What it means to be Hafeez Contractor, India’s most famous architect

Architect Hafeez Contractor.

Landmark projects across the country, such as DLF in Gurgaon, Hiranandani Gardens in Mumbai, the Ideal Topsia tower in Kolkata, and the Sarala Birla Academy in Bengaluru, all have his imprint. Ask home buyers to name an architect, and his name promptly trips off their tongues. Because, quite simply, Hafeez Contractor is India’s most famous architect. (Most architects, if you ask them about Hafeez, say: "He's certainly the most famous. But certainly not the best.")

The critics deride his ability and principles, perhaps unfairly, saying he has little meaningful architectural work to his credit. Activists believe he has sold his soul to builders—he is a man whose persuasive skills in FSI (floor space index) maximisation, they say, have hurt urban planning and fattened the wallets of unscrupulous builders.

Last month, I met the man who has dominated the mind space in his arena for almost four decades. Dressed in his trademark half-sleeved white shirt, Contractor is a man who exudes a relaxed vibe with a tinge of impatience. For someone with monumental personal wealth, however, his office in a legacy building is understated in design.

Granite split

Contractor’s journey in the field has been long, having commenced practice with a relative in 1968. It lasted over a decade until a dispute with the relative on the colour of granite to be used in a project resulted in a clash. (The relative wanted grey. Hafeez wanted black. The client agreed with Hafeez.) He struck out on his own in 1982. By then, he was a man several builders wanted for their projects. Because, for them, he was clearly a builders’ architect.

A builders’ architect

Unlike many of his peers, Contractor doesn’t let his architectural ego come in the way of his business ego: Client satisfaction matters. A good illustration of that was a building called Vastu, in Worli, Mumbai. It was conceptualised as a triangular structure. All the designs had been finalised and initial marketing material published, with foundation work at an advanced stage. Then, in the 1980s, on the day of the bhumi-pujan, the builders’ adviser pointed out that the triangular structure would not be Vaastu-friendly. (Vaastu is an ancient Indian architectural philosophy that requires all the elements to be in harmony.)

Unperturbed by the last-minute surprise, Contractor immediately drew up a circular structure instead of the triangular structure and enquired if that would satisfy the adviser. It did. And Mumbai’s boldest project of that generation was born. A building in the form of a capsule overlooking the sea.

In 1988, he did a project that set the stage for the construction of a landmark township in Mumbai called Hiranandani Gardens. The building was Lake Castle. It was in an area called Powai, which was then largely uninhabited. Hiranandani gave him a plot next to a hill. By then Contractor had recognised the workings of the market in terms of demand and supply. Too much of one product resulted in buyers delaying their purchase, so Contractor experimented with a few thoughts. Eventually, he went with a plan that had no parallel then and has very few parallels even today. “There were only three types of apartments. But I made those three into 90. I made every flat into something different,” he recalls. Simply put—as a customer, whatever variation you wanted, was available within the same building.

In Mumbai, every inch matters. Every regulation has to be read, understood and interpreted. That’s where the real skill of an architect comes into play.

- Hafeez Contractor

The move was mocked by his critics, many of them from his own profession. “Hafeez Contractor is the Arnab Goswami of architecture (or Arnab is the Hafeez of journalism). They both hate to lose and are reviled by their peers for debasing the profession,” is one refrain.

Contractor appears to have similar disdain for many of his rivals—some of them illustrious. “It’s easy to talk about making buildings when you have big plots in small towns and cities with limited regulations. Here, in Mumbai, every inch matters. Every regulation has to be read, understood and interpreted. That’s where the real skill of an architect comes into play,” he explains.

That skill has served him well. It’s hard to point out many professions where one man has dominated with such endurance. That's also due to his aggression in pricing, which secures deals with clients. The strategy has resulted in some calling him ‘Half-Fees’.

Another reason is because he grasped the power of marketing much before anyone else in his sphere. In an interview in 1994, he pointed to the value of advertising with a Bollywood analogy, saying: “Without advertising, you get nowhere. Dimple Kapadia was a very beautiful young girl, but it was only when Raj Kapoor cast her in the role of Bobby that her beauty became known to the world.” Contractor has used advertising effectively himself. In a way he was the first brand of the real estate industry, in an age when even large developers had marginal brand value.

No signature style

These pursuits have, however, taken a toll on Contractor’s style and originality. Being a builders’ architect has meant that today it is hard to point out a signature style in his work. There is no uniformity, no trademark style that is unique to him. Contractor unabashedly goes where the builder tells him to. That may have made him win many clients, but he has undoubtedly lost a bit of himself in the bargain.

If, however, there is a desire to leave a legacy, it is through slum redevelopment in Mumbai, by developing empty government lands and monetising them. Contractor proposed such a plan to former Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, to use idle railway land for low-cost housing, which would also beef up Indian Railways’ coffers. It interested the minister but the proposal never saw the light of day.

But Contractor is persisting with his goal of slum redevelopment. He's trying to create a policy for overall slum redevelopment in Mumbai, not just one or two projects. Slum redevelopment has brought down many heavyweights given its complexity and various stakeholders—both visible and invisible. It may not bring Contractor down. But it will be his most formidable challenge.