SOAK: Mumbai in an Estuary

Abstract

Review: SOAK: Mumbai in an Estuary By Mathur, Anuradha and Dilip da Cunha Reviewed by Victoria Carchidi University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA USA Mathur, Anuradha and Dilip da Cunha. SOAK: Mumbai in an Estuary. New Delhi: Rupa & Co., 2009. 198 pp. ISBN: 812911480-1. US$75 hardbound. Glossary, Image lexicon. In 2005—the year of Hurricane Katrina—Mumbai received all of a season’s rain in one day. The resultant flood killed hundreds. Anuradha Mathur, a landscape architect, and Dilip da Cunha, a planner and architect, authors of Mississippi Floods, were invited to apply their insights to Mumbai (the authors also teach landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania). Their exploration culminated in Soak. The book presents elements of the public exhibition the authors mounted to open dialogue about the city’s future, and provides an extended illustration of the design strategies Mathur and da Cunha recommend. To draw a line in the sand is to make an ephemeral mark. But to draw a line on a map separates here from there—at a coastline, water from land—as if each suddenly ceased at that arbitrary boundary. That conceit is particularly problematic in Mumbai, where sea and land float upon and under each other. Da Cunha has said that what we call a natural disaster is often a disaster of design. Rather than allowing the waters of the Arabian Sea and monsoon rains to filter through the estuarine sponge, contemporary Mumbai has literally been built upon a battlefield against water: seawalls, causeways, and other rigid structures that clog the estuary’s pores. The resulting concept of an island at war with rain and sea limits opportunities. By understanding the constructed nature of that concept, the authors find new design solutions that bypass flood and drain. As part of a terrain of sections, rather than engulfing an island, water is no longer an enemy but simply an element. Working with the water and its gradients from sweet to salt permits restoration of habitats that support diverse populations. Mathur and da Cunha’s design vocabulary borrows from vernacular traditions and combines them with new technologies. The authors propose twelve interventions operating on three scales, to restore porosity to the terrain. At five forts, the authors recommend existing built surfaces be enlarged into platforms to enhance current activities such as marketing, play, and cleaning fish. At five “nullah crossings,” water and land