Mumbai’s Victorian and Art Deco buildings on Unesco list
TOPPING THE LIST Maharashtra now has the maximum number of Unesco sites in country
MUMBAI: Mumbai’s rich cluster of Victorian and Art Deco buildings in the Fort precinct and Marine Drive has been declared a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) World Heritage Site.
Maharashtra, now, has the maximum number of Unesco sites in the country, a total of five including the Ajanta and Ellora caves in Aurangabad.
Collectively known as the ‘Victorian Gothic and Art Deco Ensemble of Mumbai’, it was added to the global list of heritage sites on Saturday, at the 42nd session of the Unesco World Heritage Committee, currently underway in Manama, Bahrain.
WHAT IT MEANS
A Unesco World Heritage Site tag ensures additional funding from international agencies for upkeep and ensures strict control over changes to structures on the site.
The ensemble include the structures that line the city’s Oval Maidan — a row of 19th-century Victorian buildings characterised by Gothic spires and gargoyles on one side, and 20th-century Art Deco structures on the other.
WHAT IT TAKES
To get a World Heritage tag, a site should be of outstanding universal value and meet at least one of 10 selection criteria laid down by Unesco.
These include conditions as wide-ranging as being a masterpiece of human creative genius or containing threatened species.
“These historic buildings are unique because they’re not dead monuments but active public buildings in use as courts, libraries and cinema halls,” says conservation architect Abha Narain Lambah, who put together the three-volume nomination dossier and management plan, with over 1,500 pages of historical narrative, maps, drawings and notes on each of the 94 buildings. She stresses that she was supported by various citizens’ groups from the area.
“This tag means an internatqqional acknowledgement of Mumbai’s pioneering role in managing historic urban heritage that is in living use. It also positions Mumbai high on the global map and will translate into increased cultural tourism in Maharashtra,” she adds.
ABOUT THE ENSEMBLES
Victorian buildings include the University of Mumbai, Bombay High Court, David Sassoon Library, Elphinstone College and Maharashtra Police headquarters. Neo-classical structures like the Army and Navy Building and National Gallery of Modern Art.
Indo-saracenic buildings such as the Western Railway Headquarters and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj museum.
Art Deco buildings along Oval Maidan and Marine Drive, and the Eros and Regal cinema halls.
“It’s good to see sites of cultural significance getting their due after all this time,” said Pankaj Joshi, executive director of the Urban Design Research Institute, an independent thinktank.
A UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE TAG ENSURES ADDITIONAL FUNDING FROM INTERNATIONAL AGENCIES FOR UPKEEP