Tavern in Elephanta, Pet Cemetery & more: ‘Bombay Imagined’ documents what could’ve been

Beginning in 1670, ‘Bombay Imagined: An illustrated history of the unbuilt city’ tells the story of 200 unrealised projects for the city — aspirations of an evolved metropolis boasting everything from humane housing and expanded parks to slightly more eccentric or even ‘radical’ ideas like the author, Robert Stephens says. The pages of the book witnesses ideas that never saw the light of the day with drawings, contemporary speculations and artistic overlays, shedding some light on what could have been. Each unrealised proposition is described with concise, creative and, at times, playful prose. 

Researched and written by Robert Stephens, ‘Bombay Imagined’ was conceived in the ‘meditative depths of the Mumbai local train in 2013 and matured through various lockdowns during the global coronavirus pandemic’. 

When asked about how the idea for the book crossed his mind, Stephens cheekily says ‘oh just while reading about drainage in Professional Papers on Indian Engineering, published in 1869 - you guys don’t do that?’

So, it was this meandering journey through archival texts that resulted into a seven-year-long exploration, leading Robert to scour nearly five dozen archives, libraries and studios around the world in search of plans for Mumbai that never came to fruition.

Skillfully crafted relief maps accompany each unrealised project within the city's greater geographic context. When viewed like a flip book, these three-dimensional extrusions present Mumbai's transformation from seven islands to its modern-day form.

Almost two dozen institutions, foundations and libraries from around the world have shared rare, often never-before-published material for the book. The creative works of Aniket Umaria (Mumbai), Akhil Alukkaran (Calicut), Yannis Efstathiou (Berlin) and Lambros Papathanasiou (Athens) breathe visual life into 30 unrealised projects. ​Selected images are also reproduced from the Urbs Indis Library, Stephens’ personal collection of second-hand books on Mumbai, sourced from local vendors around the city’s Flora Fountain locale and numerous booksellers globally.

Apart from the careful details in visualisation of the projects inside the book, a lot of thought has also been put into the cover itself - designed specifically for Mumbai's formidable environment, a grey cloth-wrapped cover presents a forgiving façade in the face of the city’s atmospheric grit and grime. The title is debossed, whose depth is revealed in the presence of light, much like the projects within. 

In all, 'Bombay Imagined' chronicles untold narratives across centuries and gives an insight into the tides that have shaped our present-day Mumbai.