An Illustrated History of the Unbuilt City
ROBERT STEPHENS
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
005
ILLUSTRATIONS
007
PROJECTS
010
Bombay (010) / The Great Channel (012) / New Town Wall (014) / Sea Outfall (016) / Neat's Tongue Reservoir (018) / St. John's Church (020) / Fort Walls Preservation (022) / Elephanta Tavern and Ballroom (024) / Malabar Hill Cemetery (026) / Well Pavilions (028) / Reservoir Master Plan (030) / Colaba Channel Docks (032) / Stone Pier (034) / Salt Water Scour (036) / Mechanics' Buildings (038) / Lift Wheels (040) / Back Bay Reclamation and Docks (042) / Back Bay Crescent and Promenade (044) / Screw Pile Pier (046) / Wet Dock on the Flats (048) / Elbow Room (050) / Trombay Creek Reclamation (052) / Back Bay Reclamation (054) / Luminous Cremation (056) / Frere Town Trenches (058) / European General Hospital (060) / European General Hospital (062) / Caranja Island Quarry-Prison (064) / Back Bay CableWall (066) / Footpaths (068) / St. Thomas Gothic Cathedral (070) / Versovah Suburbs (072) / Fort and Mazagon Police Courts (074) / City of the Dead (076) / Elephanta Island Docks and Township (078) / Iron Kiosk (080) / Bombay School of Art (082) / Bacilli Blow-Pipes (084) / Bombay Park (086) / Custom's House (088) / The Greatest Sewer (090) / Deepwater Dock (092) / Wet Dock (094) / Reclamation Docks (096) / Elphinstone Bunder Goods Terminus (098) / BBCI and GIP Railway Link (100) / Canery Reservoir (102) / Shewla Reservoir (104) / The Bombay Canal (106) / Bombay Sailors' Home (108) / Underground Railway (110) / Coastal Road (112) / Mumba Devi Temple-Tank Park (114) / Kamun Project (116) / Butcher's Island Sanatorium (118) / Sewage Irrigation (120) / Bombay Stock Exchange (122) / Mahalaxmi Lake (124) / Bombay Municipal Offices (126) / Chowpatty Cliff Zoo (128) / Oriental Venice (130) / Air-Conditioning (132) / Bombay Cathedral (134) / Mahim Bay Reclamation (136) / Colaba Reclamation (138) / Bulk Oil Pier (140) / Prince of Wales Museum of Western India (144) / Prince of Wales Museum of Western India (146) / Prince of Wales Museum of Western India (148) / Prince of Wales Museum of Western India Master Plan (150) / Chowpatty Reclamation (152) / New Bombay (154) / Tramway Extensions (156) / Marble Gateway (158) / Gateway of India Avenue (160) / Bandra Gateway and Civic Centre (162) / Bamboo House (164) / East Colaba Development (166) / Back Bay Reclamation Scheme (168) / Trombay Wet Dock (170) / Dharavi Development Scheme (172) / Worli Point (174) / Back Bay Layout (176) / Bombay 1971 (178) / BDD Chawl Sky-views (180) / Back Bay International Airport (182) / Churchgate Reclamation Triangular Garden (184) / Marine Aquarium (186) / Hygiene Museum (188) / Chawl Remodelling (190) / Pet Cemetery (192) / Dharavi Clean-Up (194) / Underground Stalls (196) / Collective Living Superstructure (198) / Love Grove Sewage Scheme (200) / Master Street Plan (202) /Dharavi Estate Neighbourhood Unit (204) / Coastal Townships (206) / Social Housing (208) / Tube Railway (210) / Bellasis Road Park (212) / Express Highway Green Belts (214) / Gorai International Airport (216) /
Leper Island (218) / Banganga Tank Children's Park (220) / Bhandup Industrial Estate (222) / Air India Tower (224) / Amusement Pier (226) / Malabar Hill Ropeway (228) / Cosmopolis (230) / Uran Link (232) / Bombay Hilton (234) / Horniman Circle Parking Lot (238) / Horniman Circle Cultural Complex (240) / Dahisar Lake (244) / Deonar Aerodrome (246) / Underground Railway (248) / West Island Freeway (250) / Nepean Sea Road Foreshore Layout (252) / New Bombay (254) / Twin City Master Plan (256) / Skywalk (258) / Churchgate Subway (262) / Indian Express Office Complex (264) / Hawker Platforms (266) / Visvesvaraya Centre (268) / 102-Storey Skyscraper (272) / Flora Fountain Underground Parking Lot (274) / VT Foot Overbridge (276) / Santacruz International Terminal (278) / Vehicle Terrace (280) / Car-Free Bombay (282) / Chowpatty Foot Overbridge Ramp (284) / Squatter Housing (286) / Back Bay Reclamation Scheme (288) / Back Bay Waterfront (290) / Traffic Management Plan (294) / Kamathipura Urban Renewal Scheme (296) / Deonar City Park (298) / Museum of Modern Art (300) / Indira Gandhi Statue (302) / Western Waterfront Development (304) / Dinshaw Manockjee Petit Patho-Bacteriological Laboratory (308) / Nariman Point Government Complex (310) / Marine Drive Restoration and Beautification (312) / Oval Maidan Underground Parking Lot (314) / Mandwa-Rewas International Airport (316) / Mill Land Development Plan (318) / Parallel Runway (322) / Mumbai Art and Craft Centre (324) / Worli-Nariman Point Sea Link (326) / Peddar Road Flyover (328) / Wankhede Stadium (330) / Taraporevala Mansion Tower (332) / Underground Tunnel (334) / Banganga Crematorium Revitalisation (336) / Multimodal Transportation Hub (338) / Gateway of India Underpass (340) / Dharavi Redevelopment Project (342) / Dharavi Master Plan (344) / Zaveri Bazaar Parking Towers (346) / Nariman Point Redevelopment Project (348) / India Tower (350) / India Tower (352) / Racecourse Y-Bridge (354) / Dharavi UN World Heritage Site (356) / Offshore Airport (358) / Vulture Aviary (360) / Juhu Stilted Runway (362) / The Slow Ride (364) / Jamshed Bhabha Theatre Office (366) / Fort Management Plan (368) / The Esplanade Project (370) / Bombay Greenway (372) / Dadar Station Roof Plaza (374) / Malad Creek Promenade (376) / Saat Rasta (378) / Bal Thackeray Memorial Park (380) / Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Memorial (382) / Sudarshan Wheel (384) / Eastern Waterfront (386) / Sassoon Dock Redevelopment (390) / Mumbai City Museum (392) / Mumbai City Museum (396) / Mumbai City Museum (398) / Juhu Beach Expansion (402) / Container Skyscraper (404) / VJTI Hostel (406) / Multipurpose Complex (408) / Eastern Waterfront (410) / Prince's Dock Marina (412) / The Golden Fiber Bridge (414) / Maharashtra Nature Park Makeover and Pedestrian Bridge (418) / Structured Symbiosis (422) / New Worli Koliwada (426) / Worli Koliwada Reincarnate (428) / MS Ali Road (432) / The Urban Equator (434) / The Estate (436) / Coastal Road Realignment (438)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
443
INDEXES
444
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
458
003
1758
NEW TOWN WALL JAMES MACE
With battles raging between the British and the French on five continents, Bombay's Principal Engineer Major James Mace likely assumed it was just a matter of time before enemy forces would storm the Island City. The year was 1758 — aggressors were waging war in Bengal, eyeing Madras, and in all likelihood, charting grand plans for a French Empire throughout the subcontinent (and, in fact, the world). Acting on a request from the Court of Directors in England, the East India Company major set forth a radical proposal to defend Bombay: stretch a new town wall from Dongri to Back Bay. Describing the scheme in a letter dated February 14, 1758, Mace projected his protective vision, writing, “This [the new wall] will secure Dongri, enlarge the town, and oblige an enemy to bend their attack by land on one side only (whereas in the present situation they may attack with great advantage on three).”1 Local Company officials granted the scheme their consent within 72 hours,
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BACK BAY - | 026
CENTRAL BOMBAY - | 028
only to have the proposal stymied by dissenters sitting in faraway London. The thought of encasing the nondescript port city with a second layer of defence, and that too less than four decades after the completion of the Fort Walls, led irritated opponents to ridicule, “Our engineers, when they get abroad, seem either infatuated or suffer themselves to be grossly misled.”2 Talk of the circuitous scheme eventually petered out with the British victoriously drawing the seven-yearlong global conflict to a close in 1763, less than two years after Mace himself died and was buried in Bombay.3
I FORMED THE PLAN OF A LINE FROM DONGRI TO BACK BAY, WHICH WOULD THEN HAVE SHUT OUT AN ENEMY FROM ANNOYING THE TOWN IN THE MOST DEFENCELESS PLACES. JAMES MACE, 1761
James Mace, “Letter to Government,” Pub. Diary 31 of 1758, February 14, 1758, in JM Campbell, Materials Towards a Statistical Account of the Town and Island of Bombay, Volume II (Bombay: Government Central Press, 1894), p. 326. 1
Court of Directors, “Letter to Bombay,” April 25, 1760, in ibid., p. 329. 2
3
Ibid., 1: p. 340.
DEFENCE - | 022
Mace's new town wall as it might have appeared from the wasteland that would go on to become central Bombay.
GRAU Visuals | Speculation
1860
BACK BAY RECLAMATION AND DOCKS ROBERT FAIRBAIRN
In 1860, engineer Robert Fairbairn conceived Bombay's most ambitious earth-moving project: the total reclamation of Back Bay from Colaba Point to Malabar Point. On the same ground where modern Mumbaikars pace and lovers embrace — Marine Drive, popularly known as the Queen's Necklace — Fairbairn envisioned a new commercial waterfront to greatly expand Bombay's shipping infrastructure. The grandiose plan featured 17 miles of docks that could host up to 1,300 ships, in addition to two new central railway stations. The reclaimed district would have dwarfed the existing business precinct located in Fort, a mere 1/24th the size of the envisioned scheme. Although the Back Bay Reclamation plan was deemed to be “free from risk or speculation,”1 investors were few and far between.2 The scheme would ultimately flounder, and decades later Fairbairn was found in a state of delusion below a tree on the Esplanade, a victim of absentmindedness following an epileptic attack.3 He died in Bombay a pauper, and was buried at the Sewri Cemetery.4
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BACK BAY 026 | 044
DOCKS 032 | 048
Robert Fairbairn, “The Bombay Elphinstone Dock Company Ltd.,” 1860, p. 1. 1
Author Unknown, “The Philanthropists of Bombay,” The Bombay Times and Standard, March 13, 1861. 2
Charitable Public, “A Distressing Case,” The Times of India, June 27, 1888. 3
Author Unknown, “The Late Mr. Robert Fairbairn,” The Times of India, July 11, 1888. 4
MR. FAIRBAIRN'S RECLAMATION SCHEME IS DISPOSED OF IN ABOUT AS MANY WORDS AS I OPINE THERE ARE SUBSCRIBERS FOR SHARES.
Fairbairn's plan to earth-fill Back Bay included detailed layouts of proposed docks, roads and railway stations.
UNKNOWN, 1861
RECLAMATION 032 | 046
TRANSPORTATION 034 | 058
RAILWAYS 034 | 072
ROADS 026 | 058
URBAN PLANNING 010 | 044
The Asiatic Society of Mumbai Library
1867
BB&CI AND GIP RAILWAY LINK FRANCIS MATHEW
When in late 2009, then Union Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee mooted the idea of an underground link between Churchgate Station and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus,1 her proposal joined the long list of ambitious schemes aimed at connecting Mumbai's disparate rail networks. The first imagined linkage, floated in 1867 by Bombay-based Irish engineer Francis Mathew, proposed a pair of above-ground lines joining the two dead-end railway lines. The inner-city route — a horse-drawn railway — was to commence at Colaba Station, wind through the eastern perimeter of Fort, pass behind the Town Hall, and culminate at the doorstep of the proposed GIP Railway Terminus. For passengers and goods wishing to bypass the crowded lanes of Bombay's central business district, the Chief Resident Engineer for the BB&CI Railway offered an express locomotive service running along, and at some points through, the harbour foreshore. Although separated by more than a century, both Banerjee's and Mathew's schemes found their demise in conflicts with the extant infrastructure. Mathew's express
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COLABA 090 | 108
FORT 074 | 122
route would have cut through Bombay Castle (a ludicrous proposition that must have been met with ridicule and dismay), while 21st-century utility engineers insisted that there was just no room for Banerjee's subterranean rail in Bombay's overcrowded underground.
Shashank Rao, “Railways in a fix over proposed link,” Hindustan Times, December 5, 2009. 1
Kamal Mishra, “CM, Prabhu discuss CST-Churchgate line, project study begins,” Mumbai Mirror, May 7, 2016. 2
A RADICAL IDEA THAT COULD TURN THE CENTRAL AND WESTERN LINES INTO A SINGLE MASSIVE NETWORK. 2 KAMAL MISHRA, 2016
TRANSPORTATION 098 | 106
RAILWAYS 098 | 110
A hand-drawn plan of Francis Mathew's proposed horse-drawn rail and locomotive service connecting the BB&CI and GIP Railways.
Maharashtra State Archives
1908
PRINCE OF WALES MUSEUM OF WESTERN INDIA
MR. JAMES MILLER, GLASGOW, HAS BEEN APPOINTED ARCHITECT OF THE PRINCE OF WALES MUSEUM, BOMBAY. 4
JAMES MILLER
If the Special Committee's preferred design for the Prince of Wales Museum had not been cast aside by the Government of India in 1908, James Miller's Italian Renaissance composition would have risen on the crescent site.1 Amongst 16 competitors, the Glasgow-based architect's layout was deemed to best fulfil the stylistic aspirations of the committee who, in their own words, sought a building “in the Classic or Renaissance styles....whose main effects are dignity and repose.” The official wish list continued, “In a great and busy hive of industry, such as Bombay has become, it would be particularly refreshing to have one group of buildings which will not only provide quiet and restfulness within, but will even suggest it from without.”2 Unfortunately for Miller,
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CRESCENT SITE 144 | 148
and the Special Committee smitten with his design, an exorbitant price tag rendered sanctioning authorities restless and the Scot's formal appointment never materialised. In his steed, a young and upcoming architect by the name of George Wittet was invited to fill the crescentshaped void.3
UNKNOWN, 1908
XYZ, “The Bombay Museum, A Word for the Committee,” The Times of India, February 18, 1908. 1
Henry Cousens, “Western India Museum, Special Committee's Report, Approved by Government, The Times of India, April 4, 1907. 2
Author Unknown, “Western India Museum,” The Times of India, July 15, 1910. 3
Editorial, No Title, The Evening Telegraph and Post, February 17, 1908. 4
ARCHITECTURE 144 | 148
INSTITUTIONAL 144 | 148
MUSEUM 144 | 148
MEMORIAL 144 | 148
RECREATION 144 | 148
GARDENS 144 | 148
COMPETITION 144 | 148
The Times of India
A bird's-eye-view of James Miller's winning competition entry.
CHAWL REMODELLING
Single-room cells were to be joined together to create threebedroom, middle-class flats.
BOMBAY DEVELOPMENT DIRECTORATE
In 1934, the Bombay Development Directorate (BDD) commenced a grand scheme to remodel 70 chawls at Worli, transforming the lowincome housing blocks into middleclass flats.1 Through the addition of interconnecting doors, single-room cells were to become two- and threebedroom apartments in a bid to generate demand for the chronically vacant, decade-old dwellings. Unlike their predecessors, the reworked seafacing units were to feature electric lights, an independent water supply and glass-panel windows in place of precast concrete ventilators.2 Most importantly, the revamp aimed to shed the monochromatic structures of their prison-like appearance, although the conversion of an entire block into a temporary jail in 1938 likely sent mixed messages to an already skeptical public.3 Despite the BDD's
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WORLI 180 | 200
best efforts, including the preparation of a full-scale model apartment, demand remained sluggish. Perhaps, as one critic put it, “Something more than the mere consideration of cubic space is called for in the case of a great housing enterprise by a leading city such as Bombay.”4 Not surprisingly, the remodelling scheme was abandoned shortly thereafter.
THERE ARE 80 TENEMENTS IN EACH BUILDING, AND THESE WILL BE CONVERTED INTO 30 FLATS. TAJ AYYAR, 1936
Author Unknown, “Popularising Worli Chawls, Proposed Alterations to Suit Middle Class,” The Times of India, May 23, 1934. 1
Author Unknown, “Worli Chawls to be Remodelled, Middle Class Flats,” The Times of India, April 10, 1936. 2
Author Unknown, “Temporary Prison at Worli, Home Minister's Visit,” The Times of India, April 26, 1938. 3
James Kelloce, “The Worli Chawls,” The Times of India, May 12, 1923. 4
ADAPTIVE REUSE 180 | 220
HOUSING 180 | 194
Akhil Alukkaran | Speculation
1934
1948
GORAI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT ALBERT MAYER AND NV MODAK
settling on a 5,000-acre expanse on the mainland. Unlike Mayer and Modak, 21st-century airport planners and government officials moved mountains to ensure uninterrupted glide angles, blasting a four-kilometrelong hill to bits between 2017 and 2019.3 If all goes as planned, Mumbai's second airport will be fully operational by 2030.
NV Modak and Albert Mayer, An Outline of The Master Plan for Greater Bombay (Bombay: The Bombay Municipal Printing Press, 1948), p. 17. 1
Ashley D'Mello, “Does Mumbai need a new airport?,” The Times of India, May 19, 1997. 2
Sanjay Banerjee, “Ulwe Hill cutting to start tomorrow to pave way for Navi Mumbai airport,” The Times of India, June 11, 2017. 3
AT LEAST ONE ADDITIONAL (AIR) FIELD MUST BE PROVIDED. ALBERT MAYER AND NV MODAK, 1948
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SALSETTE 214 | 218
RECLAMATION 178 | 220
TRANSPORTATION 214 | 222
AIRPORT 182 | 246
University of California Berkeley Library
In 1948, the first proposal for a second airport in Bombay took flight under the able guidance of Albert Mayer and NV Modak. On the low-lying, to-bereclaimed marshlands of Gorai — the present-day home of amusement park Essel World and the Global Vipassana Pagoda — the duo located a 2,000-acre complex to absorb the anticipated tsunami of air traffic on the horizon. Although glide angles over the Salsette Hills were checked and the Central Aviation Division cleared the site for flying,1 fears of a mountainous collision peaked by 1973 and the Gorai International Airport was formally dropped from Bombay's regional plan.2 In the decades that followed, experts would survey half a dozen alternate sites in the metropolitan region before
Mountains due east of the proposed Gorai International Airport compromised what was considered an otherwise ideal site in the extended Western Suburbs.
1963
NEPEAN SEA ROAD FORESHORE LAYOUT BOMBAY MUNICIPAL CORPORATION
In 1963, the Bombay Municipal Corporation and Government of Maharashtra teamed up to wrestle 170 acres of land from the Arabian Sea along the city's rocky Western Foreshore. With visions of cash flowing on the horizon, half of the proposed reclamation was to be sold to private developers for the construction of 98 sea-facing skyscrapers while the remaining area was to be divvied up between a new Western Marine Drive (Wilbur Smith's West Island Freeway), open spaces, schools and shopping centres.1 Work commenced in 1970, only to face fierce opposition from firstgeneration NIMBY (not in my backyard) activists. Members of the Save Breach Candy committee denounced the scheme, arguing it “would cut off man from nature and ruin the natural environment.”2 With the support of viscous tidal currents which washed away large swathes of reclamation, the protests bore fruit and Chief Minister VP Naik halted further work a decade after the plan was first mooted.3 The 22-acre parcel of land born out of the stalled scheme would lie dormant for years, before being transformed into a string of seaside parks — the Tata and Amarsons Gardens.
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WESTERN FORESHORE 250 | 304
A Staff Reporter, “Posh New Sea Front for Bombay: Reclamation Plan,” The Times of India, July 21, 1963. 1
A Staff Reporter, “'Save Breach Candy' stir,” The Times of India, January 14, 1973. 2
A Staff Reporter, “CM's assurance on reclamation,” The Times of India, April 29, 1974. 3
THE RECLAMATION WILL FORM AN ELONGATED PLOT, TWO MILES IN LENGTH, WITH A WIDTH RANGING FROM 400 FEET TO 1,700 FEET. THE TIMES OF INDIA, 1963
ARCHITECTURE 240 | 256
SKYSCRAPERS 240 | 256
HOUSING 212 | 254
RECLAMATION 250 | 282
RECREATION 244 | 256
PARKS 244 | 256
The Times of India
The proposed layout on reclaimed land included a row of new skyscrapers between the city and the Arabian Sea.
TRANSPORTATION 250 | 254
ROADS 250 | 254
URBAN PLANNING 222 | 254
SANTACRUZ INTERNATIONAL TERMINAL
In the absence of drawings, one can only wonder if Fuller's “segmented arc design” at Santacruz was a geodesic dome (purple).
BUCKMINSTER FULLER
In 1971, the newly instituted International Airport Authority of India roped in American polymath Buckminster Fuller to design a stateof-the-art air terminal at Santacruz.1 Drawing upon his eclectic experiences in the fields of architectural engineering, design, geography and mathematics, Fuller envisioned the complex through a series of poetic “shouldnt's,” writing, “It shouldn't be a 'rail-road' station with travellers standing in rows sweating, worrying about their luggage in one place and kids in another. It shouldn't be a worry house, a smelly house, a place where you have to tolerate and put up with things. There shouldn't be a single door or anything to push. There shouldn't be any lines to stand in – It's absurd!”2 Fuller's future-ready concoction, a segmented arc ensconcing three floors of facilities within, was equated by one admirer to “a new leaven,
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SALSETTE 246 | 288
SANTACRUZ - | 322
quickening the imagination of architects in this country.”3 Opponents branded Fuller's appointment “an attempt to keep up with the Jones,” suggesting that local officials were keen to out-do the aggressive modernity of FinnishAmerican architect Eero Saarinen's recently completed TWA terminal at New York City's Kennedy Airport.4 The rupees-12-crore scheme would eventually be grounded by the Union Government's finance ministry, leaving India's flying millions empty and in need of a Fuller vision.
DR. BUCKMINSTER FULLER, THE WORLD RENOWNED ARCHITECT, HAD UNDERTAKEN PREPARATION OF THE SCHEMATIC DESIGNS FOR THE TERMINAL BUILDING. THE TIMES OF INDIA, 1973
JM Ghate, “New Terminal For Bombay's Airport,” The Times of India, October 15, 1972. 1
Anabelle LH Singh, “Was there a Fuller man?,” The Times of India, July 17, 1983. 2
Author Unknown, “Current Topics: Threatening Buckminster Fuller,” The Times of India, November 2, 1971. 3
Author Unknown, “Same Old Story,” The Times of India, February 4, 1976. 4
ARCHITECTURE 272 | 288
TRANSPORTATION 274 | 280
AIRPORTS 246 | 316
Urbs Indis Library and Fauwaz Khan | Overlay
1971
1999
WORLI-NARIMAN POINT SEA LINK MAHARASHTRA STATE ROAD DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
326
ISLAND CITY 282 | 334
NARIMAN POINT 310 | 334
stage, government officials quickly set to work on alternatives, a journey which would sink the Sea Link and give rise to Mumbai's Coastal Road.3 Shibu Thomas, “Plea opposes Nariman Pt sealink,” The Times of India, October 7, 2007. 1
Staff Reporter, “Mumbaikars enthusiastic about sealink and freeway,” The Times of India, August 1, 2000. 2
Chittaranjan Tembhekar, “Shivaji may force sealink to go UNDER WATER,” The Times of India, August 27, 2008. 3
THE STATE IS OF THE OPINION THAT THE SEA LINK WILL SPOIL THE VIEW OF NOT ONLY THE PROPOSED SHIVAJI STATUE BUT ALSO THE ENTIRE MARINE DRIVE.
Robert Stephens and Fauwaz Khan | Overlay
Civic and environmental activists fought tooth and nail against the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation's plan to encircle South Mumbai with an elevated highway in the Arabian Sea. Before the Bombay High Court opponents argued that the 15-kilometre-long Sea Link from Worli to Nariman Point would cause irreversible ecological damage and possibly erase Chowpatty Beach from the map, with Advocate B Desai soothsaying, “The sea-link will obliterate Mumbai's horizon and beautiful sunsets will be a thing of the past.”1 The battle raged in court, on the streets and in the press for years, with proponents highlighting the explosive growth of vehicle ownership, up from 286,000 cars in 1980 to 860,000 cars in 1998 as a justification for the big-ticket scheme.2 The final clash sealing the Sea Link's doomed fate would occur in 2008, as the proposed alignment between Malabar Hill and Nariman Point brought the road uncomfortably close to the up-and-coming memorial statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in Back Bay. Unable to reconcile the visual tension of a cable-stayed bridge crashing the Maratha warrior-king's
SATISH GAVAI, 2008
WORLI 234 | 334
TRANSPORTATION 322 | 328
BRIDGE 232 | 328
ROADS 294 | 328
The Worli–Nariman Point Sea Link (purple) was to circumambulate the Island City.
2014
EASTERN WATERFRONT ARCHITECT HAFEEZ CONTRACTOR
386
EASTERN FORESHORE 170 | 410
financial towers (375 acres), a sports city (150 acres), theme parks, a waterworld (230 acres) and public gardens (100 acres).2 Piercing the proposal was the world's tallest building, as if in fulfilment of Contractor's own prophecy from 1998: “All future development must necessarily be vertical. There will be self-contained mammoth buildings, The City Centre, containing all cultural, social, and public spaces for interaction and entertainment.”3 Not surprisingly, Contractor's gargantuan scheme contracted in the years to come and fell short of securing the official design contract in 2016.
THE PORT TRUST AREA ON THE EASTERN SHORELINE CAN BE DEVELOPED INTO A MAJOR NEW COMMERCIAL AREA. HAFEEZ CONTRACTOR, 1998
Hafeez Contractor, “Mumbai, 2010 AD,” The Times of India, August 15, 1998. 1
Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar, “The dockyard redevelopment: Mumbai's last big chance?,” The Guardian, November 28, 2014. 2
3
Ibid., 1.
4
Ibid., 1.
ARCHITECTURE 384 | 392
Architect Hafeez Contractor
“I dream of Mumbai as a city of high-rise buildings, parks, forests and lagoons. If I were to formulate a new land-use plan truly symbolising the 21st century, it would restrict the use of land to the bare minimum – say, only 25 per cent. The key word would be environment.”1 Radically speculative, Hafeez Contractor's late 20th-century musings upon Mumbai's idealistic urban form were but a subconscious precursor to his own plan for the Eastern Waterfront in 2014. Developed simultaneously with the institution of the Central Government's committee for dockyard redevelopment, Contractor's scheme envisioned the reclamation of 1,500 acres from the harbour, adding to the existing 1,800 acres lying in wait along the prevailing shoreline. The expanded land parcel was to make room for a wide array of programmes jostling for space in Mumbai's overcrowded ecosystem: affordable housing (395 acres), public buildings including museums, convention centres and
SKYSCRAPERS 384 | 404
HOUSING 356 | 390
RECLAMATION 358 | 438
RECREATION 384 | 390
PARKS 384 | 390
URBAN PLANNING 348 | 390
COMPETITION 382 | 392
The proposed Eastern Waterfront skyline as seen from the Mumbai Harbour.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
After completing his Bachelor of Architecture degree from Virginia Tech in 2007, Robert Stephens left his childhood hometown of Summerville, South Carolina and moved to Mumbai, India. He joined RMA Architects as an apprentice at the age of 22 and is now a principal at the same firm. Robert is part of the core team at RMA responsible for recent additions to Mumbai’s built environment, including the CSMVS Visitors’ Centre (2011) and Children’s Museum (2019) at Kala Ghoda, and the under-construction Mata Ramabai Ambedkar Crematorium at Worli.
Bombay Imagined, Robert’s first book, was conceived in the meditative depths of the Mumbai local train in 2013 and matured through various lockdowns during the global coronavirus pandemic. His next book, Ahmedabad Walls: A Circumambulation with Patrick Geddes, will be released in 2023.
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Tina Nandi
In 2016 he founded Urbs Indis, a studio that narrates lesser-known civic histories through the juxtaposition of archival material with contemporary aerial photographs of urban India. His work has been exhibited in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chennai and Edinburgh, and has appeared in publications such as The Guardian, DOMUS India and Scroll.in. He currently lives in Mumbai with his wife and son. Portrait of the author from mid-2016 with Hector Tulloch’s The Drainage and Sewerage of Bombay, a publication that put his (then) one-month-old son to sleep.
Text: Robert Stephens (robert@urbsindis.com) Project Management: Fauwaz Khan Book Design: Studio Anugraha (Deshna Mehta and Carol Nair) Aerial Photographs: Robert Stephens Copy-editing: Khorshed Deboo, Kate Chaillat Cover Image: Aniket Umaria Overlays: Fauwaz Khan Relief Maps: Kshitij Mahashabde, Rimshi Agrawal Speculations: Aniket Umaria, Akhil Alukkaran, Yannis Efstathiou, Lambros Papathanasiou, Fauwaz Khan and Rimshi Agrawal
Production: Omniscient Communications (Leena Mehta, Deven Shah and Prashant Ghorpade) Printing: Indraprastha Printer ISBN 978-84-122747-5-2 © Robert Stephens (2022) First Edition | 1,500 prints
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise stored in a database or retrieval system — without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Published by Urbs Indis (www.urbsindis.com)
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