MUMBAI | The Imperial Towers (formerly SD Towers) | 249m | 60+ floors | U/C -- the first major modern skyscraper project in Mumbai!

The Imperial Towers (formerly SD Towers), Mumbai, India

…Mumbai’s first international-standard skyscraper, once India’s and Mumbai’s tallest skyscraper,
and India’s farthest along skyline-defining skyscraper project!

Hi guys

Sorry for not having updated in so long. I’ve been crazy busy over at my end.

Here’s a project I’ve been meaning to post about for a while now:

Mumbai’s first major skyscraper project, and really, the project that can be heralded to have paved the way for the boom, Shapoorji Pallonji & Co Ltd./SD Corporation’s twin Imperial Towers, designed by Mumbai architect Hafeez Contractor as his most recognizable project to datre, was designed as Mumbai’s tallest towers.

Then called “SD Towers” or “Tardeo Twin Towers”, the years long litigation and hard-won battle for construction rights was the change that heralded the ‘new India’ economic boom model of urban redevelopment over the paralyzing nexus of ‘old India’ socialists and special-interest groups that for years had kept Mumbai underdeveloped. For more information, renderings and recent under-construction pictures of this project originally posted by me on Skyscrapercity.com, read on!…

The Imperial Twin Towers are built on former slum land where the current re-development model of builders providing free land and rehabilitation to slum dwellers in exchange for rights for property development, was first put into practice on a big scale. This model was used for for slum and mill land redevelopment across the city, and across India as a whole.

The towers are ultra-high end residential towers that are selling out pretty fast. The Imperial offers sea-views by virtue of its height, and a resort-like gardens and fountains on top of the parking-structure podium, with hanging gardens that mask the structure itself.

While shortly into its construction, it lost the “India’s tallest” tag to Lodha Bellissimo (though only in the comparison of roof height vs. highest liveable floor, like Sears Towers did to Petronas), which in turn lost its claim several times over with announcements of new towers, the towers are the farthest along in construction of all of Mumbai’s capital projects, and its unfinished frames dominate the Parel region.

Here’s a pic of this upcoming CBD from awesome photographer Humayunn N A Peerzaada, who allows his HDR-styled pics to be posted in SSC India. You can see the Imperials as the rising twins in the center left background of the image:

Here’s a more recent u/c pic by him:

The recent BBC Program India with Sanjeev Bhaskar also had some cool u/c pics:

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The design of the building actually changed from the original, in my opinion much for the better. Here are some of the older renderings that were found on SP Construction’s website, but are now taken down. Note the redesigned crown and spire in particular:

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That’s it for now! More information will be posted as it comes!

Cheers,
FeloniousVindaloo

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