Enf of an era: Workers defy high winds to break down iconic Air India logo

The PWD’s Mumbai division has commissioned a new design to the Sir J J School of Art, which will replace the just-dismantled logo atop the building, which will house the state government’s offices in the near future

MUMBAI: The 38-feetX24-feet Air India logo – an iconic signage atop the 23-storey Air India building – was removed on Wednesday after a week-long operation. It took 10 workers from the Public Works Department (PWD) to dismantle the logo into 40 parts while braving high winds across the Arabian Sea and intermittent rain. The logo was made of perforated aluminium sheets designed to let the wind pass through.

Enf of an era: Workers defy high winds to break down iconic Air India logo

The PWD’s Mumbai division has commissioned a new design to the Sir J J School of Art, which will replace the just-dismantled logo atop the building, which will house the state government’s offices in the near future.

Pradnya Walke, chief engineer of PWD’s Mumbai division, said, “We took over the building on June 2 and will soon issue a tender for its makeover. Removing the logo was a big challenge, as the top area where it was set up does not have a parapet wall. Workers wore harnesses, helmets and took utmost care to achieve the task. The high winds across the sea added to their problems.”

A worker who was part of the team said, “The wind speeds were so intense that we had to pray hard for our safety even though we wore harnesses. We also had to be careful not to drop a single part of the logo on the road below.”

Jitendra Bhargava, former executive director of Air India, and author of ‘Descent of Air India’, which chronicled the financial and operational descent of the once-revered government-owned carrier, said, “When the building came up in 1970s, the revolving Centaur was the Air India logo. A landmark building, many Hindi films were shot in its backdrop. The new logo was planned when Indian Airlines was merged with Air India in 2007.”

According to sources, Air India had applied for permission to set up the logo from the Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority in 2014, which was approved in 2015, following which the logo was set up atop the building in 2017.

According to PWD’s records, the building was constructed in 1974 on a 7512.60 square meter plot, by architect John Burgee of the New York City architectural firm Johnson/Burgee. The total built up area is five lakh square feet. The site was one of the targets of the 1993 bomb blasts.