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    It is time India celebrates its Art Deco heritage

    Synopsis

    Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi and smaller cities like Jaipur, all have landmark Art Deco public buildings, offices, bungalows, cinema halls, hotels, railway stations and airports.

    ET Bureau

    It is very befitting that Mumbai’s tallest icon, Amitabh Bachchan, makes a sharp-suited appearance in Baz Luhrmann’s cinematic take on F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. As the movie sparks off a worldwide revival of Art Deco — in fashion, art, architecture, music, and drink – spare a moment to wonder about India’s contribution to the Roaring Twenties. After all, Mumbai’s collection of things Art Deco (mostly architecture) is second only to Miami’s, worldwide.

    Image article boday
    Sardar Samand Palace, Jodhpur

    Indeed, it is a testament to the vision of that city’s heritage campaigners that Mumbai actually applied for its Victorian-Gothic and Art Deco area to be declared a World Heritage site, and is now on Unesco’s ‘tentative’ list. ‘Miami Beach Architectural District’ may have an unparalleled collection of Art Deco structures built between the 1920s and 1940s, but at Mumbai’s Backbay Reclamation area, Art Deco buildings face Victorian Gothic ones, separated by the Oval Maidan — a juxtaposition found nowhere else in the world.

    Mumbai, however, is not the only Indian city with notable Art Deco examples. Chennai,

    Image article boday
    New India Assurance Building, Mumbai

    Kolkata, Delhi and smaller cities like Jaipur, all have landmark Art Deco public buildings, offices, bungalows, cinema halls, hotels, railway stations and airports. It was particularly serendipitous that Art Deco was the prevailing style when westernised Indian maharajas also decided to remodel their riyasats. Hence, from the grand Umaid Bhavan Palace and the bijou Sardar Samand in Jodhpur to Morvi and Indore, Art Deco architecture peppers India’s landscape.


    There was no reason for the maharajas to limit Art Deco to their abodes either; so, from jewellery, sculptures and cars to clothing, luggage and watches, everything was ordered from the West, in the fashion of the times. No wonder so many of the bejewelled baubles from Cartier, Boucheron and Van Cleef & Arpels that come up for auction at Sotheby’s and Christie’s today, owe at least part of their provenance to Indian royal aesthetes.

    Image article boday
    Laha Paint House, Kolkata

    The time is ripe, again for all things Art Deco, as The Great Gatsby hits the big screen on May 10 in the US, and a week later in Europe. It is probably too much to expect Mumbai or any other Indian city to put the spotlight on its Art Deco heritage in the next few weeks to cash in on Gatsby mania, but the inevitable after-glow of a Luhrmann extravaganza may prompt it to do so eventually. If Miami can make a tidy extra tourist income from its Art Deco heritage, why not Mumbai? The Great Gatsby already has several usual suspects cashing in on the imminent Art Deco craze: Tiffany & Co, after working with the film’s costume designer Catherine Martin for jewellery pieces, has released an Art Deco collection. Brooks Brothers have debuted a line of Jay Gatsby-esque suits even though the ‘real’ Gatsby supposedly got his clothes from London. And New York-based brand Lulu Frost has launched a ‘Let’s Bring Back’ collection pegged on the styles of socialite Nancy Cunard (African tribal jewellery) and the whimsical designer Elsa Schiaparelli.

    The Indians who descend on London every May will have a choice of jazz nights,

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    Raj Mandir Cinema, Jaipur

    Charleston classes, flapper dresses and vintage cocktails this time, especially at showpiece Art Deco hotels such as Claridge’s and The Ritz. And in New York, The Plaza Hotel (Scott Fitzgerald’s favourite hostelry, now owned by the Sahara Group), will open the doors of its 900-sq-ft Fitzgerald Suite complete with The Great Gatsby memorabilia on May 10, though bookings are already open. The hotel has even created Gatsby-themed gin-based cocktails to be sipped on while swinging to the tunes of a live jazz band.

     

    India’s Art Deco experience was notably different from those in the West, in that it took time to arrive on these shores, and left even more tardily once Independence shifted national priorities. So memories of the Art Deco era stretch nudge up to the end of the 1950s, tangled with images of a receding Raj. Stucco-walled and carpeted restaurants serving up Lobster Thermidor after gin tonics to the throaty tones of Anglo-Indian crooners, shiny Studebakers, Hillmans and Fords cruising down boulevards and posters of a smouldering Nargis and broody Raj Kapoor —all formed part of the Art Deco montage.

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    Life Insurance Corporation, Chennai

    To that extent, India has a greater claim on the Art Deco period than the West, which quickly moved on to modernism and the man-made delights of 1960s architecture and décor, (so beautifully recaptured now by TV’s Mad Men series) even before the previous era got its formal name.

    But remnants of that period are still au courant in Indian homes, so it could well be called a living heritage here. As international trends are now drivers of not only art, architecture and literature, but also tourism and business (such as fashion), it is time India turned the spotlight on other facets of its heritage beyond the ‘traditional.’



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