As the Art Deco movement turns 100, its legacy still shimmers across Indian cities — not just in Mumbai’s famed skyline, but in the quiet curves of Delhi’s old hotels, houses, and cinemas. Introduced to India in the 1930s, the style brought with it sweeping balconies, fluted columns, and streamlined facades.
While Delhi’s architectural lore often clings to Mughal domes and colonial arches, Deco left its own subtle imprint. Guided by Geetanjali Sayal and Prashansa Sachdeva of the visual archive Deco in Delhi, HT explored five surviving structures — each revealing a different facet of the city’s forgotten modernism.
Timekeeper of GT Road
At the junction of Grand Trunk Road and Roshanara Road—long before it was engulfed by flyovers and traffic fumes—a slender, stately clock tower anchors Delhi’s expansion northward. Erected in 1941, the Ram Roop Clock Tower was born from both civic necessity and architectural ambition, becoming one of the city’s earliest forays into Art Deco.
Named after philanthropist and educationist Lala Ram Roop, the tower was envisioned as a beacon at the centre of a bustling industrial district. Mills flanked the area, trams clanged through Sabzi Mandi, and the crossroads cried out for order and ornament. In a 1938 letter preserved in the Delhi Archives, found during Deco in Delhi’s research, Ram Roop proposed a traffic-diverting clock tower—functional, yet beautiful. The British agreed. And so rose a 50-foot Deco sentinel, its large dial perched 40 feet high, inaugurated with imperial pomp by the Marchioness of Linlithgow.
From afar, it appears modest—just another relic vanishing into the city’s clutter.
But up close, its Art Deco identity comes alive. Vertical recessed bands carve light and shadow across its face. Intricate stone jaalis blend Deco geometry with Egyptian and classical motifs, echoing a uniquely Indian modernism that experts now call Indo-Deco. At its four corners, sharply defined geometrical “jaalis” anchor the structure with a sculptural elegance rarely seen in Delhi’s utilitarian towers.
Geetanjali Sayal, founder, Deco in Delhi and a creative producer and arts researcher said a similar clock tower — called the Royapettah clock tower exists in Chennai too. “This helps further diversify the links between Delhi and other cities in addition to Mumbai and understand the broader ways in which the style travelled between various locations within India at the time.”
For Delhi however, Ram Roop tower’s chimes once ruled the rhythms of local life. Mill workers set their shifts to its gongs; merchants aligned their ledgers to its ticks. Even today, remnants of its era remain—frayed power lines that once served electric trams still hang above the road like ghostly filaments of a vanished system.
Just a few hundred metres away, the Ram Roop family still resides in Gali Ram Roop, Punjabi Basti. “My great grandfather-in-law wanted to create something both practical and beautiful,” said Neeti Gupta, 60. “This clock tower is a part of his legacy. Back then, there was nothing here but sabzi mandis and mills.”
Today, the Ram Roop Clock Tower quietly endures amid a web of wires and cable—not just as an architectural artefact, but as a timekeeper of ambition, memory, and a vision of modernity that pulsed through Delhi’s industrial heart.
Where cinema met the Republic
When Delite Cinema opened on Asaf Ali Road on April 30, 1954, it wasn’t just a place to watch films — it was a statement. With its curved entrance, soaring vertical bands, and tripartite Deco façade, Delite wasn’t only the tallest building in Delhi at the time, it was the boldest. It was also the only air-conditioned cinema in the city — a marvel of both India’s post-Independence sense of architecture and aspiration.
Its founder, Brij Mohan Lal Raizada, wasn’t simply setting up a business. He was responding to a call. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had urged the Capital to cultivate its own modern landmarks — expressions of a young, self-assured republic. Raizada offered Delite: a place where glamour, design, and nationalism could come together in celluloid splendour.
The building’s tripartite elevation — a signature of Art Deco — gives it rhythm and drama, while its strong vertical lines stretch skyward, drawing the eye and reaching for the sky.
“In Deco buildings, especially for corner plots, we often see the corner as the axis where the predominant features are noticed, such as an entrance tower or overhanging porches to lay emphasis. They are often concave or faceted, binding the facade as a whole with a grand central feature, like in this case, adding volume to the dramatisation of the cinema,” said Prashansa Sachdeva, the other half of Deco in Delhi, an arts and architectural based researcher.
At night, its bold neon signage bathed the street in electric colour. Inside, the Deco story continued — and still does. Terrazzo staircases curl elegantly upward, wooden handrails gleam, balustrades carry ornamental finesse, and geometric motifs embellish newel posts. Despite renovations, especially the 2006 revamp, these Deco details remain lovingly preserved.
“It’s one of the few Delhi buildings where Deco isn’t just a façade — it’s integral to how the space works and feels,” Sachdeva said, adding despite being built at a time when Deco started to fade, it was interesting to find that the furniture and some interiors, including the stained glass on doors and windows still have the original Art Deco style.
Delite was also a site of civic consciousness. In 1971, during the Indo-Pak war, it stopped film screenings to broadcast news bulletins from the frontlines — turning entertainment into engagement.
While most single-screen theatres have faded into multiplex memories, Delite endures. It remains not just a movie theatre, but a monument — to an age when buildings dreamed big, design met purpose, and Delhi began to shape a modern identity.
A room that is a view
Just off the frenetic swirl of New Delhi Railway Station, a building rises with poise and precision — its curved lines, flared windows and bright yellow accents, bringing a soft echo of another era. Hotel Bloomrooms, once known as Airlines Hotel, brings a touch of Bombay-style Deco elegance to the heart of Paharganj’s chaos.
Built in the 1950s, Airlines was one of Delhi’s first hotels to break from colonial or Mughal tropes. Conceptualised by owners believed to be from Mumbai — India’s undisputed Art Deco capital — it presented a striking new vocabulary: clean horizontals, symmetrical flourishes, and a curved tripartite façade that hugged the street corner like a sculpted ribbon.
Though the architect remains unknown, the building speaks fluently in Deco. The entrance to the corner building is a visual anchor: a tall central column flanked by fluted pilasters, crowned with a sleek finial. Above it, signature “eyelid” windows — flared and elegant — complete the scene. Inside, a sweeping staircase bends gracefully along the wall, its wooden handrail etched with the initials “AP” — likely a nod to the original owner, though their identity has faded into obscurity.
Sachdeva said keeping in line with Deco, the balconies are elongated and banded with horizontal lines, curving in the corners, being a classic feature of Streamline Moderne, a subset of Deco. “The staircase’s smooth flight, with a disjointed wooden handrail, till day presents a beautiful sight to behold. Referring to the repetitive AP initials, she says many other examples show initials as part of the ornamentation of the building. “This remains as one of the few successful examples where the style has been appreciated and accentuated.”
Even as the city changed around it, the building endured. In 2013, the site was reborn as Hotel Bloomrooms. Getting a new crisp yellow-and-white palette, the restoration kept the soul intact. The central courtyard remains — now dotted with café tables and chairs — while the 50 rooms are wrapped around this peaceful core.
“The structure is untouched. We’ve only repainted and preserved what was already here,” said front office manager Rohit Bhati.
The former Airlines Hotel offers a rare glimpse of Art Deco as lived space — where the geometry of glamour still quietly greets each guest.
The sentinel of Pusa Road
On a stretch of Pusa Road where nondescript concrete buildings now jostle for visual space, one house holds its ground. Number 4, a quiet Deco relic, stands as the last surviving witness to an architectural experiment that once dreamed of a modern Delhi.
Its story started just before Independence in the 1940s, when the land was earmarked by the British for Electric Commission officers’ quarters — a plan later abandoned. It was then acquired by Lala Sri Ram’s Delhi Cloth Mills, which sought to transform the site into an enclave of Deco homes. The first, House #1, was designed by architect Mohinder Singh as a prototype that would set the tone for the rest. But the design reportedly fell out of favour, and a new, anonymous architect took over. Four more homes — Numbers 2 to 5 — rose with a shared Deco language. Today, only Number 4 remains.
Owned by the Wahi family since 1975, the house was conceived as a joint family dwelling, with four independent flats wrapped around a central Deco staircase that functions as the home’s spine. The stairwell is anchored by variegated terrazzo floors, with a sinuous railing curving along its path like a ribbon of steel and stone.
Outside, the façade is textbook Art Deco: porthole windows punctuate a cylindrical tower, Hindu swastika-patterned jaalis filter sunlight, and the exterior plays with vertical and horizontal banding.
“The external tower features a flat roof with vertical bandings wrapped around, porthole windows and jaali screens, as well as vertical and horizontal bandings along its exterior facade,” Sayal said.
Inside, terrazzo reigns supreme. At least three fireplaces survive with their original carvings, and rare Burma teak and geometric grills still hold the space together. A major round of restoration came in 2017, when the open verandah was enclosed, but always with the same intent — to preserve. “It would’ve been cheaper to rebuild. But restoring this home has brought us far greater satisfaction,” the Wahis said. Their efforts have kept a sliver of Deco breathing amid a sea of builder floors.
When the family first acquired the home, it was far from pristine. Squatters occupied it, and the first floor had been turned into a blood bank — beds and medical fixtures still leave their ghostly imprint on worn terrazzo tiles. But today, the house is whole again.
Insaaf Ki Kothi
Along the orderly avenues of the stately enclave of Lutyens’ Delhi, where colonial grandeur takes the spotlight, Kanika House curves into view making a quiet statement. Commissioned in the 1930s by the Raja of Kanika, a princely state in present-day Odisha, and designed by Austrian architect Karl Malte von Heinz, the home broke from colonial opulence with sinuous lines, crisp horizontality, and a language steeped in Art Deco modernism.
“A trend that was observed within other palatial houses being constructed around the same time such as Dholpur House, Jaisalmer House, Faridkot House to name a few. The Indian princes directly commissioned architects to construct their private residences in a style which better represented their tastes in ways of building and exuded royalty, Art Deco in that sense became a natural choice. These are also one of the ways in which the style possibly travelled to Delhi during the early 30s.” explains Sayal.
In 1947, the house entered the annals of Indian history when Dr BR Ambedkar, freshly appointed as the nation’s first law minister, moved in. Here, within these curved walls and shaded windows, Ambedkar helped shape the Indian Constitution for the next four years. It was soon dubbed “Insaaf Ki Kothi — the House of Justice”. He would stay here until he resigned from Nehru’s cabinet in 1951, but the house never shed its aura of legal and moral gravity.
Today, the residence wears a different yet no less storied mantle.
Since 1978, it has served as the official home of the Polish Ambassador — currently Adam Burakowski — making it one of the few addresses in Delhi where diplomatic and constitutional histories quietly overlap.
Set behind an elegantly detailed metal gate, Kanika House reveals itself in full Streamline Moderne glory — a branch of Deco that prized curves, speed, and motion. The rear balcony juts out like the prow of an ocean liner; above the windows, slender concrete “eyebrows” provide sculptural rhythm. Horizontal banding flows along the façade, while a sweeping staircase within rises like a ribbon of reinforced grace.
“Kanika House is one of Delhi’s finest surviving examples of Streamline Moderne,” said Sayal. “Its eyebrow details, swooping balconies, and sinuous stairwell place it firmly within the global Deco narrative — yet it remains deeply rooted in the political and diplomatic life of India.”
Inside, the staircase becomes the architectural centrepiece — a spiral of concrete and brick, anchored by a solid newel post and finished with a polished wooden handrail still warm to the touch. Few structures in the capital so fluidly combine aesthetic sophistication with historic resonance.