Chronicling living history of cities

A growing community of architecture and history enthusiasts is using Instagram to record the built heritage of their cities

- Manoj Sharma

Mallika Keer is on a mission to document Mumbai’s living heritage. Her Instagram page, titled ‘Beyond Heritage’, seeks to look at Mumbai beyond the usual notion of culture by not just appreciating the city’s monuments, but also what she calls its everyday heritage — houses, cinema halls, offices, and markets, among others.

She uses her page as a forum to share the story of these structures, holding discussions on their history, architecture, their present condition, and the need for their conservation.

“I studied architectural conservation in Delhi, and returned to my hometown Mumbai during the Covid-19 lockdown. I started exploring my neighbourhood of Shivaji Park and realised that there are so many houses and other buildings with interesting architectural features which face extinction due to the mass redevelopment of entire neighbourhoods. These buildings are a part of the city’s evolution, and I wanted to document them before they are lost forever,” the 26-year-old said.

Keer is part of a growing tribe of history and architecture buffs who use Instagram to create an online repository of built heritage in their respective cities. They also raise awareness about such buildings, and help foster public dialogue about the need for their conservation.

Celebrating Art Deco

Many online repositories of built heritage are devoted to Art Deco — a style of architecture that originated in Paris and became popular in the US during the 1920s (popularly called the “Roaring Twenties”). In India, Mumbai was the fulcrum of the Art Deco movement during the 1930s, and the style later spread to other cities such as Kolkata, Delhi, Chennai, and Hyderabad.