Art Deco’s influence on Mumbai’s buildings of the 1920s and ’30s joins the style’s streamlined aesthetic with tropical imagery, figures from Indian mythology, and buildings that consider the local climate and have “multiple rooms structured to facilitate conventional domesticity of an Indian household,” says Katsushi Goto, an architect and urbanist who splits his time between Mumbai and Tokyo.

And so when Katsushi and his wife, visual artist Vishwa Shroff, purchased a large apartment in a 1930s building that retained its original layout, they knew the space would need to undergo renovations that would allow for “dynamic, multifunctional spaces [that] served different purposes from time to time, and yet involved preservation of [the apartment’s] iconic attributes,” says Katsushi.

The apartment was to serve not only as the couple’s home, but also as their place of work—a studio for Vishwa, and an architectural office for Katsushi, who runs the architecture and urban design firm Squareworks. It’s also the site of an annual fellowship program that they organize called SquareworksLab.

Before: Main Corridor

After: Main Corridor

Before: Master Bedroom

After: Master Bedroom

Before: Dining Room

After: Dining Room

Katsushi centered his new design around five core spatial concepts: transparency, natural light and ventilation, centripetal organization (i.e. an internally focused “reverence for existing surfaces,” explains Katsushi), materiality, and simplicity. These factors came into play when they removed a few walls (including an existing bathroom) to create the large kitchen and living area, which also functions as their main office and studio space.

After: Service Corridor

Complementing the workspace in both function and layout is a dining room, which, Katushi explains, “converts into a gallery or exhibition space.” Here, the gridded frame also acts as a podium or large shelf for display when it is lowered. The long space emphasizes views through the apartment, with the vista from one end of the room looking directly out to the balcony and to the city beyond.

After: Guest Bathroom

Throughout the home, the original terrazzo tile flooring remains, changing from light gray with a deep green border to a cheery marigold in the dining room. New materials were intended to be simple and clearly distinguish between new and old: the cabinetry in the kitchen, service core, service corridor, and master bedroom is all constructed out of wood, and the guest bathroom is clad in a handmade tile with curved edges from a local manufacturer.

Together, the materials, greenery, open spaces, and simple but carefully designed furnishings and expertly selected finishes make for a home and workplace that, in the words of Katsushi, “conveys an upbeat contemporary expression with nuances of the distant past.”

More Before & After:

A Chicago Queen Anne Recovers From a Misguided 1960s Remodel

A Designer Mixes Asian and American Influences in Her Family’s San Francisco Kitchen

Another A. Quincy Jones Eichler Is Returned to Its Former Glory in Oakland

Project Credits:

Architects/ Designers: SquareWorks LLP
DesignTeam: Katsushi Goto, Khushboo Vyas
Collaborators: Apartment
Contractors: Nirmaan (Mainak Mushruwala, Husein Khakoo)
Project management: Project Makers (Jitendra Jadav)
Photographer: Fabien Charuau

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Before & After: An Art Deco Apartment in Mumbai Becomes a Couple’s Creative Headquarters