Gateway Of India

Gateway of India

Gateway of India, monument in Mumbai that was completed in 1924.

Situated on the Apollo Bunder overlooking the Arabian Sea, the Gateway of India was designed to commemorate the visit in 1911 of King George V and Queen Mary, who had been en route to the durbar being held in Delhi to celebrate their coronation as emperor and empress of India.

The Gateway of India’s foundation stone was laid on March 31, 1913, by the governor of Bombay, Sir George Sydenham Clarke, with architect George Wittet’s designs finally being approved in August 1914. Between 1915 and 1919 a stretch of land along the harbor front was reclaimed from the sea, and it was here that the gateway and a new sea wall were built. The foundations were completed the following year and construction was finished in 1924.

Built of honey-colored basalt, the Gateway of India resembles a conventional triumphal arch in concept, but architecturally it is Indo-Saracenic in style, modeled on 16th-century Gujarati work. This absorption of Mughal influences was consciously done, with a view to suggesting the link with earlier rulers and thus arguing for the legitimacy of British colonial rule. Intricate latticework decorates the walls, and four turrets surround an imposing central dome that is 50 feet (15 m) in diameter and rises to 85 feet (26 m) high. Side chambers and halls were added to accommodate civic receptions. The building was opened to the public on December 4, 1924, by the viceroy of India, Rufus Isaacs, earl of Reading.

Within a generation, this grand symbol of empire also became an epitaph: the last British regiment to leave India after the country’s independence in 1947, the First Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry, passed through the Gateway of India before setting sail for England on February 28, 1948. Today the gateway is one of India’s most popular tourist sites.