Vikas Dilawari, the unassuming conservationist behind the grand facades

Anjuli Bhargava finds leading Mumbai conservation architect Vikas Dilawari as rare as the old heritage buildings he works to preserve

He’s the anti-thesis of what I expected. Earnest, extremely grounded, understated, a bit hesitant, I am rather taken aback when I first meet Vikas Dilawari, a leading conservation architect in Mumbai city with 16 UNESCO awards to his credit. 

For someone whose work involves rubbing shoulders with the who’s who in Mumbai’s art and culture world, he strikes me as rather unusual. Neither is he the archetypal architect I have met over the years. I expected slippery, smooth, suave and even slightly brash but I find sincere, simple, self-effacing and soft spoken. I am, to be honest, rather pleasantly surprised.

Strange are the ways of the world, I think to myself, as I seat myself down before him at Gaylord restaurant’s outdoor space, an apt choice I realize for a meeting with a conservationist of his stature. He orders some coffee and I opt for a caramel custard. Here’s the man who’s currently working on some of the biggest restoration and revival projects in Mumbai – be it the Santa Cruz Sacred Heart’s church, the magnificent and much loved Flora fountain at Fort and Ma Hajiani dargah, a lesser known sister of Worli’s famous Haji Ali. He’s also more recently working with INTACH Mumbai on the project for the former Victoria terminus to be declared a UNESCO world heritage site. I know he’s come a long way from the suburbs of Mumbai to meet me and I’m grateful for it.

Born and bred in Mumbai, young Dilawari had his mind set to work on humans as opposed to buildings and wanted to pursue medicine but didn’t get the required grades. He stumbled into architecture at the time joining the L.S Raheja or what is called the Bandra School of Art. It was during an internship with Ved Segan who was at the time working on Mumbai’s Prithvi theater that he got his first glimpse of what restoration work could involve. During his five year degree, he also made a submission to redesign Mumbai’s Crawford market – an assignment that was well received and roamed the city of Mumbai “like a vagabond” listing all its old structures and buildings, giving him a full glimpse of the city’s glorious heritage and making him fall in love with it.

At the time however – mid 1980s - he found that the prospects of a restoration and conservation architect were not particularly bright. One could land the odd assignment but earning a sustainable and viable living through conservation work still seemed a while away. INTACH Mumbai was set up in 1985 and projects involving conservation were beginning to be heard of but were few and far between. 

During 1991-93 – once India’s liberalization got off the ground – a lot of foreign banks and companies opened offices in India and this led to a renewed interest in the conservation space. Caught up in the wave, Dilawari too worked as a consultant or assistant to the main architect on two conservation projects – offices of American Express bank and Jardine Fleming, both of which were to be housed in old historic buildings. 

But during his brief encounters with conservation, the drug of working with old structures, preserving and restoring them had seeped into his blood. Practical or not, it was where he wanted to be. Most would have argued that it was impulsive back then but Dilawari headed to Delhi’s School of Planning and Architecture (SPA) for a master’s in conservation, joining the second batch of the programme. It was clearly his cup of tea as he topped his batch and secured himself a year’s scholarship at York University in UK (1993-94)

It was on his return to Mumbai after his second master’s that Dilawari landed his first big project in 1996 with the Tata’s. To coincide with 50 years of India’s independence, the Tata’s had embarked on a project to restore the historic Army and Navy building at Kala Ghoda. It was the first tenanted building to be restored in the area. Although the budget for the project was Rs 1 crore, he and his team completed the project for Rs 70 lakh – those were days when budgets remained unspent unlike today when they are almost always exceeded - leaving some money to spare for the interiors.

Dilawari himself had been exposed to many new techniques during his stint overseas. That’s why when the opportunity arose to work with a building with stained glass – Rajabai Clock Tower at Oral Maidan – he jumped at it. This was a Sir George Gilbert Scott building. Experts from all over including the UK came in to work on the project, making it a fabulous learning ground for Indian counterparts. “This was a great learning experience, setting the bar far higher than what we were accustomed to in India”, explains he. 

It was around this time that Dilawari conclusively decided to follow his heart over his head and make conservation his bread and butter. Several architects at the time dabbled in everything but he chose to restrict himself and started working even more closely with INTACH’s Mumbai chapter.

The Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Mumbai, which was restored by Vikas Dilawari

Besides the financial aspect of it all, just the way it’s much harder to fix a broke company than starting a new one, it’s much tougher to restore and renovate an old structure than building a new one. It’s a bit like a “root canal” than fixing “new dentures”.  “The historical significance, the cultural context and sentiment have to be kept in mind when one works on these projects”, adds he, so sensitivity helps. In addition to following some basic principles like minimizing intervention and retaining as much of the old as possible, the architect needs to bear in mind the “conservation philosophy”. 

In 2001, a fire destroyed the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) head office and Dilawari worked as a sub consultant to INTACH to restore the building. This too was great learning for him as it was the first time he worked on a structure ravaged by a fire. All through the years, Dilawari expanded his scope, horizons and knowledge – working with masons of all shapes and sizes, learning about stone and woodcarving, stained glass, old plumbing and electricals.

A second big break for him came when INTACH Mumbai chapter’s head and the force behind the Bhau Daji Lad museum Tasneem Zakaria Mehta pulled him into the restoration of the museum and designing the landscape during 2003-05 and then again in 2010-12. 

After this there’s been no looking back. Projects started to pour in. “What seemed unviable earlier slowly became very real”, he adds. He’d also made a name of sorts in the area but the city and India as a country had also begun to realize the value of preserving the old. A certain maturity that was lacking in the old days was surely albeit slowly developing. 

Although his practice remains small with a total of 53 staffers, there’s never a shortage of work. Mumbai continues to exercise its stranglehold over him but he has been pulled into some projects around Mumbai – notably the Archiepiscopal Palace in Old Goa and the Craigieburn bungalow in Matheran. Unassuming as he is, Dilawari and his work may well have escaped the attention of Mumbai’s page 3 and glitterati but not of UNESCO which has heaped a total of 16 awards (see list) on him including for his work done at the Yacht club, one of my favourite haunts in the city. 

He’s a bit surprised when I insist on settling our bill – a journalist and that too a woman. I explain that I like to settle all my meetings bills as far as possible when I sense his discomfort. He acquiesces, looking more uncertain than ever. 

When I contact him almost six months after our meeting – when I get down to actually writing – I notice his Whatsapp display message that reads: “It’s good not because it’s old. It’s old because it’s good”. I ask him who wrote this line and learn that it is an anonymous quote but one that resonates with him like none other.