MATTERS OF THE ART

In this Mumbai apartment, designed by Ali Baldiwala, the owners' prized art collection sets the stage for their next chapter

- VAISHNAVI NAYEL 

On the twenty-third floor of a Worli high rise sits a 3,700 sq ft home that channels Back to the Future—if Back to the Future took a detour from the past. The part-trad, part-tony aesthetic is no small coincidence. “Far from it,” smiles Ali Baldiwala, Interior Designer and Partner at Mumbai-based Baldiwala Edge, who was tasked with facelifting the home’s living room, dining room, kitchen, den and four bedrooms. “With three generations under one roof, the main challenge was honouring each member’s tastes and preferences,” he suggests of the family, composed of a 50-something couple, their grown-up children and the husband’s mother. So much so, that the brief he received wasn’t a brief at all, but rather individual memos from each member, describing what they wanted for their respective space. Despite their aesthetic differences though, the family was united about one thing: that their art and collectibles be given pride of place. “It’s the very first thing they mentioned to me, so I knew we had to plan the house in a way that let their collections shine,” he shares.