Not far from Mukesh Ambani’s 27-storey tower, Antilia, may not be the tallest scyscaper in Mumbai as a competing skyscraper is making its way into Mumbai’s skyline. The building is being built by the Singhania family, which controls the Raymond Group.
Seen at a distance, the two buildings are strikingly similar. They both have soaring columns, large sea-facing windows and a nearly identical jigsaw puzzle facade. They have a similar sense of scale and emphasis on grandeur. In a city where space is considered the biggest luxury, both buildings seem to be advertising their exclusivity.
The Singhania building, which is named J.K. House after the founders of the Raymond Group’s parent company, is located in Mumbai’s tony Breach Candy neighborhood and sits on a parcel of land that was previously a retail outlet for the Raymond clothes chain.
The mammoth structure towers over the bustling traffic on Bhulabhai Desai Road, previously Warden Road, and has been under construction for more than a year. It sits just across from the exclusive Breach Candy Club, which has a ten-year waiting list for new members, and is a stone’s throw away from the U.S. Consulate.
The project is something Singhania are not willing to talk about. The Singhania family has also refused to comment on when they would be moving in to their new home or the resemblance of their building to Antilia. One news report quoted sources saying the building will have five stories for car-parking and a museum floor for Singhania’s jade collection.
The Ambani house, Antilia, was designed by two American architecture firms: Perkins & Will, which did the exterior and Hirsch Bedner Associates, which was responsible for the interior. Both firms said they could not comment because of confidentiality agreements.
Several other Mumbai industrialists are constructing high-end skyscrapers for their private use. Venugopal Dhoot, Chairman of Videocon Industries, is constructing a 12–story private residential tower in the Mahalakshmi neighborhood. The Kasliwal brothers, who own the textile and clothing company S. Kumars, are building a luxury apartment complex for themselves in Lower Parel in central Mumbai.
“In the last decade, Mumbai’s rich have been out in the market with a vengeance, looking out for signature buildings or exclusive addresses,” said Gulam Zia, national director of research and advisory services at Knight Frank India. “An apartment in a building shared with others can only be so exclusive.”
Zia believes the city’s exclusive apartment towers satisfied the same need for recognition among their affluent owners that sprawling bungalows have long satiated for the upper crust of New Delhi, a city which was built to be much less densely-populated than Mumbai.
“It is something which Bombay industrialists have always wanted as a show of having arrived in life,” he said. “Until now the moneyed in Mumbai had to make do with the semi-heritage bungalows that they had inherited — and those are only available to those with old money.”
