Flora gets a shot of life

Flora Fountain, an exquisitely sculpted structure located in the heart of South Mumbai will soon be thrown open to the public after years of renovation. The iconic fountain that had long turned lifeless with abrasion, underwent a beautification process by Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai(MCGM). The two-phase project involved restoring the fountain and the surrounding landscape. While the scaffoldings have been taken down after the first phase of the work was completed, the renovated fountain will be unveiled soon giving access to the public.

Vikas Dilawari, a conservative architect who was overseeing the project for BMC states that the restoration is a part of the plan to revive all the monumental fountains in the city. Having worked on the revival of Crawford market, Willington fountain, Wadia clock tower and Munje Jetha fountain, it gave the architect a better understanding of the maintenance. “MCGM wanted to conserve the fountains as they are prime landmarks located in traffic roundabouts and are focal points in the city. The aim is also to encourage conservation,” says Vikas.

Designed by Richard Norman Shaw and sculpted by James Forsythe, the floral figures were made with the intention of situating it at the botanical garden in Byculla. It was on Governer Henry Bartle Frere’s vision to improve the urban space in the city, the open space after the removal of the gate was filled with the fountain. But over the years, the fountain had fallen into neglect and was just used as a thoroughfare.

“When we got this project, people were using this just to pass through and no one was spending time here. Our purpose was to make people stop here and also to improve the water engineering. Once the water starts flowing, this will become a pleasant space to sit and appreciate,” says Vikas.

The fountain has a magnificent statue of the Roman Goddess installed at the top of the structure but courts of paints on it had marred the antiquity of the fountain. To beautify the sculptures, a team of conservators came in from INTACH Delhi who diligently worked on scraping off the paint. Subrata Sen, a senior conservator with a team of five worked on bringing back the old charm. “There were 25 layers of different kinds of paint. Initial two-three layers were of lime wash, mainly in colour and white. One or two layers had white cement paint while the rest were enamel paint. We started with steam cleaning which melted certain layers and the rest was manually removed with no further damage to the sculptures,” he says. While the estimated time for melting the paint was six months, it took them more than 10 months to complete the process.

The various cracks and dents that, over the years, filled with various composition of white and grey cement were also restored. “We removed those fillings and used the same type of stone where required. For not-so-deep dents, we used lime-based filing in matching colour. A crack on the neck and the white cement nose was also repaired,” adds Subrata. But the challenge lied in building scaffolding that took the team almost 20 days.

To comply with the authenticity of the structures, the experts took reference from old photos. The broken palms of two sculptures were reconstructed with the same kind of stone by karigars from Jaipur. The old pictures also led them to an additional part to the fountain that had gone missing. “In the pictures, there’s a railing around the fountain. We imitated the exact railing,” says the architect.

After two years of restoration, the original colour of sculptures in Portland stone is now visible. Now in the second phase of the beautification, the architect is working on constructing the surrounding area.

“Our first job was to remove the tiles from the circular turf that holds the water and put the marble back, making it waterproof. Unlike the earlier design, we have removed the plantation surrounding the fountain and left the space open so that people are able to come closer to the fountain,” lists Vikas, adding that stainless-steel benches have also been installed on the other side of the fountain.