SAVING MUMBAI'S ART DECO BUILDINGS

The New India Insurance Building, which draws inspired from Egyptian elements.

''Mumbai has one of the largest collections of Art Deco buildings in the world.

It's an incredible heritage,'' says Atul Kumar conservationist and founder of Art Deco Mumbai.

The areas make up the heart of Mumbai's Art Deco precinct which in 2012 was submitted to UNESCO [ United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation ] for world heritage recognition.

A short distance up the coast is Breach Candy hospital, also in Deco style.

''There's an interesting amalgamation of classical European Art Deco and Mumbai Deco.

You have ziggurats, rounded locomotive balconies, tropical images, streamlining speed lines and Egyptian motifs, as well as Indian designs,'' enthuses Kumar.

The buildings were constructed between the early 1930s after wealthy Indians sent their architects to Europe to come up with modern designs different to those of their colonial rulers.

The visited as Deco was taking the West by the storm following the 1925 Paris exposition.

''Mumbai's Deco buildings have always lived in the shadow of the Victorian Gothic structures built by the British,'' such as the main railway station, museum and high court, says Kumar.

''But Art Deco is no less. It's a colorful, vibrant, free, sophisticated style that represented the aspirations of a whole new class.

India was under oppressive colonial rule and this was a very unique statement through architecture.

''Tour guides are fond of telling foreign visitors to Mumbai that only Miami has more Deco structures internationally. Local legend says the coastal Indian city has 200 such Indian buildings.