THE BALASAHEB THACKERAY RASHTRIYA SMARAK IN MUMBAI IS A BOLD ARCHITECTURAL TRIBUTE TO THE ARTISTIC LEGACY OF THE POLITICAL FIGURE.

Like the man himself, Balasaheb Thackeray Rashtriya Smarak defies convention. It does not rise skyward in grandeur like the towering statues of political icons. Instead, it carves into the land—a 60,000-square- foot built space designed to be experienced rather than merely observed. Led by women architects and engineers, the project has transformed the 2.9-acre Mayor’s estate in Dadar into a democratic public space, creating an architectural dialogue between history and the present.

- ANJANA VASWANI

The Smarak is boldly contemporary, almost brutalist, yet it does not erase the past. The Victorian-era Mayor’s Bungalow, built in 1928, remains the site’s centre-piece. “In India, we either build in complete isolation from our history or overpower it with something excessively modern,” says Lambah. “This project was about striking a balance—allowing two architectural periods to exist together, without one erasing the other.”

For Lambah, a graduate of the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, this balance is second nature. “In Delhi, I saw Joseph Allen Stein’s India Habitat Centre rise beside the Lodhi tombs and Charles Correa’s LIC building—both monumental yet respectful. Stein, who hired me as his last architect, taught me that architecture must be true to its time, not a mimicry of the past.”

That principle is evident here: the Interpretation Centre—housing galleries, seminar halls and museum spaces—sits 20 feet below ground, its concrete geometry a striking counterpoint to the bungalow’s classical elegance.

In Mumbai, a city that, as Lambah points out, has one of the lowest per capita open spaces in the world, the Smarak offers something rare—public access to a seafront site. “Seafront land in Mumbai is among the most exclusive. The idea here was to return it to the people—to make it democratic,” she says.