Break Trend: Art Deco buildings designed by LM Chitale, including the National Insurance Building. |Picture source: Special arrangement
It was on April 29, 1925 that the Paris Expo officially introduced Art Deco style to the world. It took 10 years for the form to come to Madras. In between, Mumbai obtained the city's United Nations Bank building, the first in the country, and completed in 1932. This is a man in the presidency of Mumbai, bringing Art Deco to the city.
Laxman Mahadeo Chitale (1892-1960) attracted attention for his painting skills at Maharaja Sayaji Rao Gaekwad III in Baroda and took a draft course, and then, under HV Lanchester, he consulted in the early 1900s in the city of New Delhi in the early 1900s. If he didn't get the contract, he went on to design the Umaid Bhavan Palace in Jodhpur, one of the largest residences in India's Art Deco style.
Corner entrance
Chitale returned after a few years in England with Lanchester, moved to Madras, joined the PWD, and then withdrew in 1932 to establish the practice of independent architects. So Madras' journey on Art Deco began. His first major structure in this style in the city was the Oriental Insurance Building on Armenian Street. Making the corners of Chitale, in the style promoted by Sir Edwin Lutyens of Delhi, a building with a corner entrance was designed to maximize the raising of the sides along the two streets. The Oriental Insurance Building (still standing) is also the city’s first multi-storey building as it has six floors and two in the basement.
Mumbai has set a trend for banks and insurance companies that Indians have built their headquarters in Art Deco style. They almost wanted to defy British commercial interests by getting rid of neoclassical, Indian-Sarasin and Mumbai Gothic. Therefore, Madras followed suit. Chitale built many such as the National Insurance Building (1938) (1939) in China Bazaar Road and the Andhra Insurance Building (1939). Sir Raja Annamalai Chettiar loved Chitale very much and asked him to design the Annamalai University building. Therefore, he also designed Annamalai Manram in Marina Art in 1952. This is Chettinad and Art Deco's Happy Amalgam.
Theater follows the imitation
The rest of the city is not idle. Until then the cinema theaters insisted on strict classical theatres, mainly street box offices, and then went to the Art Deco, probably in the casino (1941). Cinema Studios – Gemini, Avm and Vijaya-Vauhini – even have their preview theaters on Art Deco! Business people found the style attractive, and Parry demolished its old building and built a new building in 1938, the current Dare House. Even P Orr & Sons, the Archives reveals an Art Deco structure to replace its Chisholm-designed building, but never bypassed it. The entire NSC Bose Road, the old Madras Christian College campus was sold a lot, and Art Deco buildings appeared, and the most still stood.
Even Connemara has made a makeover with a new style. Hotels such as the Ocean and Dasaprakash are jewelry for decorative artworks. In housing, decorative artworks become the trend of residences in T. Nagar, Mylapore, Alwarpet and Adyar. Silverware and furniture decorative arts and printing use fonts. This is really angry. By the 1950s, however, this style gave way to the socialist thought that modernist/barbarism replaced modernist/barbarism.
Today, Mumbai has managed to provide UNESCO protection for its decorative artworks at least on Marine Drive. On the other hand, we watched most of the buildings disappear. We need to protect what’s left.
((V. Sriram is a writer and historian.)
publishing – May 6, 2025-11:06 pm ist
