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Architectural firm wins award for restoring Byculla station to its 1853 design
Mumbai: The restoration of Byculla railway station, carried out by Abha Narain Lambah Associates, has been awarded the first prize in the category of conservation of heritage by Hudco Design Awards for 2022-23
Mumbai: The restoration of Byculla railway station, carried out by Abha Narain Lambah Associates, has been awarded the first prize in the category of conservation of heritage by Hudco Design Awards for 2022-23. The architectural firm returned the oldest railway station in India and Asia to its original state — circa 1853.
The award is given by the Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO), a government initiative. Byculla railway station is a Grade IIA heritage structure. The project started in September 2019, and was completed in December 2021 and the restored station was inaugurated in May 2022.
In 2022, the restored station received the UNESCO Asia Pacific’s Award of Merit for cultural heritage conservation.
Talking about the state of the station at the beginning of the project, conservation architect Abha Narian Lambah said, “The building wasn’t quite legible as a historic building. The exterior facade was plastered with cement and painted white. The roof had been changed. The verandas had been enclosed, and a lot of the offices and toilets had been turned into rooms and godowns.”
Underneath all the layers and years of addition, they found and exposed the historic stone masonry. The verandas were opened up, and old ticket counters of historic cast-iron grill design restored. The electric wiring was also redone, previously all over the place.
“For many decades in our country, we have not treated heritage buildings specially. A lot of the conservation work was undoing some of the interventions that were harmful to the building,” said Lambah, who heads the firm.
The railway station, like many others in the city, was designed in a Victorian Gothic style. Its hallmark features are the stone façade, sloping Mangalore tiles on the front veranda, wooden trusses and high ceilings.
Lambah, along with Shaina NC of I love Mumbai and Meenal Bajaj of the Bajaj Group, took on the project in 2020 as an act of service to the city and its common people, and chose Byculla station for its relative unpopularity and ubiquity. The former was responsible for bringing in community and stakeholder participation, while the latter took on the funding. The pandemic, however, threw a lurch in their step.
“We used the lockdown to a great advantage, because that was the only time railway stations were shut. We figured the best thing was to turn the station into a labour camp and offer the migrant workers a livelihood, instead of them having to walk all the way back to their villages,” said Lambah.
The work paid off and the accolades followed. “I’m hoping this will set a precedent for the restoration of other railway stations,” she added.