10 May,2026 07:27 AM IST | Mumbai | Aditi Alurkar
The hall was completed by 1874 by Sir George Gilbert Scott. Pic/Atul Kamble
After 20 years, few of which saw some of Mumbai's heaviest monsoon, the Mumbai University's Sir Cowasjee Jehangir Convocation Hall, a jewel of Victorian Gothic architecture and now part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Victorian and Art Deco ensembles of Mumbai, is being taken up for restoration.
The hall has witnessed convocations, key seminars, senate meetings, budget announcements and crucial calls taken in the city's academic milieu.
The near-60-feet-tall hall was designed over a century ago in 1874 by Sir George Gilbert Scott, the famous British architect who brought in two landmark gothic structures to the country, the other being the iconic Rajabai Tower.
Owing to natural wear and tear and the recognition of continuing the tradition to conservation, the hall has begun undergoing restoration this week. The structure was last restored in 2006 by Mumbai's well-known conservation architect, Abha Narain Lambah and her team along with university engineers and funded by Tata Trust.
"It is like meeting an old friend," Lambah tells Sunday mid-day.
The team that included Lambah was the same that worked on conservation back in 2006.
The unmatched craftsmanship has made restoration work less daunting, allowing architects work on the principles of "minimal replacements", that focuses on not altering the original structure much.
"This year, we have to look at restoring the stones, cleaning them. The other key components like stained glass windows, were already restored the last time," she adds.
The hall now also requires air conditioning. "These structures were sustained on gas lighting back in the day. In 2006, we rearranged the mesh of wires to align with the spaces created for these gas lights," said Lambah.
"Back then, we also removed harmful materials like asbestos and replaced it with cellulose-based acoustic fibre which will be cleaned up in this restorative round," she added.
In the crucial decade of 1860s, while the cotton-boom was shaping Bombay as we know it, Indian philanthropist Sir Cowasjee Jehangir made a donation of R1 lakh to materialise the convocation hall for the city's very own university. George Gilbert Scott was the lead architect.
Professor Dr Manjiri Kamat, a professor at MU's Department of History said, "The hall has hosted senate meetings, academic bodies, convocations, felicitations, dignitaries, government leaders, book launches, and many milestone events."
"Initially, the university was only an examination conducting body and since then all academic and administrative calls were centred at the Fort campus, making the convocation hall a key witness to how education and the public life have been moulded over the years. Even today, the university presents the heritage conservation of the hall as one of the best practices to accreditation committees," she added.
Dr Kamat conducts heritage walks for students, public, and visiting dignitaries across the Fort campus. "Right from bachelors' to research, several students across departments visit the structure and engage in experiential learning," she told Sunday mid-day.
