Saturday Art: Art Deco

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Soona Mahal, Marine Drive

Those who have inherited old furniture or stayed in old buildings would surely have come across Art Deco designs. It is a vibrant and eclectic design style that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s with its origins in France. As a design movement it lasted up to the 1960s and most likely we would have seen and experienced it, but probably not known it specifically as Art Deco. The most striking examples are the Liberty Cinema, Regal, Eros, the buildings facing Oval Maidan and of course the ones on Marine Drive. Matunga too has a good Art Deco presence. The now re-done Metro Inox theatre is an excellent example of  Art Deco interiors right up to the minutest detail. The name to reckon with for shaping Mumbai's  Art Deco landscape is G. B. Mhatre.

Art Deco is characterized by geometric patterns, bold colours, symmetry, and very fine workmanship using high quality wood and modern materials of the day such as chrome, glass. It gives a feel of sophistication, luxury and modernity, at the same time preserving traditional workmanship. The style influenced everything, not only architecture, but also interior design, fashion, jewelry.

I have been fascinated with Art Deco from childhood as most of our furniture and almost everything around us had this design. And these were excellent and top class examples of it. My love and fascination was to the extent that when after retirement I designed the office space, it was entirely based on these design principles, including the logo and branding.

Fortunately, I had an old family carpenter working for us for almost 50 years who understood my specific requirement and executed it perfectly, with the same high quality workmanship. He is a master craftsman with a thorough understanding of wood, and an expert in restoration. While he is old and does not work now, his two sons, trained under him, actually did the carpentry work themselves, though they are high end contractors today. As an aside, the elder one had once accompanied his father to our house as a small boy. He vividly recounts that memory of his first visit even today, when my mother spoke to him and gave him some food to eat. We never know our casual actions can have such a profound impact on someone. Anyway, the work was so demanding that when he got some other carpenters to help, they gave up and left as they could not match up to the workmanship required. Nowadays carpenters are comfortable working with plywood and don't understand the nuances of working with high quality wood or make use of old wood.

Being quite close to the Art Deco world, I had invited the founding member and trustee of the Art Deco Trust to the office. He was highly impressed with how the design was faithfully incorporated into everything. When he later came to the house, he was amazed to see rare examples of Art Deco, things with all his experience he had not seen before, right from furniture, to lights, grills and motifs. They are with the family for over 80 years and are integrally part of our lives. 

What many people don’t know is that there is a connection between the Golden Ratio and Art Deco design principles. While Art Deco is more associated with bold geometric patterns, symmetry, and luxurious materials, it often incorporates mathematical harmony, including the Golden Ratio (1.618:1) and other proportional systems.

Thus we see a balanced composition in Art Deco buildings, furniture, graphic designs which often feature carefully measured proportions, some of which align with the Golden Ratio to create a sense of balance and elegance. Art Deco posters and typefaces too frequently use grids that reflect golden proportions to achieve aesthetically pleasing spacing. Another application of it is in facades, windows, and decorative motifs that use Fibonacci-based spirals and golden rectangles. 

I must add that while Art Deco is not strictly based on the Golden Ratio, it does use mathematical harmony as a guiding principle, blending beauty with precision.

Giving some pictures below illustrating the unique design characteristics of Art Deco. Seeing them, can you identify anything in and around your house bearing the design? Could be architectural elements, furniture, articles. For example, I bought a couple of watches whose dials I liked, only to realise later that they were very good specimens of Art Deco!


Metro Inox interiors


Rajjab Mahal, Opp. Oval Maidan


Rajjab Mahal


Liberty theatre interior



Art Deco coffee table






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