The story of Art Deco in India, was different for every city. It was in Mumbai, then Bombay, where this architectural movement took root, blossoming through the early 19th century, due to the generosity of princely statesmen, merchants and entrepreneurs, who saw it "as an expression of their love for contemporary ways of living". It gradually spread to other cities, including Delhi, where it made a place of its own, and in some cases, as a mix of styles under the purview of Indo Deco.

Delhi-based architect Geetanjali Sayal is hoping to document and examine the capital-s tryst with the style, in an ongoing research and digital archival project, Deco in Delhi. Sayal, who is the founder of Dreamwoven Collective, a collaborative platform for people to create design interventions across multi-disciplinary backgrounds, started the project last month, in an attempt to examine Art Deco-s complex relationship with the cultural and geographical landscape of Delhi. "I have always been interested in relooking at heritage, particularly the kind of heritage that people also live in and with. Art Deco is the best example of that. It is at the intersection of something interesting and neglected, yet, habitable. When the [Deco] movement came into fruition [in Delhi], it was the first time that locals, across classes, after going through so many political transitions, could participate in adapting a certain kind of architecture. This wasn-t common earlier," says Sayal, who has a Masters in Narrative Environments from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London. This style, she says, also laid the foundation for modernist and brutalist architecture.