Mumbai has recently been recognised as a city with the second largest number of Art Deco buildings in the world, second only to Miami.
What many people in the city are not aware of is that Hyderabad has an equally large number of buildings designed in the Art Deco style.
The architectural style was popular in the 30s and 40s of the last century with many cinema halls, offices and even homes being designed in the idiom.
“A few weeks ago, on a whim we walked the streets of R.P. Road and Jhirra area in Secunderabad and we saw a huge number of buildings that were part of the Art Deco movement with their delicate jali work in concrete, curved balconies, staircases and covered ceilings. Every time we walk those streets, we discover something new,” says P. Pravin, an architect, who is planning to map the Art Deco buildings in the city with Harsha Devulapalli, a researcher in Columbia University’s Urban Design Lab.
“The Moazzam building is an Art Deco structure that has lost prominence. The Monda Market clock tower is another Art Deco masterpiece. All the beauties on R.P. Road are a sight. A number of cinema halls like Deepak, Shanti and Saptagiri were also part of the Art Deco movement. Unfortunately, I keep hearing the plans of their demolition,” says Mr. Devulapalli.
The transition from Colonial, Vernacular and Gothic building styles to a modern idiom was gradual in the city. It can be traced back to Karl Malte von Heinz, the Austro-German architect who lived in India and designed some of the iconic buildings in Delhi, Hyderabad and Bombay. One of the buildings he built in Hyderabad was the Kohinoor at Banjara Hills which has now given way for a shopping mall.
“The Art Deco movement was very big in the 1930s and 40s in the city and many people belonging to the mercantile class got their houses and offices designed in the style. Clusters of them still exist on R.P. Road, Jhirra and Begum Bazar areas. Unfortunately, now many of them are run down, have water seepage problem and vegetal growth. Many of the houses have been let out to tenants and there are other issues hampering the mapping work,” said Anuradha Reddy of Intach, who is co-ordinating the effort.
