Unsure of what to do in Mumbai this weekend? Here’s an idea: Take a trip to the city’s South, the plush neighbourhood of Ballard Estate in particular. As you walk down Calicut Road – a street named after the traders from Calicut (present-day Kozhikode) who settled in the city – you are likely to see a two-storeyed architectural marvel, the IF.BE.

What began its journey as an ice factory in 1878, now serves as a space for creative minds to discuss art and ideas.

When IF.BE isn’t hosting a stand-up show by comedian Masoom Rajwani, it finds itself overwhelmed by cinema aficionados. Yes, the scramble for a front-row seat to director Zoya Akhtar’s session on storytelling is real.

When these maestros aren’t gracing the dais, there are meditative movement workshops, film screenings and art exhibitions to sign up for. IF.BE’s social calendar lives up to its definition of a space where architects, designers and artists can converge and collaborate.

How did this transformation happen? An “almost poetic” experience that Kamal Malik — an architect with almost five decades of experience — had when his eyes first met the almost 150-year-old building.

“My first encounter with the Ice Factory is vividly etched in my memory! Sunlight streaming in from the north-light Burma teak trusses and piercing the blocks of ice being moved by the gantry, and giving way to a courtyard shaded by the canopy of a huge banyan tree. A fertile environment for contemplation and transformation,” he says.

An ice factory, a banyan tree, and the birth of an idea

As you set sights on IF.BE — an acronym for Ice Factory Bellary Estate — which also has a deeper meaning, as Malik will explain later, you may find it hard to believe that what is now a creative hub for the arts, was an ice factory a century ago. So order yourself some matar khasta rolls (fried finger food with green pea filling) while I regale you with a history lesson.

IF.BE’s walls, 150 years ago, would be privy to conversations of factory workers that ranged from whether the gantry was working properly to concerns about being able to meet the ice demand of fish markets in South Bombay (Now Mumbai).