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Marble Arch, Cumbala Hill, 1940’s. Architect: Gajanan B. Mhatre, A.R.I.B.A. Despite the limitations of the apartment template, some architects like Claude Batley and G B Mhatre were creative and unique in their apartment designs, especially in the way their buildings were sited, 
proportioned and detailed. Mhatre’s later buildings, Marble Arch on Pedder Road was outstanding when built in the 1940s and remains so today. It is especially interesting in its site placement and entry way. Marble Arch is curved so that both sides are seen as you approach it
from Pedder Road. The building is not set back from the road uniformly. The logic of its orientation becomes clearer when you see that Marble Arch was part of a group of buildings set around an open space. The buildings, KumKum, Ark Royal and Windcliff, also designed by Mhatre,
Built in 1936 by owner Phiroz Karai and positioned at the Oval directly opposite the majestic Victorian Gothic Bombay High Court, Russi Court was aptly renamed ‘Court View’. Consulting ‘shadow architect’ G B Mhatre created Bombay’s most striking frozen fountain.
Writing in the 1937 Journal of the Indian Institute of Architects, he expressed his unhappiness at the assignment stating “the head room for the staircase is very little this being due to the mistake in the original layout of the plan. This gave me a lot of trouble in designing
as the owner approached me when the piles were actually driven-in and the super-structure commenced.” Such was the brilliance of His design that he went on to create an interior view of the fountain designed to bring natural light to Mumbai’s richest and stunning Deco stairwell.
