Get an approximate budget for your kitchen design by sharing your space details.

Gopurams to Grilles: A Deco Atlas of South India

  • Ideas & Inspiration
Jun 06, 2025
Osmania University Sandstone and Shadowplay - Beautiful Homes

Marking the 100th anniversary of Art Deco, a trail through South India tracing the design’s distinctive localised representations

Art Deco emerged between two world wars and two design impulses: the ornate excesses of the past and the strict austerity of modernism to come. It was a style for a world rediscovering elegance through simplicity. Geometry met glamour. Steel met stucco. Buildings curved with confidence.

It took root across the globe—shaped by local materials, climates, and imaginations. In India, it arrived with cinema, insurance, and department stores: signals of a new economy and an emerging urban identity. It marked a turn from colonial classicism to a more self-fashioned, cosmopolitan aesthetic—modern, personal, aspirational.

Palace of a Chettiar Community Leader - Beautiful Homes
Once the palace of a Chettiar community leader, this building in Kanadukathan shows how Art Deco was absorbed into older typologies. The layered parapets, sweeping arches, and stylised balustrades offer a Deco reinterpretation of palace architecture—less feudal, more forward-looking. Image courtesy, Jean-Pierre Dalbéra-Wikimedia Commons
Chettinad Deco the Heart of Chettinad - Beautiful Homes
Tucked away in the heart of Chettinad, Visalam is a rare specimen of what might be called “Chettinad Deco.” Built in 1939 by KVAL Ramanathan Chettiar as a wedding gift for his daughter Visalakshi, the mansion—now a boutique hotel run by CGH Earth—wears a modernist face. But its soul is unmistakably traditional. Beyond the austere façade, the home opens up into courtyards ringed by colonnades, sunlit verandas, and intricate teak doorways. Ebony pillars frame a central atrium that draws in daylight and breeze, while ochre-painted ceilings and terracotta floors cool and comfort. Image courtesy, Rictor Norton & David Allen-Flickr

Deco didn’t demand attention. It softened corners, rounded railings, etched flourishes into facades. It introduced a quiet sophistication that could sit easily in daily life. In South India, this sensibility was not just welcomed—it was already understood. This is a region fluent in rhythm, alignment, and surface: from the lush curves of the Western Ghats to the stepped towers of gopurams, from kolam drawings to handloom borders. Deco arrived not as a foreign accent but as a second language.

 

Curves became courtyards. Porthole windows welcomed monsoon winds. Laterite and lime plaster stood in for chrome and concrete. A cinema in Alappuzha, a bungalow in Malleswaram, a mosque in Kasaragod—each spoke Deco fluently, in a voice entirely local.

Here, beauty is often found in detail: in oxide floors, carved thresholds, shadow play. Deco didn’t interrupt this visual memory—it added to it. In a country often flattened in the name of unity, the South continues to assert its distinctiveness with dignity. Deco is one among many such expressions—subtle, intelligent, and enduring.

 

DECO AS INVENTION: A LANGUAGE OF ITS OWN

Art Deco carried a rhythm—balanced, composed, generous. Its lines were confident, its ornament precise. In a young India imagining its future, Deco offered form to possibility.

 

Post-Independence modernism, with its concrete institutions and state symbolism, was bold and monumental. But Deco shaped a different kind of modernity—one that belonged to cinemas, homes, colleges, and shops. It was civic. It was neighbourly. It was design you could walk past every day and still notice anew.

Puducherry Art Deco in Bright Colours - Beautiful Homes
In the quiet lanes of Puducherry, Art Deco finds its voice in modest homes—lotus motifs nestled into metal grilles, plaster rectangles stacked in rhythmic sequence. These are personal gestures—proof that you don’t need to know a movement’s name to participate in its poetry. Image courtesy, Brijender Dua/ Unsplash
Small Puducherry Home in Mint and Yellow Colour - Beautiful Homes
This small Puducherry home wears its identity proudly: wrought iron grilles bloom with local flora, plaster mouldings ripple across the façade. In these modest volumes, Deco becomes democratic, a vocabulary anyone can use to mark a threshold with beauty. Image courtesy, Brijender Dua/ Unsplash

Builders and craftsmen shaped Deco with imagination: anchor-shaped grills, seashell railings, rudraksha patterns, lotuses stylised into speedlines. In smaller towns, the improvisation was bolder. A theatre in Thrissur mimicked a gopuram. A cinema in Madurai wore neon-like embroidery. A mosque in Kasaragod framed light with portholes. These weren’t borrowed forms. They were local declarations.
 

TAMIL NADU: THE ORDER OF THINGS

Tamil architecture moves through alignment—of space, ritual, and attention. From gopuram towers to kolam grids, form guides the eye and body. Deco entered this visual grammar with composure.

 

In 1930s Madras, architect L.M. Chitale brought the style into civic life with buildings like EID Parry headquartered in Dare House and the Andhra Insurance Building—clean-edged, curved, and composed. These weren’t just façades of fashion. They offered orientation, rhythm, and a sense of arrival in a transforming city.

Eid Parry Headquarters in Chennai - Beautiful Homes
At the EID Parry headquarters in Chennai, a monumental scale is tempered by human sensitivity—rounded volumes soften the building’s mass, vertical columns frame windows with quiet repetition. This is power without pomp, where Art Deco lends a civic building warmth, rhythm, and approachability. Image courtesy, PlaneMad-Wikimedia Commons

In Karaikudi, Deco met Chettinad domesticity. Temple-like facades stepped into silhouette. Verandahs curled around thresholds—portals between ritual and routine. Athangudi tiles in ochre and indigo patterned floors with precision. Red and black oxide cooled and grounded interiors.

 

Here, Deco didn’t stylise Tamil architecture—it participated in it. It shared its respect for movement, transition, and pattern. 

Art Deco Buildings Take on a Sculptural Life - Beautiful Homes
Often relegated as a safety feature, window grilles in Art Deco buildings take on a sculptural life of their own. Especially in South Indian iterations, these wrought iron compositions—angular, looping, or latticed—transform façades with rhythm and ornament. When sunlight hits them just right, the shadows they cast on the floors create an ephemeral second skin. Image courtesy, Rictor Norton & David Allen-Flickr
Athangudi Palace in the Chettinad Village - Beautiful Homes
Athangudi Palace in the Chettinad village is an opulent ode to form and function. Like many mansions in the region, it features open courtyards designed for cross-ventilation. Polished granite pillars anchor the hall, their deep black gloss setting off the striking chessboard-patterned floor tiles imported from Italy. But the true artistry lies in the locally made Athangudi tiles—handcrafted from cement, sand, and natural oxides using techniques passed down for generations. Sun-dried and vibrantly patterned, they adorn walls and floors with motifs of flora, fauna, and geometry. Image courtesy, Rictor Norton & David Allen-Flickr

KERALA: CIVIC SENSE AND SUBTLE FORM

In Kerala, Deco adjusted to the monsoon—and to Marx. It worked with sloped roofs, laterite walls, and oxide floors. But more than material adaptation, it reflected a cultural one: a state defined by literacy, equity, and a resistance to excess.

 

The New Theatre in Thiruvananthapuram is quietly monumental—symmetrical, accessible, and open to the street. The Coir Board Building in Alappuzha blends Deco lines with cooperative economy. In Kasaragod, the Chemnad Juma Masjid folds porthole windows and curved verandahs into a structure that speaks both tradition and modernity. At the Pankaj Theatre, a canopy arcs outward—not to impress, but to welcome.

 

Kerala’s Deco was ideological. It fit the socialist and secular framework of its public life. Buildings here weren’t built to dazzle. They were built to serve—with clarity, proportion, and quiet radicalism.

 

ANDHRA PRADESH: GEOMETRY WITH A CIVIC PULSE

In Andhra Pradesh, Deco marked progress—across university campuses, cinemas, and expanding towns. In Visakhapatnam, Andhra University’s Deco towers reached skyward with symmetry and grace. The Jagadamba Theatre offered sweeping curves and illuminated signage. In Tirupati, Sapthagiri Cinema aligned itself with temple forms—tiered, centred, formal. 

Mangalagiri Cotton Sarees with Zari Borders in Black Colour - Beautiful Homes
With their crisp stripes and understated zari borders, Mangalagiri cotton sarees embody a minimalist elegance that resonates with Art Deco’s affinity for clean lines and geometric precision. The saree’s linear patterns and restrained embellishments mirror the streamlined forms found in Deco architecture, illustrating a shared aesthetic of simplicity and order. Image courtesy, GoSwadeshi
Venkatagiri Cotton Sarees with Square Grids - Beautiful Homes
Venkatagiri cotton sarees feature delicate square grids and intricate geometric borders, reflecting a meticulous attention to pattern and proportion. This structured design approach aligns with Art Deco’s fascination with symmetry and stylized motifs, showcasing how traditional weaving techniques can parallel modernist design principles. Image courtesy, GoSwadeshi
Guttapusalu Necklace a Cascading Cluster of Pearls - Beautiful Homes
The Guttapusalu necklace, characterized by its cascading clusters of pearls resembling a shoal of small fish, demonstrates a rhythmic repetition and ornamental flair akin to Art Deco jewelry. The necklace’s symmetrical arrangement and emphasis on decorative detail highlight a convergence between traditional South Indian craftsmanship and the decorative exuberance of the Deco era. Image courtesy, The Amethyst Store

In homes across Guntur, Rajahmundry, and Nellore, Deco lived modestly: rounded balconies, oxide floors, terrazzo thresholds. Grilles echoed the border geometry of Mangalagiri cottons and Venkatagiri saris. Even Guttapusalu jewellery, with its clustered pearl drops, found architectural echoes in balustrades and stair rails.

 

Architect Mohammad Fayazuddin, who worked across the undivided state, helped formalise this language. His civic buildings and hospitals were structured but not stark—modernism with cultural depth.

 

In Andhra, Deco didn’t separate form from surface. It wrapped civic function in the textures of local craft.

TELANGANA: DECO AS DIALOGUE

Telangana’s Deco was shaped by cosmopolitanism and Deccani poise. In Hyderabad, princely ambition, Islamic craft, and European design coalesced into a language of elegance and intent.

 

Architects like Fayazuddin, Zain Yar Jung, and Karl Malte von Heinz designed buildings that embodied this fusion. The State Bank of Hyderabad at Gunfoundry is all gravitas and rhythm—vertical fins, recessed arches, civic clarity. The Osmania University Arts College blends Deco geometry with Islamic symmetry and skyline silhouettes. The Moazzam Jahi Market, though built in dressed stone, carries Deco proportions in its colonnades and portals.

Osmania University Sandstone and Shadowplay - Beautiful Homes
At Osmania University’s College of Arts, Deco meets Islamic tradition in sandstone and shadowplay. Arches, louvres, grilles, and mouldings animate the monochrome façade, allowing the building to shift with the sun. Here, geometry isn’t just structure—it’s a way to make learning luminous. Image courtesy, iMahesh-Wikimedia Commons

In Jeera Colony, Deco entered the domestic sphere—spiral staircases, rudraksha grillwork, pale pink walls. Masjids across Secunderabad incorporated streamlined parapets and corner towers. Cinemas like Sheesh Mahal and SD Theatre carried Deco into the popular imagination with scalloped facades and neon signage.

 

Hyderabad, long known for its pearl trade and syncretic culture, made Deco its own: less spectacle, more synthesis.
 

Woodlands Cinema Building in Mysore - Beautiful Homes
At Woodlands Cinema in Mysore, the actors change but the building stays the same. Film posters are pasted like temporary tattoos, renewing the façade each week with new heroes and new hopes. These halls hold more than reels—they hold the shifting aspirations of a city, etched into memory against a Deco backdrop. Image courtesy, Christopher J. Fynn-Wikimedia Commons

KARNATAKA: DOMESTIC MODERN, LOCAL QUIET

In Karnataka, Deco lived inside the neighbourhood. In Bangalore’s Basavanagudi, Malleswaram, and Fraser Town, two-storey homes wore curved balconies, porthole windows, and oxide floors. Wrought-iron railings resembled Kannada letterforms. Terrazzo stairs curled around courtyards. Cuddapah thresholds offered cool underfoot.

 

Public Deco flickered in the now-demolished Plaza and Rex theatres on MG Road—elegant and slightly cinematic. In Mysore, Sharada Talkies mirrored the city’s layered aesthetic: princely outside, Deco inside.

Karnataka’s Deco wasn’t a movement. It was a mood. Not designed to dominate, but to dwell in. Its strength lay in proportion, warmth, and restraint. A modernism for the street, the stone, and the family.

 

A MODERNISM OF MANY TONGUES

Art Deco in South India is not a style that arrived—it’s one that grew roots. What began as a global aesthetic found, here, a landscape already fluent in geometry, surface, and subtlety. Each state, with its own language, material memory, and sense of beauty, translated Deco with poise and personality.

 

In a country too often narrated through sameness, South India’s Deco insists on difference—not as resistance, but as richness. A cinema in Tirupati may not resemble a mosque in Kasaragod, but both share the same belief: that design is dialogue, and modernity can be many things at once.

 

These buildings don’t demand attention. But they reward it—quietly, lastingly, and with luminous precision.

State Bank of Hyderabad Building Near Gunfoundry - Beautiful Homes
At the State Bank of Hyderabad’s 1955 building near Gunfoundry, architect Mohammed Fayazuddin used Deco not for ornament, but for clarity. Vertical pilasters, gridded windows, and a gently curved central bay bring order without excess. It’s a building that wears seriousness lightly—a financial institution made legible and humane. Image courtesy, Riaz Ahmed-Wikimedia Commons
Ornamental Grills of Kanadukathan Art Deco - Beautiful Homes
In Kanadukathan, this home wears Art Deco without irony. Rounded windows, fluted columns, ornamental grills and layered volumes follow the Deco playbook closely—but it’s the scale that charms. It doesn’t mimic grandeur; it reclaims it. By staying human-sized, the building feels both intimate and important. Image courtesy, Jean-Pierre Dalbéra-Wikimedia Commons
Jagadamba Building on an Evening - Beautiful Homes
The Jagadamba Theatre in Visakhapatnam, designed by architect Mohammed Fayazuddin, belongs to a time before multiplex monoculture—when a single screen could shape a city’s imagination. Bright green outlines accent the façade’s curves and corners (called copings or bands), shifting hue with the season. Circles and rectangles play across its surface like a Mondrian sketch, disobedient and delightful. There’s no symmetry here—only mischief, memory, and a geometry that makes the humble feel heroic. Image courtesy, Visakha Veera-Wikimedia Commons
Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad - Beautiful Homes
The Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad is an unusual Deco hybrid. Framed by vertical columns and a dome that nods to Indo-Islamic design, it reflects an era when museums were being reimagined—not just as vaults of colonial collecting, but as civic landmarks. Deco’s geometry softens this shift, making knowledge feel more public, less imposing. Image courtesy, Tejas.limbasiya-Wikimedia Commons
Grids & Repetitions of Athangudi Pattern - Beautiful Homes
Deco’s influence is not only skin-deep. In South India, its ethos aligns with older spatial sensibilities—grids, repetitions, relationships between built and unbuilt spaces. These rhythms, inherited and improvised, shape how we move, pause, and orient ourselves in the everyday. Image courtesy, rawpixel

Get started with Beautiful Homes by Asian Paints

Leave your information and we will call you to book your preferred consultation slot

Please enter your Full Name
Please enter your Pincode
Please enter your Mobile Number +91
Please enter your Email ID

By proceeding, you are authorizing Asian Paints and its suggested contractors to get in touch with you through calls, sms, or e-mail.

tick

Thank You!

We value your interest in Asian Paints - Beautiful Homes. We will get in touch with you to customise your package.

Tell us more and you may qualify for a

special appointment!

Get a special appointment
2/ 4

What’s the condition of your home/space?

Will you be living in your space during the renovation ?

1/ 4

What’s the status of your home possession?

3/ 4

Is your interior design budget over 4 lakhs?

4/ 4

Book next available appointment slots with our experts!

DEC 2023

27 FRI
31 MON
1 TUE

JAN 2024

01 WED
02 THU
03 FRI
05 MON
06 TUE
07 WED
08 THU
arrow

Please Select Date and Day

Something went wrong!

We were unable to receive your details. Please try submitting them again.
To reschedule or cancel, call toll-free
Submit again

Appointment Scheduled!

Thank you for giving an opportunity to Asian Paints Beautiful Homes Service! Our Customer Experience Specialist will get in touch with you soon.

Appointment Date & time

17 Oct 23, 03.00PM - 04.00PM

To reschedule or cancel, call toll-free

Thank You!

Discover your style

Get an instant mood board

Take a quiz and discover your design style that sets you apart

Similar Articles