DR. LUIS DIAS
2025 is considered the centenary year for Art Deco. Short for the French ‘Arts décoratifs’, Art Deco is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first appeared in Paris in the 1910s (just before World War I), and caught on all over the world in the following decades. But the term ‘Art Deco’ came into popular use after the 1925 ‘Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes’ (International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts) in Paris.
My wife Chryselle is an Art Deco enthusiast and has written about Panaji’s rich Art Deco heritage for Architectural Digest India several years ago. It was on a Panaji heritage walk led by both of us (where I focused on history and she pointed out and described the detailing in the Art Deco buildings we encountered on the way) for the Serendipity Arts Festival some years ago that we first met Leaxan Freitas, a young man passionate about so many aspects of Goan heritage. He is certainly an expert on Art Deco in Goa; his Instagram ‘Goenchi Deco’ an exhaustive archive, is testament to his painstaking work crisscrossing the length and breadth of our state, seeking out and lovingly photographing examples of the art form that often turn up in the unlikeliest of places.
To celebrate Art Deco’s centenary year, Freitas has been leading frequent heritage walks in our capital city, at least once a month. One of the earliest walks was actually a fundraiser for our music charity Child’s Play India Foundation, which I sadly had to miss due to a severe respiratory infection triggered by particulate dust from the mindless never-ending Smart City works around my house.
I finally did his Art Deco Walk last Sunday evening, with a small group (he restricts registrations to 10 per walk). From the meeting-point at Jardim Garcia da Orta, the first site we stopped at was the Praça do Comércio.
In addition to being the poster edifice for Art Deco in Panaji as it has so many of its striking features, it has additional personal significance for me as it was designed in the 1930s by my namesake, Engenheiro Luís Bismarck Dias (1894-1949), my great-uncle, in whose honour and memory I was named. Very little about him is in the public domain; what I know is from family documents and oral history. In Goa, quite often if the family doesn’t blow its trumpet, ‘nothing’ is known about ‘ghosts at large’ from the past, and their contributions to Goa fade into obscurity.
Freitas walked us through all its hallmarks: the ‘ziggurat’ outline at the top, a reflection of the interest in archaeological excavations in various sites at the time, notably the Ziggurat of Ur in present-day Iraq; the flame torches in stucco flanking the door in the upper centre; the ‘sunburst’ wooden grills on the upper floor windows; the zigzag pattern skirting the top, representing water and waves, interspersed by chevrons; the high relief vertical lines in the lower pillars, and the relief work in the doorframe on the ground floor.
The building would have been painted in pastel colours in two tones, with the darker shade used for accentuating the highlights. The present thoughtless slap-dash paint job shows how much has been forgotten, willfully or otherwise, about our city’s architectural heritage.
We admired the lone Art Deco signage of an establishment on the building’s ground floor: ‘Sadassiva D. N. Counto; Comercio de Maquinas de Costura’ (Sadashiv D.N. Khaunte, sale of Sewing Machines). There are many typographic throwbacks to our past around us if we are alert to them.
From there it was a hop, skip, jump along Rua Cunha Rivara to Damodar Niwas at the corner with M. G. Road. Built in November 1952 by Gujarati businessman Damodar Mangalji, the four-storey building is another good example of Indian Art Deco, with elements of Streamline Moderne (or ‘Paquebot’ meaning ocean-liner in French), inspired by aerodynamic design reflected in the curved edges of its balconies with high narrow railings like the decks of a ship. The central tower mimics a nautical observation deck, and the elongated vertical windows accentuate the height of the building. Another interesting feature is the huge wooden ‘picture-frame’ effect on the ground floor façade. The shop was closed on a Sunday, but apparently the Art Deco detail is maintained in the interior décor as well. The first elevator in Goa was installed in this building.
Hotel Mandovi is just a month older, opened to the public in December 1952 for the Old Goa Exposition. Designed by the first all-Indian architectural firm Master, Sathe and Bhuta from then-Bombay, it is sadly not in use for some years now. It also has Streamline Moderne features, with curved balconies, and ‘eyebrows’ over rows of windows. The long rectangular mural depicting vignettes from Goan life is unsigned, but could be attributed to one Cuncoliencar, creator of similar work elsewhere in Goa. The damsels on either side of the main door façade could be representations from mythology. The lady with the deer is presumably Shakuntala. The lightning-bolt design on the first-floor balcony railing is also an Art Deco feature. I remember it from the 1970s in pastel light green, with highlights in a darker green.
Adjacent to it is another Art Deco building, better known to many for housing the Congress Party headquarters and Garden Glory florist on its first floor. Before all the riverine development, it would have once overlooked the river without obstruction. It is one of Freitas’ favourites, and one can see why. If one steps back and observes it from its ‘apex’ (where there is a liquor store on the ground floor), the edifice resembles a ship viewed from its prow. In Streamline modern style, its ‘prow’ is curved and has the typical high balcony railing; it even has stylised opaque ‘port-holes’ on its river-facing aspect, which I never noticed until Freitas pointed them out!
From here we went into the city to look at many private residences, too many to list or describe in detail here. Some had just a few Art Deco features, while others had the whole package.
For decades, I puzzled over the significance of what looked to me like a stylised music note (semi-breve), a circle bisected horizontally by a line across, and two shorter ones running parallel, one above, the other below. This is apparently peculiar to Indian Art Deco, with several theories over its meaning, if any. Mustansir Dalvi, trustee of Art Deco Mumbai and longest-serving professor of architecture at Bombay University, considers it a ‘reworking’ of the Plimsoll line (the reference mark on a ship’s hull indicating the maximum depth the vessel may be safely immersed when laden with cargo) in keeping with the nautical theme. To Freitas, it could be the sun peeping through clouds.
Of all Panaji’s Art Deco heritage, an architectural jewel in the city’s crown, the Praça do Comércio, far from being valued, maintained and showcased, is slated for demolition for, of all things, among others, a car-park! Such is the ‘wisdom’ of today’s city fathers in this ‘Smart’ City. ‘New lamps for old.’ Like the original ‘Alladin’ story, Goa is throwing away priceless heritage and replacing it with trash.
