Fairmont Mumbai featured in Architectural Digest India
The new Fairmont Mumbai celebrates the city's rich art deco heritage
“The newest vintage-style address by the airport, Fairmont Mumbai masters storytelling through the art of geometry and flair.
By Ria Gupta Photography by Pankaj Anand
30 August 2025”
Pankaj Anand
Mumbai wears its pride on its sleeve, stitched into the seams of its cultural heritage and adding flair to its architectural folds. Recently, Fairmont opened as the swankiest new brooch on this fabric — designed as a statement that’s subtle by design. The 446-key hotel, which opened this April, rises as a staccato vision in white marble against the soft clouds of Mumbai’s monsoon sky. Its location next to the CSMIA airport brings in eclectic crowds from around the world. But with its panelled windows and cobbled driveway, the hotel has a soul that instantly transports you into a world that’s quintessentially Mumbai.
Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, which brought its first Indian property to Jaipur in 2012, has had a history of spotlighting its locations through grand hotels, many of which come to become landmarks of the destinations they stand in. For its second Indian address, they joined Shrem Airport Hotels with a clear brief in mind: to create a formidable portal that pays homage to 1920’s Mumbai, depicted through the art deco language that the city is famous for. And so the vision took shape in the architecture, done by Alva Architects, and the interior design by P49 Deesign. With art conceptualised and curated by Venu Juneja, the hotel comes together as a collectible piece of space — one that looks like it’s been around for ages, and is meant to keep the essence of the past alive in the future.
This sort of heirloom identity is lent to the space through thoughtful cues — timeless materials, non-intrusive design and a monochrome palette that sets stage for the luxury of detail. “Mumbai holds the world’s second-largest collection of art deco, yet this legacy often remains unsung. Choosing this style as the central design language was, therefore, essential to celebrate a facet of the city’s identity that deserves to be seen and spoken about. For this purpose, New York’s 1920’s art deco offered the perfect moodboard: bold, glamorous and unapologetically modern for its time. By weaving the two together, we made the design an ode to Mumbai’s heritage while situating it within a global conversation,” shares Carl Almeida of P49 Deesign. Throughout the hotel, deco patterned flooring meets burnished gold accents for a shimmering look. The lobby is covered with a backlit glass ceiling characteristic of the era, while geometrical light installations illuminate the grand staircase.
The first thing you spot upon entering the hotel is a mammoth artwork inspired by Mumbai’s iconic Hanging Gardens. Called A Walk in the Gardens, it features a sun as the centerpoint surrounded by floral motifs in art nouveau style. Upon closer look, I find that each motif offers a different tactile perception, for they’re all created in various techniques as a nod to Indian handicrafts: think metal repoussé work from Varanasi, Rajasthani woodblock carving, and embroidery on canvas from Lucknow.
Such visual storytelling commands the voice of the entire space. While the colour palette flows consistently through all of the hotel’s common spaces, individual rooms take on unique characters with a play on this language and distinctive art. “Art at Fairmont Mumbai was conceived not as ornamentation, but as the very language through which the hotel tells its story,” says Venu Juneja.
The rooms, divided into four categories, feature fluted wall panels and ornamental mouldings. There are four dining venues, a Gold Lounge for members, 75,000 square feet worth of event spaces, an outdoor pool and a wellness address focussed on longevity. The Grand Terminus is a passage to another place and time — a business centre masked in the persona of Mumbai’s iconic railway network by way of graphic murals, replicas of railway paraphernalia, and period-sensitive décor. Merchants, the all-day dining room, is preceded by a hallway of artworks depicting the merchants of Mumbai with embroidered highlights. Oryn is an Chinese restaurant designed like a bioscope on a red and black canvas, depicted through elements such as a standout embroidered layered rings artwork and a round-mirrored ceiling. The lobby is bookended by a tea room, Madeleine de Proust, to the left, and a jazz bar, The Hedonist.
At Fairmont Mumbai, what the artworks depict, the space embodies. Each room comes alive with design details meant for complete immersion. The Gold Lounge, for instance, is designed in memory of the Juhu Aerodrome. But even before the framed pieces speak their story, a burst of sunlight inspires a search for the sky. The windows are the largest piece of décor here, looking out to the airport runway. At Fairmont Spa and Longevity, concrete patterns of waves and ripples play on the geometry of art deco to create a portrait of Mumbai’s monsoon.
A vignette from one of the rooms at Fairmont Mumbai.
Amid all this conversation around the city’s might and moods, I keep my ear out for the din of the airport outside. But none of the outdoor bustle makes its way in, which I later find is thanks to vibration isolation systems that ensure serenity despite its proximity to air traffic. Behind the Neoclassical façade housing this new-age bastion of art deco architecture, lies a solid structure built to meet, merge and withstand the city’s trials. And that’s what earns it its badge of honour.
