To be frank, Mumbai buildings don't look great, sometimes even ugly, at least the older ones. I am not sure if it is because of closed economy and licence permit raj and useless rules and guidelines or is it because most builders are Gujjaratis, Marwadis, Sindhis, Punjabis etc (with finance of Muslim underworld too) and makes me suspects the so called architects are just rich pampered useless kids and relatives of these same people with fancy foreign degree.
If I compare the photos of other cities in India developing thread, other cities buildings exterior design look much decent compared to Mumbai, at least to my prejudiced eyes.
Nowadays there is this disgusting fashion of naming all the new buildings with strange english and european words. Is that supposed to be something exotic? I just see the elitist bias of anglicized generation pretending to be whites looking down on backward natives.
By now Mumbai should have had its own architectural style based on traditional local architecture and climate.What we have so far is irregularly shaped flat roofed blocks that are completely out of sink with local climate. Maybe because Mumbai is city of migrants and most of Mumbai construction sector is controlled by Kutchi-Jain cartel. And Gujarat and interior Maharashtra like much of interior India is water scarce with little rain and very hot summer. So the traditional homes in interior are flat roofed, often made of wood and mud (though now everything is becoming concrete).
As a result buildings all over Mumbai leak in rains. Thank Eru Iluvatar, nowadays many housing societies are getting their roofs covered with some kind of canopy as an afterthought.
This how traditional homes in the konkan region look like:
They have roofs like that for a reason. Local architecture evolves around local climate and customs. The kind of torrential rains western coast gets is unique.
We need architects who can evolve these kind of roofs and other traditional elements like balconies/gallerries, large common verandah from tradional houses/havelis/wadas and mate it with modern designs.
I notice some buildings in Kochi attempted to use such rooftops. Don't they look nice?
Hope at least now Mumbai developes it's own modern architectural style.
@patentneer @Bombaywalla @TheGujju
