India’s largest luxury store is also an art gallery, and a co-working space, and a museum

A few weeks ago, in line outside a popular restaurant in Mumbai, I was eavesdropping on a couple troubled about the plants on their balcony. She said the plants didn’t “match each other”. He said, “It doesn’t matter what it looks like, the important thing is how we place it.” What’s maybe second nature to architects and interior designers is a revelation to the lay homeowner or renter. To further prove his point, I walk into the restaurant, a space with all the trappings of tropical minimalism—slatted wood, stucco walls, woven blinds, age-worn teak furniture—but no actual sense of ease or quiet. Chaotic and claustrophobic, the individual decor elements didn’t matter; they just weren’t placed right.

India is witnessing something of a Golden Age of interior design, which is expected to reach a whopping US$ 81.2 billion market share by 2030. This makes it one of the fastest growing sectors in the country. It’s now easier to buy designer and artisanal anything without ever looking up from your phone, but there’s an aesthetic, style and a certain joie de vivre that we’re still craving. Nilaya Anthology by Asian Paints, which opens today at the Peninsula Corporate Park in Lower Parel, Mumbai, is India’s largest luxury destination for décor at 1,00,000 sqft, and seems to be the answer to all our conundrums.

“What we are missing in India, and I think everywhere in the world, are places which are not about consumption but about experience, understanding and beauty,” explains design director of Asian Paints and curator of this mammoth space, Pavitra Rajaram. “We are a first-world civilisation that understands luxury like no one else,” she shares. “We have been trading with the rest of the world for the last 3,000 years. We asked ourselves, What is the modern equivalent of that? And that was the birth of Anthology!” For Rajaram, it makes sense that India should be the place for a design revolution.

The concept started out simple—Nilaya as an umbrella super brand that brings a host of iconic international design brands like Lema, Alma De Luce and Cassina under the same roof as local labels like Jaipur Rugs, Ashiesh Shah, and Heirloom Naga. But it eventually morphed into a cultural colossus, with restaurants, art galleries, a co-working space, a material library, a shop house for craft-led brands, and even a skylight-fed orangery (yes, there’s a botanical selection of local and imported flora up for grabs). 

Amit Syngle, CEO and MD, Asian Paints, adds, “It’s not just a retail space; it is a cultural catalyst and storytelling experience.” The story was pieced together into an intuitive, meandering layout by award-winning architect Rooshad Shroff. Inspired by Le Corbusier’s promenade-like ramp, it is “a celebration of design as a narrative”, he explains.

The headliner here has to be internationally renowned design expert Nina Yashar’s Nilufar Gallery, which makes its India debut with a presentation here. The Sabyasachi Art Foundation is also set to host its inaugural show here, with Bengal School of Art-inspired artist Atish Mukherjee. US-based artist Priya Kambli will showcase her photography, and Vikram Goyal Studio will present his handcrafted masterpieces in a series of design collectibles. While you can get everything from cushion covers, lamps and wallpaper to furniture, candles and craft collectibles, Rajaram shares, “What we really want to do is to mix up all of these ways in which we experience the world… The idea is that this is a moving, swirling world of experience, ideas and meaning.”

Consider it a living museum. Only time will tell what Nilaya Anthology will become—Rajaram is already thinking about adding music and theatre to the programming. But as it opens its door, it’s already a testament to an exciting future for Indian design, one in which we engage with it as the collaborative and experiential medium it is. In that, Nilaya Anthology is a bold statement, and I think the victims of my eavesdropping would agree that it’s well placed.