee, and then unceremoniously put her in with the Sonia circle. Just as effortlessly, our architects today pair up neo-classical pseudo-corinthian columns with ultra-modern circular windows and top the ensemble with a Florentine dome. It is almost as if,like our Hindi films, even our architectural community is out to make masala mixes, revelling in their eclectic overdrive, enthusiastically picking out pre-fabricated pieces from an architectural catalogue. But perhaps, like Robert Venturi explained the emergence of the Post-Modern architectural movement as being a reaction to the 8220;lack of imageability offered by the Modern Movement,8221; this reaction is also a rebellion against the bland concrete 8220;dabba8221; architecture our last couple of generations have been fed with 8212; thanks to the abysmal lack of imagination of most of our recent public architecture. Even today, what serve as image centres of the city of Mumbai are pre-independence buildings like the Rajabai Tower and the High Court, or urban artifacts like the Flora Fountain and Gateway of India. None of the buildings, spare a few in the last half-a-century evoke the same kind of public identification and pride.

In the hundred-odd years since these Victorian structures, the developments like Nariman Point, Bandra, Kurla and even residential colonies like the various MHADA schemes and government housings have only offered a concrete 8220;shoe box8221; architecture, with its standard window sizes and regimented layouts failing to offer the public any standpoint for identifying with these buildings. The fine pedestrian arcades of Horniman Circle and Dadabhai Naoroji Road offered the pedestrian both a climatic respite, and a visual treat in their articulation of carved keystones and cornices. The gently sloping roofs of the older settlements of Girgaum and Khotachi Wadi, with their finely crafted caves and breezy cast iron balconies which were so deeply ingrained in the Mumbaikar8217;s childhood memories, were unceremoniously replaced by flat concrete boxes, with leaking overhead concrete tanks offering the only break from the flat monotony of the roof scapes. So perhaps, the grandiose architecture of the Hiranandani complex inPowai with the blatant monumentalism of Hafeez Contractor, actually responds in some way to the public imageability and association with monumental public spaces. Or, the pink and blue bands of the architecture of a multi-storied tower on Warden Road attempt to realize some childhood memories and sub-conscious cravings of our juvenile persona. But then, how do you explain the 8220;scallopy8221; Bombay Baroque of the recently installed road dividers along Peddar Road, with their concrete curves and jazzy contorted railings that threaten to push our visual sanity and patience to the ultimate brink, or the baby pink and blue bus stop making a mockery of the sombre architecture of the Victoria Terminus Station, which forms the backdrop to it?

Whether this is the result of a creative bankruptcy or the crass commercialization of architecture, either way it is a disheartening reality and does not bode well for the architectural scenario of the city of Bombay.

The writer is a conservation architect