Conserving Bombay's Historic Core

City, Space, and Globalization 6 BAZAARS IN VICTORIAN ARCADES: CONSERVING BOMBAY'S HISTORIC CORE Rahul Mehrotra Introduction n Bombay, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth Icenturies, the Government reshaped the City by means ofa series of distinct, planned architectural and urban design projects. The authorities sought not only to make the city 's growth cohesive but also to place their imprint on its form by controlling building activity and investment in infrastructure--however sporadic and incremental itmay have seemed. The old Fort area of Bombay, the object of the colonial government's attention, marks the origin ofBombay as a city, and is the commercial and also perhaps a symbolic center of the Bombay metropolitan region. (This in spite of the fact that it is an invisible entity-in that the fort does not exist today)! But now the urban fabric of the Fort area is being altered by various activities vying for the same space, and current building laws, which are standardized throughout the city, do not attempt to safeguard the clarity that the makers of this area had envisioned during the past century. The most emblematic ofthe conflicts, the spread oftraditional Indian bazaars into the formal urban spaces planned by the colonial government, suggest new approaches to the preservation that take into account the constantly changing nature ofthe city. This brings to the fore the urgency to outline relevant strategies and approaches for its conservation as a historic urban center relevant to the emerging form and structure of Bombay. This is especially important given that the state government has now legislated policy which protects the Fort area as well as other historic areas in the city. And in order to make the implementation ofthis conservation policy effective , it would be cru cial to fine -tune these to the contemporary forces that are moulding the form ofBombay's historic center and other conservation zones.1 Structuring the Core The renewal of the Fort area dates to 1864, when the removal of the fortifications that surrounded the city was finished. The removal of the ramparts symbolized a change ofpurpose for Bombay, which no longer needed to serve as a land-based defense fort and whose growth as a prosperous trading and manufacturing city was being constrained by the fortifications. Rahul Mehrotra is an architect , urban designer and principal with It also precipitated a strategic plan to restructure the city center Rahu/ Mehrotra Associates, Bombay,/ndia. He has a Master 's degree that included the widening and improving of roads, the in Urban Design from Harvard University. He is Executive Director addition of new open spaces, the construction of public of the Urban Design Research Institute, and on the Board of buildings and the imposition of urban design standards. Governors of the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Consequently, the demolition of the ramparts intensified, Authority's Heritage Society. Recent books include, Bombay-The clarified and made irreversible Bombay's change of urban Cities Within, and Banganga, Sacred Tank. Rahul Mehrotra function from a fortified port town to multifunctional trading sanitation and overcrowding in other parts of the city, the and manufacturing centre. administration had the liberty, and the power, to focus its attention on a smaller, more tangible area. The government These renewal efforts projected a consciously conceived, used every opportunity to use buildings and infrastructure to visible image ofBombay, perhaps the first such urban design establish a cohesive urban form that responded to the gesture in colonial India. At the western edge of the Fort unprecedented increase in commerce and industry, and to give area, along the Back Bay waterfront, several public buildings colonial political power a visible expression. were put up on land made vacant by the removal of the fortifications. This magnificent ensemble ofGothic buildings (which included the High Court, the University, the Post and Telegraph offices and the Old Secretariat) helped clarify the existing bow-like cross axis, which had implicitly structured the Fort area for more than a century. These buildings transformed Bombay's skyline and visually structured its western edge. A smaller-scale project was the privately sponsored Horniman Circle (1864), which involved restructuring a green in front of the Town Hall into a formal circular park enclosed by an assembly of architecturally unified commercial buildings. Although the plots on the Circle were auctioned to commercial ftrms, the design of the facades was controlled to create a sense ofunity. This urban design approach, popular for more than a century in countries like England and France, had not -VICTORIA TERMINUS been previously used in India. The arcade also offered protection to pedestrians from both the intense summer sun and the lashing monsoon rain. TOWN HALL These projects created an east-west and a north-south axis FLORA~ through the Fort area which over the next three decades FOUNTAIN became more pronounced with the addition ofpublic buildings that were added as the city grew. The east-west axis ran Figure 1 Renovated Fort and the emergence of the cross from the Town Hall through the public buildings on the bow axis after the removal of the fortifications. western edge, and ended with a vista across the bay. The north-south axis was anchored at one end with the grand Victoria Terminus (1878-1887) and at the other by the Gateway oflndia (1911-1914), a monument that symbolized Dual City the ceremonial entry to the city. The intersection of these two axes was celebrated by the construction of the Flora A century ago, Bombay was two separate cities, Western and Fountain (1887). Indian, with parallel residential, commercial, religious and recreational areas-two separate networks of spaces in which In 1898, the north- south axis was further reinforced by the these different worlds existed with minimal conflict. In the development of Hornby Road under public design controls. Western quarter, all efforts were being made to impose a Here, unlike Horniman Circle, there were no restrictions on formal structure upon the city-reinforcing the axes, the design of the facades, which were conceived and built by controlling building edges and styles, instituting traffic different architects. But each building was required to have regulations and encouraging large corporations to open an arcade, which acted as the physical and visual element offices. The Indian city, in contrast, was characterized by that tied together the varying architectural styles and enhanced chaotic, haphazard growth and overcrowding. the legibility of Hornby Road as an urban design composition.2 This development along Hornby Road The boom decades of the 1860s and 1870s resulted in connected the crescent of public buildings south of Flora fragmented development all over the island. Growth was Fountain (including Elphinstone College, Sasson Library, the incremental and organic in the Indian city. Cotton mills, which University and Watsons Hotel), unifying disparate elements drew immigrants from surrounding agricultural areas, served in the composition of the newly designed city core.3 as the heart of districts in the Indian city. Small businesses grew and shops and stalls mushroomed near temples, mosques This decisive re-ordering of central Bombay, which was and along main traffic routes. Here, unlike the city center, directed by the colonial government, contrasted with the little control was exercised over the sites being developed for additive, incremental and impulsive growth that had housing or industrial use. Residential, commercial and characterized the Fort area since the inception and settlement religious activity patterns were integrated in a tightly knit of Bombay. In spite of the overwhelming problems of urban fabric like a traditional Indian bazaar town. City, Space, and Globalization The bazaar-achaotic market place comprised of shops, stalls Contemporary Context and hawkers- can be seen as the symbolic image of and metaphor for the physical state of the Indian city. The chaos Increasingly, the Fort area is seen as the Financial center of and apparent disorder of the bazaar is precisely the quality the city. This inspite ofthe BMRDA's (Bombay Metropolitan essential for the survival of vending-physical proximity Region Development Authority) aggressive policies to create between seller and buyer. It also is the physical manifestation a polynucleated structure for the region and promote Bandra of incremental and laissezjaire growth of the market place. Kurla (in North Bombay) as the new International Finance More importantly, it symbolizes positive energy, optimism Center. In fact, in the early 1980s the BMRDA issued a and a will to survive outside the official system. notification barring the creation of additional office space in the island city and capping the available Floor Space Index at This classical, colonial, dual-city structure survived until the 1.33. in order to discourage growth in South Bombay, and 1960's when the unprecedented scale of distress migration encourage growth in the north as well as give impetus to the from rural areas to Bombay (and other urban centers) growth of New Bombay. Clearly, the State Government's completely altered the exclusivity of the two domains. The failure at implementing this policy of creating a "polycentric bazaar became an instrument that absorbed migrants, growth" through the development ofalternate business centers cushioning their entry to the city, and swept across the city at Bandra-Kurla and New Bombay, has not prevented the sprawling along transport lines, slopes of hills, underutilized growing displacement ofresidents by commercial buyers. The land, undefined pavements and even the arcades in the BMRDA survey of 1995 reveals that 1.06lakh new jobs were Victorian core. created in an area of 23 sq. km in the southern tip of the city between 1981 and 1991. This has actually accelerated the The bazaars blurred beyond recognition the physical concentration and importance of the Fort area as a Financial segregation of the dual cities.

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