"Five identical hexagonal towers at Worli mark the beginning of commercial hubs in the city."
The 15-acre site of Shiv Sagar Estate at Worli is a sea-side commercial hub in central Mumbai. Completed in 1967, it adopted a strong modernist aesthetic for a newly emerging typology of office building. Today, the complex houses five identical hexagonal towers which hug the bay and provide spectacular views of the city.
The towers have blank alternating edges, in smooth marble cladding, while the remaining three are louvered. The vertical fins marked by sharp light and shadow develop a changing pattern that aligns with the most important north-south arterial road of the city. The verticality of the five towers is intercepted by another horizontally louvered geometry. The southernmost edge of this base structure is marked by an abstract mural that again signals a modern approach to not only the design of this complex but the very conceptualisation of the programme for Shivsagar Estate itself. The hexagonal plan results in maximum utilisation of space as maximum usable area is created.
The assemblage at Shivsagar Estate buildings clearly contribute to the idea of an urban fabric, where a cluster of buildings can set a benchmark for the architectural development of a new and emerging part of the city. The estate’s stark architectural form, with its south-end podium, a modernist mural, and marching towers represent a forceful argument against scepticism and doubts in a struggling and changing urban scenario.
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