Architect and visual artist Robert Stephens will trace the evolution of the project, whose history goes back to the 1870s, at a talk tomorrow

The 149-km-long Mumbai coast has been at the centre of a heated debate - forcing political parties, fisherfolk, environmentalists and activists into a perennial face-off with regards to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) Rs 12,000 crore Mumbai Coastal Road project (MCRP).

It has also given birth to social media movements like the 'Save Our Coast Mumbai', an Instagram account documenting the ongoing land reclamation, which has also set up a petition with over 60,000 signatories marked to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for responsible development. But owing to the way information spreads on social media, a lot of facts could be placed in the wrong context and manipulated as well. This is what led city-based architect and visual artist Robert Stephens to conceptualise a talk, to be delivered tomorrow at the ARTISANS' Art Gallery at Kala Ghoda, which will trace the evolution of the coastal road.

.... via Mid-Day

Mumbai's Coastal Road‚ by Larsen & Tourbo. Land reclamation work is visible off the Nepean Sea Road (bottom left).
Mumbai's Coastal Road‚ by Larsen & Tourbo. Land reclamation work is visible off the Nepean Sea Road (bottom left). © Robert Stephens

Bombay Oblique is an archival exploration of the Mumbai Coastal Road, beginning with its incipient iteration in the 1870's by the city's first Municipal Commissioner, Arthur Crawford. The richly illustrated talk will trace the evolution of the controversial road from Crawford's self-serving proposal of the late 19th Century, through to American transportation planner Wilbur Smith's mid 20th Century scheme: the West Island Freeway. Smith's proposal of 1963, which formed the backbone of the 2018 scheme currently under construction, will be reviewed in its greater histo-global context, as well as within the context of his own extensive two-volume report.

The six decades that followed Smith's proposition will be illustrated through archival newspaper articles, revealing the tumultuous and highly-political evolution of the road that was intended to be completed by 1981.

The visual narrative, which draws heavily on material from libraries spread across three continents and includes images on special loan from the Wilbur Smith family in South Carolina, USA, will close with contemporary aerial photographs of the under-construction Mumbai Coastal Road from March 2019.