Evolution of a Bombay Middle-Class Living Room.
- Avaneesh Nataraja
- Jun 25
- 15 min read
How the pandemic shaped the living spaces - the case of Bombay.
Bombay is a city with great job opportunities in every field. Due to the huge
demand for labour, there's always a flow of migrants who come to live and
work in the city. This gave rise to several residential typologies such as chawls,
slums, etc. Later, this particular region of the city took a major part in many popular
depictions of the city.
The living room is considered the most dynamic space in a residence. In a Bombay
middle-class lifestyle, it is a place that accommodates most of the domestic living activities.
The essay delves into the genesis of the living room in a residence and the idea of a
living room in the Bombay middle-class context, based on examples taken from the
book “In house, but no garden: Apartment living in Bombay's suburbs” by Nikhil Rao.
Furthermore, it investigates the factors that shaped the living room through books and
popular depictions of the domestic lifestyle, like “Gully Boy” directed by Zoya A.
Furthermore, the essay looks into how the pandemics and epidemics shaped the idea
and characteristic qualities of a middle-class living room as a potential factor. This is
achieved by analysing and drawing parallels on how similar housing typologies like the
chawls are affected when they go through a pandemic, like the Cholera outbreak and
the tenement housing typology from Chicago. As we progress, the essay examines
how the COVID-19 pandemic has shaped the dynamics of a middle-class living room in
the Indian context, by taking reference from a newspaper article that elaborates on the
experience of a middle-class senior citizen living in an apartment in Kolkata. Lastly, the
essay explores various ways the design of a living room can be altered or redesigned
to fit the current situation caused by the pandemic. It also looks at a few design propositions from designers around the world. Examples are taken considering the chosen context of the Bombay middle class, like a series published by a Japanese architect, Kunwook Kang, on “possible ways the living room can be altered to adapt to the demands brought by the pandemic without altering the floor space”. It concludes by connecting all the speculations and the study made on
the nature of the middle-class living room in Bombay.
Site of Observations
- Communal living and the design of Matunga apartments, Bombay
- Domestic life in slums and chawls of Bombay in the early 19th century
- Interpretation of contemporary domestic living conditions in Chawls from the
film “Gully Boy” by Zoya Akhtar.
- Cholera and the Tenement Housing Act in New York and Chicago in the first half
of 19th century
- Lifestyle experience and ideas of liveability of a middle-class senior citizen living
in Kolkata, India
- Speculation on middle-class living rooms post COVID-19 pandemic
Observations.
The Idea of a Living Room.
The story of a living room started about 100 years ago. In those days, wealthy people
had a parlour as a formal meeting space, which was ornately decorated and served as a
space for laying out the dead, so that visitors could come to attend the mourning
ceremonies and pay respects. As time passed, with the advent of the 20th-century
medicine and hospitals, these parlours were less used and served as an intermediary
space between the residents and the guests of the house. In 1910, Edward Bok, the
editor of the Ladies' Home Journal, coined the term “Living Room” to incentivise people
to use the room for their daily life activities (Kolis, J, 2021).
Since then, the living rooms started to serve as a vital space for family time and various
other domestic activities like gathering around the radio, watching sports events on
television, etc. With a change in the usage of the space, the spatial and interior design
changed as well. The ornamentation has been reduced, the size of the room has been lowered
to serve the comfortable usage of the residents, and new elements like fireplaces,
televisions, radios, etc., were introduced to increase the quality of the family time. But,
though the idea of the living room may remain constant, it varies drastically by various
factors like the region, sociological context, class, religion, cultural values, etc. As we
delve deeper into the history of the regional context, like political events, wars, pandemics,
etc., they also play a vital role in shaping the idea of the living room as well.
Mumbai, considered the most populous city in India, has a myriad range of people
from different religions, cultural values, economic classes, etc. The city also has a
history of political events, religious events, pandemics and epidemics that shaped the
design of the living room in many ways. According to the statistics, most of Mumbai's
inhabitants come under either the middle or the lower middle class economic categories
(Prakash. P, n.d). Due to rapid urbanisation and industrialisation in the late 19th and
early 20th century, Mumbai witnessed a surge of migrants who came to work and live
in the city. As a response to the urgent need for housing, various types of housing
developments like slums, chawls, etc., came into the picture and have been a major part in
popular depiction of the city through series, movies, books, etc (Dey. A, 2018).
The Idea of the Living Room for the Bombay Middle Class.
Most of the middle-class and lower-middle-class population in Mumbai live in slums
and chawls. These co-living housing options are considered the most reasonable, as
most people won’t be able to afford individual housing in a city like Bombay. As shown
in Figure 1 - a scene from the film “Gully Boy”, a popular depiction of the domestic
lifestyle of the Bombay slum, these are very small and congested environments that
mostly contain a living hall, bedroom and a toilet with a bath. Here, there are no separate allotted spaces for sleeping, cooking, etc. Every space is fluid and multi-functional in
nature. For example, in the film, the hall becomes a place for all the domestic activities;
At night, the mattresses would come out, and people would sleep in the hall. In the
morning, they were kept out of sight, up over the cupboards to resume their daily
activities. The hall usually extends into a kitchen, which has the cooking equipment and
utensils stacked in the racks as shown in Figure 2.
Fig 1, 2 & 3.
Irrespective of the religion, every living room also had a small prayer space in some
corner, which is always kept clean and considered sacred. The nature of the living
room also varies with the social backdrop in which it is set. Such as, the chawls are places
that are well known for communal living and good social relationships between
neighbours. A design aspect that supports this communal lifestyle is the lobby/passage that connects two or more houses, along with a staircase for circulation,
as shown in Figure 3. If the relationship between the neighbouring families were suitable,
the main doors of the houses would remain open all day, and the two flats would be seen as
one unit. The women who spent their time cooking in the morning hours expand their
territory into the lobbies/otlas from the living rooms to work together as they converse
with the neighbours. Certain weekly chores like grinding of spices and flour are also
performed together in the lobbies. Kids from the neighbourhood would gather in one
house to watch cartoons and sports events (Godbole. S, 2017). In the evenings, old
people in the houses pull their chairs to have conversations over a cup of tea. Even if
the neighbours belong to different religions and have different cultural values, they all
come together and send sweets and festive dishes to each other. In this way, this
setup also increases the strength and unity amongst people irrespective of being from
different caste, creed or religion (Rao, N, 2013).
Fig 4
Hence, the living room for the middle-class Bombay population is very different from
that of any other city. Looking at how the sociological, economic, and cultural aspects shaped the design and the usage of the living room, it is also interesting to further look
into how breakouts like epidemics and health-related pandemics would shape the
lifestyle and design of a living room in chawls.
Tenement Housing and Cholera in Chicago, 1850.
In the 1850s, Chicago witnessed a rapid surge of cholera outbreaks. Due to a lack of
proper medical analysis on the epidemic, the disease was assumed to be airborne and
many false theories came into practice. Later, Dr John Snow identified cholera as a
water-borne disease through his technique of mapping and surveying the origin of
cases in the city. Due to the rapid rise in the death rate, many authorities and scientists
started to show concern about the disease. Jacob Riis, a Danish-American Journalist
on his investigation into the cause of the epidemic, found that the existing domestic
conditions and their sanitation are the root cause of the outbreak of the cholera
epidemic.
Tenement Housing.
Though from a different timeline and context from Bombay, Chicago witnessed a
similar surge of migrant workers who came to work and live in the city, due to the 1812
war with Great Britain and rapid industrialisation in the first half of the 19th century. The
urgent need for shelter caused the rise of tenement housing in Chicago. The real
estate agents, with their capitalist motives, divided large rooms into small, cramped
spaces to fit in as many families as possible; they were partitioned with no regard for
the natural lighting and ventilation conditions. Similar to the Bombay chawl system,
apart from an optional bedroom, the living room/hall becomes multifunctional for all
daily life activities. No one bothered about sanitation and healthy living (Riis. J, 1970).
fig 5
The Tenement Housing Act, 1867 - The Solution.
Later, after a large-scale outbreak like cholera in the 1850s, the authorities came up
with “The Tenement Housing Act” in 1867, which stands as the nation’s first
comprehensive housing reform law. They established standards for the size of the
room, ventilation and sanitation. Air shafts were introduced. Small dark
rooms and cellar dwellings were restricted and banned by the law (Riis. J, 1970).
fig 6
According to Jacob. Riis, though the laws are passed and basic sanitary rules were
Laid, the outrageous overcrowding inevitably comes as a consequence of poverty.
Having seen how these jammed tenements with poor living conditions caused fatal
consequences. It also becomes important to look at our own context of Bombay
middle-class living, which is less or no different from the cramped and unhealthy
tenement living in Newyork and Chicago. As of now, the world is witnessing the lethal
effects of COVID 19 novelty, and it is also crucial to rethink and speculate on how our
existing environments should be altered and moulded to reduce the adverse effects of
the virus.
The Bombay chawls have also encountered a few epidemics in the past; the most
significant one was the Bombay plague in the 1890s. The plague has set up a wave of
emergency regarding public health and sanitation, which caused the formation of the
BIT(Bombay Improvement Trust) and the BDD (Bombay Development Department)
trusts. Apart from the urban level interventions like planning, widening of the roads, cleaning, etc., they have also built chawls, which are now seen in the areas of Worli and
Parel. As the time period overlapped with the vast development in the mill industry,
these BDD chawls were intended to accommodate all the middle-class and lower
middle class mill workers who were sleeping on the roads and near the factory gates
(Dey. A, 2018).
The cheapest building technology was used to create these one-room tenements. Basic
facilities like clean water, sewage and electricity were not considered in the haste of
providing an immediate solution to mass housing. On identifying the paradigm behind
how an epidemic from the past has changed housing and created a domestic lifestyle,
it is important to speculate on how the current situation might alter the domestic
lifestyle and the house design (Dey. A, 2018).
Coronavirus, 2019 - The Present Day.
In the present day, due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are asked to live in
our homes for far more time than we usually do. The situation made our domestic
environments a domain for every activity of our lives. The basic functionality
and user dynamics of spaces are redefined. Especially, the living rooms are being used
for various other functions like kids attending online lectures, parents working on their
laptops, etc., apart from the existing functionality.
The situation becomes more explicit as we look at the first-hand experience of Sutapa
Bose, a middle-class senior citizen, who lives in a flat in Kolkata. As she says, she’s
been living alone for more than 30 years now, but last June, she welcomed her son and
his family from Bombay to live with her, as they were laid off from their jobs due to the
pandemic. Initially, she was glad to have company, but soon noticed that the new
guests were more negligent about the virus and the precautions that she wanted to
take to keep the home safe (Jyoti, 2021).
During the Lockdown, Bose altered the orientation of her living space. As she says
“The passage between the door and the living room transformed into a sanitation area,
the ACs were switched off, and long-shut windows were pried open”. Cleverly, she has
removed the four-seater sofa from the living room to discourage visitors. She moved
into a smaller room, which has a balcony and an attached bathroom. Also, she has
arranged a television and added a small study table for herself (Jyoti, 2021).
As the government made the lockdown stricter, the rooms started losing their
functional independence. The living room became a freelance workspace for
her son, and the dining table was the play area for the child. Over time, as the residents
became more lax about the deadly virus, Ms Bose was more worried and never left her
room; she called it her bedroom-kitchen-living room (Jyoti, 2021). It was her whole
world.
“As the distinction becomes blurred between home life and work life, we will need to
design to provide ways to draw boundaries around some practices. How the home is
connected to the outdoors—to views, light, and air—and offers spaces to recharge will
become particularly valued,” says the American Architect and Academician when asked
about the post-pandemic housing design.
These effects and problems are multiplied in the chosen context of middle-class chawls
and slums. As the living rooms are small and already packed with multiple activities
and functions. On continuing the story of Ms Bose, her household help, Malati’s year
was more gruelling. She worked as a domestic helper at around five houses. She lived
in the slums that line the railway track. She braved the lockdown for work
initially but soon realised that she was being seen as a suspect for spreading the
virus. People stopped allowing her into their communities. Soon, by April, she had to
stop going to work. She was living in a two-room shack with her family. With no income, she found it very difficult to make ends meet, for necessities like food,
water, and to pay for her child’s online education. In this situation, she found it even
more difficult to keep up with the COVID-19 guidelines to protect her family from the
deadly virus (Jyoti, 2021).
“I came to know of many precautions one must take to stop the virus. But look at our
condition, we struggled to get even rice, and our water is not clean. How will we
sanitise our hands?” she asked.
This situation casts a spotlight on the question of how all these residences with such
Jammed spaces and poor living conditions can accommodate the demands of this new
era. Further, due to the changes made in the duration and usage of spaces, it became
important for the designers and experts across the world to come up with a new house
designs that not only demand better physical conditions, but also design alterations
and considerations to accommodate all the demands of the new pandemic in our
domestic lifestyle.
Changes Demanded by the Pandemic.
The pandemic comes with a lot of new considerations for the design of the living
space, which becomes both directly and indirectly essential to tackle the situation. It
raises many questions on the fundamental livability of the spaces and demands
innovative solutions both for the new upcoming designs as well as the retrofitting of the
existing spaces. This situation of crisis made designers from all over the world think
about possible solutions and ideas. Such as-
According to the paradigm observed in the pandemics from the past, the natural
lighting and ventilation for these cramped spaces need to be redesigned for the benefits of healthy living. New technologies like air shafts, heat-driven stack
vents, etc., need to be used. Similar laws like the tenement housing act need to
be reinforced to set a proper standard for basic healthy living (Riis, J, 1970).
Spatial design layouts should not be merely about anthropometry and
ergonomics, rather, they should also consider the new set of protocols, like social
distancing, frequent sanitation, etc. Though this is nearly impossible in the
context of Bombay middle-class housing, certain standard rules for the minimum
size of the room can be proposed by the government to control cramped spaces
(Riis, J. 1970).
Outdoor private exterior spaces the lockdown has shown us how
crucial outdoor environment exposure is for both physical and mental well-being.
As the usage of public parks and other recreational spaces is restricted, we
might see new planning strategies for porches, terrace gardens, extended
balconies, etc., to increase exterior space with more varied outdoor options
(Kang. K, 2020). If the space constraint in the chawls restricts the scope for
exterior spaces, the communities as a whole can have communal gardens and
terraces where social distancing is taken care of. Also, as the well-known
Architects Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu quoted, “It’s the importance of being
able to get out. Not just to cheer the health-care workers but also to be outside
of the ecosystem for a little bit.”
fig 7
Due to the increased awareness of hygiene and sanitation, there is a need for an
outdoor transition space such as otlas, foyers and porches, which are used to
monitor and separate the exteriors from the interiors rather than public
interaction spaces (Kang, K, 2020). In the context of Bombay chawls, the
common walkway between the staircase landing and the entrance of each flat
can be used for the transition and sanitisation purposes.
fig 8
As the living rooms started to accommodate varied types of functions and
increased usage hours more than ever, it demands an adaptable layout
system. Considering the examples of sliding doors, pocket doors and moving
walls can close off and open up spaces as per need. These strategies can be
used in as small-scale residences as one-bed flats, as shown in the picture
(Kang. K, 2020).
fig 9
Many architects and designers began to research and explore possibilities for
adaptability to be possible without altering the existing floor space. One such attempt
was by an Australian architecture firm, Woods Bagot. They developed a system called
AD-APT, which uses adjustable screens and moving walls to transform an open plan
apartment into customised subdivided spaces (Bahudursingh, N, n.d).
Fig 10, and 11
Though certain ideal design changes can be made through law enforcement and
awareness. The chawl and slums fall back into their previous patterns. As quoted by
Jacob. Riis in 1970, though the American government strengthened and laid extensive
sanitary laws, the disorder and mass expansion of slums became inevitable and came
as an extension to the existing poverty in the country, during the discourse on the
cause of the cholera outbreak in Chicago in the 1850s.
The experts say, “Bombay, in its quest to provide housing for the maximum number of
people on its limited and expensive land have compromised on the basic standards of
livability- including proper ventilation and natural lighting that enters the home- by erecting
buildings close vicinities.” (Pathak. S, 2021). Before we speak of alterations and design
proposals to tackle the pandemic, certain basic social infrastructure like clean water,
electricity, spacious layouts and sanitation facilities should be non-negotiable and
accessible for people of all sectors, said Gautam Bhan, a professor at the Indian
Institute of Human Settlements, Delhi.
However, it is difficult to address these problems in chawls and slums due to their
massive scale and lack of order. In a slightly larger apartment scale, a few of these
problems, such as the space division, seclusion of work spaces, increasing the quality
of the living spaces, etc., can be solved by the design proposals discussed earlier.
Moreover, from the perspective of livability and the gauge of usage of living areas in a
house has changed, all these new considerations and ideas will be encouraged and
given larger importance in the process of designing domestic spaces.
Source of Observations.
The experience of communal living and the experiences of living in Matunga
middle-class housing.
Rao, N. (2013). Apartment Living In Matunga. In-house, but no garden:
apartment living in Bombay's suburbs, 1898-1964. (pp. 158- 163) Chapter.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
The history and genesis of a Living room and it’s evolution.
Kolis, J. (2021). Has Covid killed the living room. [webpage] Retrieved fromhttps://
www.wickedlocal.com/story/lexington-minuteman/2021/03/18/home-fron
t-has-covid-killed-living-room/4702607001/
Popular depiction of lifestyle in chawls and the nature of the living room.
Akhtar. Z (writer, director) kagti. R (writer) (15th February, 2019). Gully boy
[FILM]. Excel entertainment.
First hand experiences from people who lived in the chawls, about co-living,
hygiene, etc.
Godbole,S (2017). What it's actually like to live in a Mumbai Chawl. [webpage]
Retrieved fromhttps://
homegrown.co.in/article/801844/what-its-actually-like-to-live-in-a-mumb
ai-chawl
The history of chawls and slums in Bombay, which later took a major part in
representing the city
Dey ,A (2018). Chawls of Bombay. [webpage] Retrieved fromhttps://
How the tenement housing strategy caused lethal consequences along with the
cholera outbreak in the 1850s.
Riis, Jacob A. (1970). Genesis of the Tenement. In How the Other Half Lives:
Studies among the Tenements of New York. New York :Garrett Press
The Tenement Housing Act, restriction and development of liveability in
tenement housing.
Riis, Jacob A. (2010). Bettmann Archive: Tenements. [webpage] Retrieved fromhttps://
The Tenement Housing Act, restriction and development of liveability in
tenement housing
Cengage Encyclopedia, (May 23, 2018). Tenements. [webpage] Retrieved fromhttps://
www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/art-and-architecture/architect
ure/tenements
The article draws parallels on the ways that Bombay housing has dealt with the
bubonic plague in the past and the COVID-19 in the present.
Pathak. S (March 7, 2021). Pandemic Perspectives: how bubonic plague
reshaped Bombay. Retrieved fromhttps://
housing.com/news/how-will-covid-19-impact-the-co-living-segment-in-i
ndia/
A design proposal on the possibilities of creating adaptable living spaces using
moving walls and screens.
Bahadursingh. N (n.d). AD-APT Modifies your Apartment for any Activity.
Retrieved fromhttps://
A series of interviews of architects around the globe, on the theme of house
design post COVID-19.
Curkin. C (Jan 7, 2021). How Home Design and Architecture should Adapt to a
Post COVID world. Retrieved fromhttps://
www.elledecor.com/design-decorate/interior-designers/a34918038/archit
ecture-home-design-after-covid-pandemic/
Possible ways the living room can be altered to adapt to the demands brought
by the pandemic without altering the floor space.
Kang. K (November 9, 2020). Four Ways residential design might change after
COVID 19. Retrieved fromhttps://
www.makearchitects.com/thinking/four-ways-residential-design-might-c
hange-after-covid-19/
First hand experiences of a middle and lower middle class lifestyles during the
COVID 19 pandemic, of a senior citizen and her household helper in kolkata.
Jyoti. D (March 02, 2021). Covid-19 changed the meaning of home, exposed
social chasm. Retrieved fromhttps://
www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/covid19-changed-the-meaning-ofhome-
exposed-social-chasm-101614643265126.html
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