A City Icon BOMBAY SHELF

A newcomer to Bombay-Mumbai, standing in the Fort area across the road from the formidable architectural pile of the VT, would wonder what function the building serves. The stained glass windows and gargoyles suggest a cathedral, the huge dome perhaps brings to mind a key educational institution or museum, whereas the massive dimensions of the building, the imposing cast-iron gates and the array of arches, open loggias and carvings are reminiscent of a Maharaja’s grand palace. Few would imagine the structure to be an administrative office and fewer still, a functioning railway terminus, which is precisely what it is.
On 2nd July 2004, VT, formerly named after Queen Empress Victorian and renamed in 1996 after the Maratha Hero Shivaji, was listed as a world heritage site by the world heritage committee of UNESCO as an outstanding example if Victorian gothic revival architecture in India, blended with themes deriving from Indian traditional architecture.
The mammoth structure was designed by Frederick William Stevens in the neo-Gothic style and completed in 1887. Through the decades since its completion, the terminus continues to exert significant presence in the city’s landscape. While the bldg. ahs been internalised in the urban memory of its inhabitants as an icon of the legacy of British rule in India, it is more importantly seen as the gateway to the city, it is an amenity and a public space where the lives of the citizens intersect with the lines of mobility that make their existence in the city possible. The terminus is a celebration of the railways, perhaps the most important piece of infrastructure or support system in the city – the very lifeline of the city.
This book is not only a record if the processes and decisions that led to the creation of the building and a description of its architecture, but is also a documentation of the world that inhabits it.

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