From Art Deco silhouettes to cutting-edge design festivals, Mumbai is a living design laboratory. It’s a city where colonial facades collide with contemporary galleries, where traditional crafts still shape modern aesthetics, and where every corner holds inspiration for architects, designers, and visual thinkers.
Here’s your curated design itinerary to experience the best of Mumbai’s creative soul—with a special spotlight on the biggest design event of the year.
1. Explore the Art Deco Heritage of Marine Drive & Oval Maidan
Few cities can boast a design movement embedded into its skyline. Mumbai’s Art Deco precinct, recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is home to over 200 buildings adorned with streamlined symmetry, sunburst motifs, curved balconies, and nautical detailing. Walk from Marine Drive to Churchgate and you’ll step through a stylized 1930s time capsule—perfect for lovers of modernist geometry and pastel-toned facades.
2. Join a Design-Focused Art Walk in South Mumbai
South Mumbai’s Fort and Colaba neighborhoods are more than colonial-era business districts—they’re hubs of design and visual culture. Sign up for curated art and architecture walks with collectives like Art Walks Bombay or Khaki Tours, which take you through hidden alleys, century-old printing presses, contemporary studios, and iconic facades. These walks uncover stories behind Mumbai’s layered textures—from Neoclassical arches to vernacular typologies.
3. Step into the Restored Wonder of Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum
A triumph of heritage conservation and curatorial design, this museum in Byculla is a jewel of 19th-century Italianate architecture. Think Corinthian columns, Minton tile flooring, cast iron railings, and deep blue ceilings with gold leafing. The museum’s exhibitions focus on the urban design and artisanal history of Bombay, making it one of India’s finest examples of design storytelling in a historical setting.
4. Immerse Yourself in Kala Ghoda’s Creative Grid
No design pilgrimage to Mumbai is complete without a deep dive into Kala Ghoda, the city’s unofficial design district. Here, historic buildings house contemporary art galleries, independent design studios, and craft boutiques. In February, the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival takes over with public art installations, pop-ups, and open-air exhibitions that celebrate India’s vibrant visual culture.
5. Experience FOAID – Festival of Architecture & Interior Designing
📍 Jio World Convention Centre
🗓️ 19–20 December 2025
For the design community, FOAID is not just an event—it’s a movement.
Held annually in Mumbai, FOAID brings together 6000+ architects, interior designers, product innovators, and design students for two days of immersive exchange. With interactive installations, panel discussions, live design challenges, and the prestigious VOX Architecture Ideas Awards, it’s where India’s design dialogue reaches its crescendo.
Architecturally, the Jio World Convention Centre is a fitting venue—a high-performance urban space blending minimal design with monumental scale.
Whether you’re there to exhibit, speak, learn, or network, FOAID is where the future of Indian design takes form.
6. Browse Design Bookstores in the Fort District
Hidden behind heritage facades, design bookstores like Kitab Khana and Taraporevala offer curated collections of architecture monographs, visual culture anthologies, and craft theory. These spaces are ideal for those who believe in reading design as much as practicing it—paired, of course, with Mumbai’s best coffee.
7. Sketch the Cityscape from Bandra Fort
Located at Land’s End, Bandra Fort is where you get a sweeping visual of Mumbai’s urban composition—from the cable-stayed rhythm of the Sea Link to the jagged skyline of Worli. Designers and architecture students often head here for plein air sketching sessions, architectural photography, and contemplative note-taking.
Mumbai: A City Designed to Inspire
This isn’t just a guide to things to do in Mumbai—it’s a curated lens into its living design culture. From preserved palaces to evolving festival spaces, the city invites you to experience design not as a display—but as a lived environment.
📌 Mark your calendars for FOAID 2025—because no creative journey through Mumbai is complete without being part of the country’s definitive design celebration.
