Mixed response to painting of Mumbai Central railway station’s facade

The painted heritage facade of Mumbai Central railway station on Sunday. Pics/Bipin Kokate

Several citizens, experts and rail fans have criticised the painting of Mumbai Central railway station's facade as vandalisation of the city's architectural heritage. Justifying the work, railway officials said that a splash of colours added beautify to the structure and reflected the spirit of Mumbai. Few commuters have found the change better, saying the colours makes the station look bright.

A colourful facade of Mumbai Central railway station is seen on Sunday

Before being splashed with blue, yellow and all sorts of other colours, the Mumbai Central facade was just plain white and red. A few commuters at the station welcomed the new look, but experts and rail fans were highly disappointed. Experts said the railways could have experimented with illumination instead.

"It looks bright and good instead of drab white," said Nirmal Shah, on his way to catch Rajdhani Express. However, a commuter, Diwakar Mehrotra, said it could have been better.

Mishmash of Deco stereotypes
Professor Mustansir Dalvi, trustee of Art Deco Mumbai and professor of architecture at JJ School of Art Mumbai, said, "There seems to be an undue haste in our city to cover up historic facades with superficial decoration. Painted graffiti is the latest manifestation of this mediocre trend. The painting defacing the front facade of the Mumbai Central building is a mishmash of Deco stereotypes and not even representative of Mumbai's Art Deco, the historic moment commemorated with a UNESCO world heritage tag. In fact, the garish colours obscure the essential idea of architect Claude Batley's facade, which was to present a large arched window bringing light to the interior concourse. This expressed his interest in Indian architecture which he used in contemporary ways, like in the former design of Churchgate Station and the Wankaner Palace."

"This latest manifestation of facade defacement is akin to vandalising Mumbai's architectural heritage. To quote Prince Charles, ‘What is proposed is like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much loved and elegant friend'."

According to the railway archives, Mumbai Central station was designed by British architect Claude Batley and constructed in 1930 and the terminus opened after Colaba station shut down the same year by the Bombay, Baroda and Central India Railway.

City-based architect Rahul Chemburkar said, "The original facade represented a unique architectural style. Shouldn't we add value with interventions rather than such layers of paint?"

Rail fan Kaushik Dharwadkar called it "incongruous" and earnestly requested the authorities to reconsider the matter.

Western Railway chief public relations officer Sumit Thakur said the new look is an attempt to beautify and improvise the station building and reflect the spirit of Mumbai. "We have used various elements from artefacts that are prevalent in Mumbai," he said.