Hyderabad Art Deco

Bachelors Quarters, built in 1940 (photo credit - Nitya Gonnakuti)

"There may once have been a terrazzo floor here. They were common in buildings across the city but many have been lost now," said Nitya Gonnakuti as we entered the Bachelors Quarters building in Central Hyderabad. She has been documenting the city's art deco architecture since 2019 and shares her findings on a dedicated Instagram page. During my recent time in the city, and despite the extreme heat, she kindly showed me some of her favourite buildings.

Bachelors Quarters was built in 1940. Its central glazed stairwell, flat roof and open walkways show both art deco and streamline influences. It originally offered accommodation to poorer students from distant towns and villages who came to Hyderabad for more opportunities. Rents collected from the rooms were used to help fund scholarships for women. According to the Telangana Today newspaper, the building was commissioned by the Seventh Nizam of Hyderabad, but it has not been possible to find details of the architect responsible for its design. "This is a problem common to many of our art deco buildings. It is hard to find this kind of information or the date that they were built,” said Nitya. Today, it is used entirely for commercial purposes and houses several small business. Despite the absence of terrazzo, some original features remain, particularly the wooden doors and window fittings. Also original, is the Arabic inscription in the lobby which bears the Islamic date 1359, equating to 1940 in the Gregorian calendar.

Bachelors Quarters staircase

 A cultural hub for the Urdu language

Bachelors Quarters was not only a student hostel. It became a cultural hub for the preservation and celebration of the Urdu language. Publishers, newspapers and cultural organisations had offices there. In 1955, poet Suleiman Areeb began publishing Saba, an Urdu magazine, from room 17A. Areeb was politically active as a member of the Communist Party in the late 1940s and early 1950s. He was imprisoned twice, including on one occasion for reading a revolutionary poem in public. Saba became influential in popularising modern literary trends and ideas and drew many politicians and trade unionists to the poet's office. 

Poetry had a prominent role in the building. Mushaira - a gathering of poets to read their works in public - were held there. This art form was particularly prevalent in Hyderabad and it is likely that many of the performers passed through room 27 which housed a fine arts academy frequented by composers, artists and even comedians. From the late 1950s, Urdu began to decline in importance and this rich cultural scene started to fade away. Despite this Shugoofa, a monthly humorous Urdu language magazine was still being published from the building as recently as 2021. 

In 43 degrees of heat, dust and with the noise from the heavy traffic outside, it was hard to imagine the cultural and creative activity that once took place here. It was also difficult to photograph the long facade as it is practically impossible to find a break in the traffic for a clear shot. The extremely strong light and the width of the building was also a challenge. In 2007 proposals were brought forward to demolish Bachelors Quarters due to its then dilapidated condition. Fortunately, the threat receded and restoration took place in 2020, when each of the resident companies contributed to the cost. Despite its cultural and historical significance, it is not a protected building and remains vulnerable to “development” due to its city centre location. 

Nitya owns a successful branding and social media company. As we climbed the paan-stained spiral staircase, I asked her how she became interested in art deco. “Although I work in communications, I studied architecture and had to do an essay on a favourite building. I chose one that I found out was in this style and I wanted to know more," she said. 

Porthole with a palm tree, Moosa building

A porthole with a palm tree

The Moosa building is a short walk from Bachelors Quarters. According to the date on its tower’s facade, it was built in 1942. Despite the encroachment of signage from the ground floor commercial units, it remains a handsome building. Its balconies and roof terrace are reminiscent of the modernist buildings found in many European cities as well as in Melbourne, Tel-Aviv and even Asmara in Eritrea. It too was designed as a hostel, a function it still fulfils. 

Little is known about Moosa, for whom the building is named, but the friendly manager told us he had been an auctioneer. The tiny office contained an original 1940s wooden key-holding fixture, complete with numbers in an elegant typeface and the keys of unoccupied rooms. After some discussion, the manager agreed to let us see inside the upper floors and instructed an employee to give us access to all areas. 

Each room contains three to four beds and a few pieces of vintage, mismatched wooden furniture, including mirrors, desks, dressing tables and cabinets. Many of the tables had been overlaid with formica tops, presumably to protect the wood or possibly to hide damage. Each room has a fan and although they lack natural light, some have access to a balcony. Guests can stay here for a few hundred rupees per night.

Each cream-painted room door bears geometric motifs and art deco “waves” - although the latter are in pairs rather than adhering to the usual “rule of three”. Some original terrazzo flooring remains, including on the balconies. There is also a roof terrace, where laundry had been hung out to dry and where one resident slept under a canopy, taking refuge from the heat. Porthole windows are a classic art deco feature, but the Moosa building adds a local flourish, with an elegant palm tree and birds in flight on one of the landing windows. 

An ugly, abandoned and unfinished structure stands at the rear of the hostel. It conceals a large art deco villa, adjacent to the Moosa building and visible only from its rear balcony. It is in poor shape and in the process of being reclaimed by nature. There were signs that it is still occupied and despite its condition, there are hints of how elegant it must once have been. Its future must be uncertain given its condition and prime location.

Staircase window, Moosa building

Door with deco motif, Moosa building

Architectural influencers

Despite the dearth of documentation for many buildings, two architects are known to have influenced the acceptance of art deco in Hyderabad. Mohammed Fayazuddin (1903-77), studied at London's prestigious Architectural Association before returning to India in 1934 and beginning an illustrious career. In 1944 he produced a masterplan for Greater Hyderabad. He would go on to design the art deco influenced State Bank of Hyderabad on Abids in the city centre, and also the Ravindran Bharathi, a major cultural centre completed in 1961. Fayazuddin was a highly cultured man and enjoyed playing the sitar. Perhaps he played at Bachelors Quarters.

Karl Malte von Heinz (1904-71) was a German architect connected to the Bauhaus. He fled the Nazi regime in the 1930s seeking refuge in India and settling in Hyderabad where he designed a mansion in the Banjara Hills for the Raja of Wanaparti. He would go on to work for Robert Tor Russell the architect responsible for Connaught Place in Delhi. Heinz also worked for Russell on the Pataudi Palace in Haryana. It is likely that if either Fayazuddin or Heinz had been responsible for Bachelors Quarters, it would be known, but the design demonstrates influences they would have been familiar with.

Villa, Jeera Colony

Villa, Jeera Colony

“Om" in Hindi script, Jeera colony.

An art deco Hindu temple

Our final stop was in Jeera Colony, a neighbourhood in the Secunderabad part of the city. "This area was established in the 1930s. The original residents included affluent Gujarati, Marwari and Telugu families. The plots were allocated on a leasehold basis which means the residents do not own the land and permission to carry out works on the properties involves an expensive bureaucratic process. This has led to some of them falling into disrepair,” said Nitya.  This arrangement also brings other risks. As the leases approach their end, residents may choose to leave, making the buildings vulnerable to demolition, changing the character of the area, dispersing a century old community and erasing its history.

For the moment several art deco villas remain in Jeera’s quieter streets. Many have retained their original balconies, glazed stairwells, decorative iron gates and railings. There is even the occasional porthole, one of which bears the word “om” in Hindi script. This is an example of “Indo-Deco” - where local symbols, motifs and other design elements are amalgamated with art deco style. “Om” is a word chanted during meditation, to help energise the mind and the body. Perhaps the original owners had the inscription included to bring positive energy to their home.

Before we returned to the city centre, we made a stop at the Arya Samaj Mandir on Rashtrapathi Road. This Hindu temple has the date 1947 inscribed above its main entrance. Arya Samaj was founded in 1875 as a Hindu reform movement, so it is appropriate that the temple should be built in a style contemporary to its date of construction. The striking pink exterior, decorated with Hindu motifs was a fitting finale to our tour, and the possibility of seeing inside at some point, a reason to return to the city.

Arya Samaj Mandir, built in 1947.

Photo credit - image of Bachelors Quarters facade - courtesy of Nitya Gonnakuti. All other photos by the author.

You might also like Behind the courtyard door - Budapest’s buildings tell tales

Behind the courtyard door - Budapest's buildings tell tales

During lockdown I remained sane by trying to learn a new language and by travelling vicariously on the internet. One of the sites I most enjoyed took me into the lobbies, courtyards and walkways of Budapest's historical buildings. It told the stories of former residents and of events that had taken place there. Budapest is a city I had visited several times before, but had never seen in this way. Last week, I spent half a day with Vincent Baumgartner, the photographer behind Buildings Tell Tales, exploring some of the buildings featured on this Facebook group.

"She is a curious person. If a courtyard door was open, she'd go in..."

When we met at 9am, Vincent had already been on the streets for a couple of hours, exploring and taking photographs. "I wake up early and go out with my camera to catch the light at its best," he said. I asked how the project had started and how he became interested in architecture. "As a child I would go out walking with my mum. She is a curious person. If a courtyard door was open, she'd go in and I would go with her. She remains curious and we still explore together now," he said, "It must have started there." Some of his earlier explorations took place in Switzerland where he was born to an Hungarian mother and a Swiss father. Despite this, from an early age he was familiar with, and took a close interest in Hungary and Hungarian culture. He explained, "We often came here during the summer, and when I was nineteen, I came to Budapest intending to stay for one year, but ended up staying for five. During that time I completed my BA and also took part in a study programme for diaspora Hungarians, learning more about our culture and history." 

He returned to Switzerland to complete his Masters Degree, and worked there for a year, before his curiosity about different countries and cultures led him to spend a year in Iran. In 2018 he returned to Budapest. "Despite being born in Switzerland, I was starting to feel homesick for Hungary, so I came back, found work and settled here," he said. He currently works in communications for an international organisation.

While walking in the city, he began noticing names and dates carved into brick walls. "My curiosity was aroused and I began photographing this historical graffiti, using old telephone directories and other documents to research the details. I discovered that many of the marks had been made by on-duty police officers in the first few decades of the twentieth century, and that others had been made by famous people," he said. One such famous person was the psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Léopold Szondi. Vincent continued, "I discovered a piece of graffiti seemingly written by him. I photographed it and sent it to the Szondi Foundation who confirmed that it was his handwriting." These findings not only led to him establishing the Instagram page Bricks of Budapest, but also to addressing a conference in Cologne.

"Almost everything I posted provoked comments and messages..."

This project sparked his interest in what might be behind those bricks and he began entering courtyards and taking pictures with his phone. Keen to share his findings with a wider audience, he launched the Buildings Tell Tales Facebook page in 2019 and soon began attracting a positive response. "The page quickly got traction and from the beginning, almost everything I posted provoked comments and messages from current or former residents, including people who had left Hungary," he said. Today the page has more than 34,000 followers, about half of them in Hungary and significant numbers in the USA, United Kingdom, Israel, France and Switzerland. "During lockdown I began to take my photography more seriously. I bought some equipment and took some classes. I wanted to better record my findings and to produce aesthetically pleasing pictures," he said. He has been so successful in this aim, that two Budapest local authorities have now granted him access to the buildings in their area of jurisdiction. 

Our walk focused on the city's seventh and eighth districts, once home to a large Jewish community. The huge external doors and sometimes austere exteriors of the apartment buildings can conceal stained glass, terrazzo surfaces, art nouveau tiles and elegant balconies or walkways. Others open to neglect, decay and empty apartments, some of them waiting for the wreckers' ball. Writers, artists, musicians, scientists, labourers and craftsmen once lived in these apartments and all must have had stories.

The level of grandeur denoted the social class of those who originally lived there, although many of the grandest are now in a poor state of repair. One apartment building is said to have housed a bordello that counted European royalty amongst its clients. Its stairwells are now dark, the decorative metalwork rusting and the plaster cladding crumbling. The same building has special historical significance as the wall of the wartime Budapest Ghetto stood in its rear courtyard. The original wall was demolished in 2006, but a portion has since been rebuilt as a monument.

A photographic studio in the attic

Other buildings are well maintained with evidence of repair work and clean courtyards free of litter. In Kiraly Utca, the inhabitants of one apartment block had undertaken historical research focusing on the story of former resident photographer Pal Kis. He worked from a converted attic room, where the ceiling and one wall were constructed entirely of glass to admit natural light. As well as running a successful business, he worked as photographer for the Opera House. During the latter part of the Second World War, Kis was one of many Jewish men taken for forced labour, but he managed to escape and return to Budapest. He was arrested again and deported on the last train to leave the city before the Russian encirclement. He died in the Buchenwald concentration camp in January 1945. While performing forced labour he maintained a secret diary, parts of which are preserved at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Kis' story is posted on information panels in the courtyard of his former home. 

The Kiraly Utca building's residents are clearly interested in its history, while elsewhere people greeted us and one asked for the details of the Facebook group as she wanted to know more about the project. "People are used to me now," said Vincent, "Often when they see me setting up my tripod, they will stop and talk." He has also attracted a significant amount of media attention, including from Hungarian state television, local and national newspapers  and overseas publications.

Since 2018, he has amassed a huge body of both photographic and written documentation on Budapest and I asked about future plans for sharing and developing his work. "I started a website last year and would like to further expand my project by obtaining a guide qualification so that I can lead tours of some of the buildings. I have also had a few exhibitions of my work. My next show will be in the Institute Français in September this year," he said. I asked him if he would consider producing a book, "Yes, that's possible too," he replied. 

You can follow Vincent's work on Facebook at Buildings Tell Tales  and on Instagram at Bricks of Budapest and Buildings Tell Tales

You can find the Buildings Tell Tales website here.

His next exhibition opens at Cafe Le Troquet in the Institute Français from September 7th. More details will be announced beforehand on the above links.

Photographs in this blog provided by courtesy of StudioSB