New Urban Monuments

“In Maurilia, the traveller is invited to visit the city and, at the same time, to examine some old post cards that show it as it used to be: the same identical square with a hen in the place of the bus station, a bandstand in the place of the overpass, two young ladies with white parasols in the place of the munitions factory. If the traveller does not wish to disappoint the inhabitants, he must praise the postcard city and prefer it to the present one, though he must be careful to contain his regret at the changes within definite limits: admitting that the magnificence and prosperity of the metropolis Maurilia, when compared to the old, provincial Maurilia, cannot compensate for a certain lost grace, which, however, can be appreciated only now in the old post cards, whereas before, when that provincial Maurilia was before one's eyes, one saw absolutely nothing graceful and would see it even less today, if Maurilia had remained unchanged; and in any case the metropolis has the added attraction that, through what it has become, one can look back with nostalgia at what it was.”

-          Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

As you drive along the new Eastern Freeway from Chembur to South Mumbai, and you if recover from the sheer exhilaration of driving at high speed and reaching your destination much faster, and care to look at the buildings around, you will immediately experience nothing short of “time-travel”! This is the first time that I experienced the city from this vantage point, and I noticed buildings that I had never seen before. For many years the back-yard of Mumbai, it has become invisible to the inhabitants of Mumbai. As pointed out in a recent article in the Times of India, this part of town has an equally rich heritage and history as the more well-known sections.

Another interesting aspect is the role of new roads, highways and bridges in giving the citizens a whole new perspective that is not possible from any other location. It helps us to rediscover our cities and in the process they become the “monuments” of the new city! The Bandra-Worli Sea Link, apart from all the controversy surrounding it, has given Mumbai a new monument, a monument not just to be appreciated from a distance but from one which you can appreciate the city as well. The new Eastern Freeway does the same (unintentionally, more than intentionally, I am sure).

The Marine Drive, Palm Beach Road, the Bandra-Worli Sea Link, and now the Eastern Freeway are all part of an “urban monumentality” and offer us glimpses of this multi-faceted city. It just makes sense that we treat these major infrastructure projects as part of the Urban Design of the city, and make them do much more than what the engineers designed them for. In the process they will become beautiful monuments of our urbanscape.