The Dome At Mumbai Division Central Railway - The Heritage Gallery Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mumbai, Maharashtra - India
Mumbai Division Central Railway - The Heritage Gallery Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mumbai, Maharashtra - India
Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus , formerly Victoria Terminus, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and historic railway station which serves as the headquarters of the Central Railways in Mumbai, India.
Designed by...
more... Frederick William Stevens with influences from Victorian Italianate Gothic Revival architecture and Indian (Mughal and Hindu) traditional buildings, the station was built in 1887 in the Bori Bunder area of Bombay to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. The new railway station was built on the location of the Bori Bunder Station and is the busiest railway station in India, serving as both a terminal for long distance trains and commuter trains of the Mumbai Suburban Railway. The station's name was changed to its present one in March 1996 and is simply known as VT (or CST/CSTM).
The station was designed by the consulting British architect Frederick William Stevens(1848-1900). Work began in 1878. He received 1,614,000 (US$29,374.8) as the payment for his services. Stevens earned the commission to construct the station after a masterpiece watercolour sketch by draughtsman Axel Haig. The final design bears some resemblance to the St Pancras railway station in London.GG Scott's plans for Berlin's parliament building had been published four years before, and also has marked similarities to the station's design.
It took ten years to complete and was named "Victoria Terminus" in honour of the Queen and Empress Victoria; it was opened on the date of her Golden Jubilee in 1887. It cost £260,000 when it was finished in 1888, the highest for any building of that era in Bombay. This famous architectural landmark in Gothic style was built as the headquarters of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway. Since then, the station came to be known as Bombay VT.
Originally intended only to house the main station and the administrative offices of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway, a number of ancillary buildings have been added subsequently, all designed so as to harmonise with the main structure. A new station to handle main line traffic was erected in 1929. The original building is still in use to handle suburban traffic and is used by over three million commuters daily. It is also the administrative headquarters of the Central Railway.
Srinivasan Venkatesan
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