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national museum delhi case study

Norman Foster and his High-tech Architecture

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Delhi National Museum

National Museum Delhi was the first largest and planned museum in India. Which had been designed by Gurgaryear Committee. It’s connected to all or any or any the Mother city by four Major roads from all directions. it’s four stories with the basement. Also, the basic form of the Building Is Fan formed with the circular court in between enclosed by a coated gallery. In addition, wings are connected with the court consistent with totally different necessities.

National Museum Delhi – Largest Museum of India

Together with art objects of historical, cultural and inventive significance with the aim to show, protect, preserve, and interpret and to function cultural centre for enjoyment and interaction of the folks in inventive and cultural activity.

Zoning of National Museum Delhi

The zoning is doing vertically as well as horizontally. Administration and different workers connected areas and services like H.V.A.C, electrical and different services are at the basement.  exhibitions are placed at a higher level. Horizontally, it is a zone into open, transition, and exhibition areas.

National Museum Delhi – Largest Museum of India

Circulation

It has loose circulation. Visitors enter in hall kinda gallery left aspect of the token counter, all hall is connected with one another with a center circulation court 6m wide, exhibition area of various floors are connected with stairs and lifts and toilet is provided on the stairs.

About floor plans of National Museum Delhi

Moreover, exhibition halls are interconnecting with a central circulation court 6m wide separate entrance for VIP. And physically handicapped are also present.

Underground fire-tank is providing, Conservation lab is providing on the 2 nd floor, common storage, A.C plan room, electrical, provided in the basement.

Firstly, Harapan civilization, Maurya, Gupta, Terracotta, Bronze, Medieval art, Buddhist art, Jewellery, ornamental art, miniature painting, these galleries are placing at ground floor

Secondly, coins, Indian painting, manuscript, Ajanta painting, Thanjavur painting, these galleries are placing on the first floor.

Moreover, textile, western art, wood carving, tribal art, music instrument, these galleries are placing on the second floor.

National Museum Delhi – Largest Museum of India

Lighting at National Museum Delhi

Each display has its own focused light, diffused light. Which are utilizing in false ceilings or hanging by steel sections. No natural light is using inside it. Artificial light is doing with daylight exhibits to keep a minimum. Natural lighting is barely utilizing in the center circulation court. Well played with focused lights with the utilization of concave and convex lenses totally different places. In the jewelry section, the gallery was dark and receding pockets were creating with minimum lighting. The full structure is based around the central rotunda that lights up the whole passageway.

Gallery Circulation

All the Galleries are in a Closed area so Binding Oneself to reach on every display. The main passageway is approx. six mt wide right along the O.T.S. Galleries are largely Rectangular in form. stairs are Provided for Vertical Circulation. Height Varies From 2.4 to 3.5 mt.

Display techniques at National Museum Delhi

Haphazard travel movement, the form of the area is itself useful in the display. Columns returning in between are additionally using for display, linear arrangements on the corridors, some paintings are boxing within the walls. Whereas most of them are hanged on walls, display to display distance is 3.5 m to 4 m, every display has its own focussed light, diffuse light. Lights are utilizing in false ceilings or hanging by steel section, no natural lights are using. Interiors were doing with the assistance of wood, glass and stone. The flooring used is marble and wood. totally different wall colors and rendering are finishing to avoid monotony.

national museum delhi case study

About structure

The building is a trabeate structure using high-strength R.C.C & red sandstone. And flat beam with drop beam utilized in building. Floor to floor height is approx 4m. Also, all external facades have finished with yellow paint, red sandstone, and sandstone. All internal walls are plastere& color consistent with the theme. False ceiling exhausted exhibition areas All floor end are terrazzo, wooden, tiles & rubber flooring. Interiors are making with wood, glass, stone, aluminum is additionally utilizing in several sections like bronze and coin gallery. Also, temporary structures are provided around the building.

Observations at National Museum Delhi

Separate entrance for VIP. Stone sculptures are places around the building. So there is three front entry in building however just one in use due to security purpose. A loose movement system is provided within the building. Its shop and institute is a further advantage. Also, seating arrangements are creating for the guests to look at the thing of interest on display. The toilet isn’t properly placing in the building. No additional firefighting stairs in the building. No natural light is utilizing in the exhibition. It has its galleries rotating around an open courtyard, no views are providing. Sculpture in the central gallery isn’t visible properly due to glare from the back.

national museum delhi case study

Also, read The Etihad Museum, Dubai-UAE

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The Fortune-Teller, oil on canvas by Georges de La Tour, probably the 1630s; in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. (101.9 x 123.5 cm.) (The Fortune Teller)

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  • Officila Site of the National Museum, New Delhi, India

National Museum

National Museum , museum in New Delhi devoted to Indian art and archaeology as well as to Buddhist studies. The collections also include examples of anthropology; arms and armour; decorative arts, including jewelry; epigraphy; and pre-Columbian and Western art.

The art of painting is well represented with Indian miniatures of the Mughal , Rajput , Deccani , and Pahari schools. The museum has fine old manuscripts, as well as temple hangings, lavishly brocaded saris , weapons set with precious stones, and painted pottery . Antiquities from Central Asia recovered by Aurel Stein include the only examples of mural paintings from Buddhist shrines outside their native countries.

national museum delhi case study

B.Arch Thesis: National Museum of Architecture, New Delhi, by Niranjan Kaur

  • July 5, 2019

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B.Arch Thesis: National Museum of Architecture, Delhi

The National museum of architecture is a project proposed by Greha along with the council of architecture, INTACH and Indian Institute of architects. The site for the project is in Lado Sarai, New Delhi, 1km away from Qutub Minar.

The idea of this thesis is to explore and find out what an architectural museum should aim to do. The understanding of architecture varies between architects and the public. Every person is directly or indirectly affected by any piece of architecture, just that majority of them don’t realize what is it about architecture that’s affecting them and how. They appreciate/criticize architecture consciously/sub-consciously at times without understanding why it is the way it is. This difference in understanding between the architect and his/her subject (any person getting affected by architecture) needs to be brought to the same level by providing a platform that brings them together. This museum will become a centre for knowledge for everyone visiting it. It will become an icon that people want to see when they visit the city of Delhi. It will become an inclusive public place for people from all backgrounds to gather and talk about architecture. It will become a place of education for aspiring architects to do their research and understand architecture. Most importantly, it will become a place that is important to city without disturbing the city fabric. It should stand out not in terms of its form, but in terms of the spatial experience. The architectural expression will be such that it reflects the past, present and the future of architecture.

The place will empower architects as they receive better acknowledgment and appreciation for their works. The museum is meant to house information about other buildings so that the visitors understand and learn why they appreciate or they don’t when visit a piece of architecture. It might be known as the guardian of heritage. It might be known as a centre of knowledge for those who wish to know about architecture. It might be a platform for people to connect to each other through the exhibits and spaces. Whatever this museum is identified as will be a reflection of what it aims to do. PROPOSITION: This thesis aims to connect the society to architecture on a level that bridges the gap between the understanding of the architecture between the architects and their victims (referred to anyone getting affected by any piece of architecture).

The museum will exhibit the architecture marvels of the past, accomplishments of the present and the vision for the future. The experience will involve weaving of all the three phases of time, a time-line to dive into. This experience of a time-line will be translated into architecture. Therefore, the museum will be dedicated to both historic and contemporary works, it will be journey from certainty to uncertainty which will further get translated into the architecture of exhibition spaces, site planning and the building form. Major functions:

1. LIBRARY: Library provides services to the public and contain large number of books or volumes related to all aspects of architecture including biographical information about renowned architects.

2. CONVENTION CENTER: Auditorium, Multipurpose hall and exhibition galleries are largely public function, people- intensive components. These spaces allow events like seminars, lectures, film-screenings, launches of new proposals, etc.

3. MUSEUM: Museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artefacts and other objects related to subject which are available for public viewing through exhibition that may be permanent or temporary. The museum will house various galleries showcasing the historic works of architecture to the traditional-vernacular to the contemporary architecture. It will house drawings, models, photographs and films showing depicting design as well as the construction process.

i. Gallery of ancient history (permanent)

ii. Gallery of modern architecture (permanent)

iii. Gallery of contemporary architecture (temporary)

iv. Gallery of contemporary architecture (temporary)

v. Gallery of the futuristic visions (temporary)

4. RESEARCH CENTER: It is consisting of R&D labs, innovation centres, discussion rooms, workshops, lecture rooms all programmatic element associated with the activities involve in the pursuit and dissimulation of knowledge.

FORMULATION OF THE AREA PROGRAM: Concept for the formulation of the area program according to the requirements of the user groups that the museum will visit the museum.

For students and architects: 
CONVENTION/CONFERENCING FACILITY: Auditorium and multi-purpose halls to hold lectures and such events Meeting rooms

For students and research scholars:

RESEARCH CENTRE: Research and Design labs to provide a kind of a co-working space for researchers and students. A library containing books on all subjects of architecture and archival drawings.

For architects and public: 
MUSEUM: Exhibition galleries containing exhibits of historic architecture, modern architecture, contemporary architecture and temporary galleries allowing space for future interventions. For Research scholars and public: 
PUBLIC FACILITIES: Residential facility containing guest rooms for research scholars and tourists. Spaces like cafes allowing the two to interact.

SITE: A 1.3-hectare, vacant

INSTITUTIONAL SITE, belonging to the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has been identified. This is located in Lado Sarai, close to the Qutb Complex and the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi with good access from the Mehrauli Badarpur Road.

DEVELOPMENT CONTROLS: LANDUSE: Public/semi-public (Socio-Cultural institution) TOTAL AREA: 12800 sqm MAXIMUM GROUND COVERAGE: 35% MAXIMUM FLOOR AREA RATIO: 120 MAXIMUM HEIGHT: 26m PARKING: 2 ECS per 100 sqm SETBACKS: 9m on all sides (NBC 2016)

AREAS OF RESEARCH:

1. MEDIUM: In a museum of architecture, it is important to understand the medium through which architecture will be exhibited. It may be models, drawings, photographs, digital media and also virtual reality. Therefore, it will be required to be specified what is needed in this case. 2. PROGRAMMATIC CONTENT: It will also be necessary to study the programmatic content in order to evolve an area program. The study shall also focus on the sub-divisions and inter-relationships of each component. 3. REFLECTION OF TODAY: The museum should reflect the present, therefore there will be a need to study how are the buildings such as museums and research centres which are meant for public/ semi-public use being designed today, in addition to the study of the ones which have been significant since a number of years.

RESEARCH AND DESIGN:

The medium of displaying information is majorly responsible for its identity and for drawing people to the museums. In case of museums dedicated to archaeology, the display objects are presented in the condition that they were found in. This holds true for a number of museums which display historic objects, documents or maps. Art museums display objects in the mediums used by respective artists. Therefore, the medium was not something that could be controlled in every museum. However, as the technology is growing, there has been a revolution in field of exhibiting. Digital technologies have found a home in the modern museum in the forms of interactive touchscreen kiosks, CD-ROMs, computer games, largescreen installations and videowalls with multiple images, digital orientation centers, “smart badge” information systems, 3-D animation, virtual reality, and increasingly sophisticated museum web sites (Griffiths, 1999). This has changed the physical character of the museum. Be it historic museums, art museums, science museums or any other, people are exploring new ways of exhibiting artifacts and information by prioritizing the USER EXPERIENCE. In case of a museum of architecture, one wonders about the possibilities of mediums through which information can be displayed. A recent architectural exhibition organized in 2018 at Mori Art museum (Tokyo) on ‘Japan in architecture’ displayed information through models of all scales, installations, drawings, photographs as well as digital display, interactive touch screens and 3D projections. The Van Gogh Museum’s recent display using Sensory4 technique is the latest attempt at using technology to revolutionize museum experience. Van Gogh’s works are projected on a large scale on walls allowing the users to notice every detail and have an experience of a lifetime. Exhibition held at NGMA in 2014 dedicated to B.V. Doshi’s works recreated some parts of his buildings on large scale so that the visitors can experience the same. Another intervention in the field of exhibitions is virtual reality. Taking the users to a different space virtually to make them experience the scale and proportions of it. This can be very important to the field of architecture. NMOA will be not just be a museum but a part of the network of museums all over the country. DesignXdesign exhibition, 2019, held in Delhi consisted of a Virtually reality exhibit in which one could virtually change the interiors of the room they are standing in. The building needs to be a reflection of the today in the sense that it also glorifies the historic achievements as well as paves way for future interventions. NMOA will consist of functions that allow preservation, exhibition and research of information/objects of architectural importance. In addition to this, it will also support and encourage conversation/interaction among architects and the public.

The strong context with a dense urban village on one side of the site and open green land on the other requires the museum to be sensitive to this urban fabric. Thus, the massing and design has been approached such that it responds to its immediate context as well as the site itself. The placement of the open and the built needs to respond to the context around it as well as the placement of the functions. The idea of placing a large plaza in the front has been derived from the concept of an ever-changing space which is visible from the main road, it will house temporary exhibits that will keep on changing. This gives a dynamic nature to the front face. The corner opening towards the main road ensures a visual connection by providing the passersby with glimpses of exhibitions. The plaza may be used as a semi-open exhibition space. The central opening towards the Phirni road becomes the main entry to the complex. This establishes a visual axis with another opening towards the Lado Sarai village. This visual axis further divides the site into two parts, across which all the functions can be well-distributed. On one side are the functions which are mostly public like the museum galleries and cafes, on the other side towards the main road are semi-public functions in the sense that they will be used mostly by research scholars, architects and students who visit the centre for research purpose. In addition to the research centre, there is a convention centre for conferencing and lecture purposes. This centre may be accessed directly from the Phirni road via the rear entry leading to the lobby of the Convention centre or it may be accessed from within the internal courtyard. Towards the most private corner (NW) of the site is the guest house with a drop off from an external road as well as access from the internal courtyard. The library, research centre and museum mass facing towards the green patch of land which symbolizes the growth. In similar manner, the guest house and the convention were placed according to the context. The terraces in the museum are also placed considering the same approach as the plaza in the front. These are supposed to provide space for open-to-sky temporary exhibitions. The ever-changing nature of these exhibits will also add to the dynamic nature of the facade. As one enters the museum block by crossing the connection bridged with the drop off, there is an option to use the escalators or elevators to move between any two floors. The ground and the first-floor house temporary galleries with circulation such that the entry and exit point is the same (the internal gallery circulation can be seen in the floor plans shown later). Second, third and fourth floors house permanent and temporary exhibitions with circulation starting and ending at different points in order to maintain flow of movement particularly in the U-shaped plans and eventually link with the exit core as well. The museum circulation ends on the fourth floor as one reaches the core to lead them down to the lobby exiting out to the drop off area and also allowing them to collect their belongings from the cloak room. The strategic placement of the museum shop is also in the same area to attract the visitors as well as passersby to the shop. The drop off area also connects to the plaza in the front giving an option to the visitors to look at the exhibits over there or have a meal/snacks at the restaurant. In addition to this F&B facility, there is a small, not-so-heavily serviced cafe on the top floor with the view of the surrounding context. The front plaza leads down to the convention centre as well through the stepped courtyard. The guest house facility can also be accessed through the courtyard.

FACADE TREATMENT:

The Internal facade and section depict the traditional architecture and expression. The facade will consist of traditional windows/doors as a part of exhibits popping out in small boxes. Functionally, these boxes are balconies which are supposed to be points of pause within the museum allowing the visitor to stop by and take a break in these naturally lit balconies. External facade is reflective of the present and the future through a very contemporary look. A dynamic facade helps reduce the heat gain using rotatable panels made out of aluminium jaali and solid aluminium sheet. These panels provide the external facade with a continuous and uniform skin. The panels are rotatable mostly where there are openings inside. The panels outside solid walls are mostly fixed to save energy. Facade for housing features triangular shading devices on two sides of the room windows. Since, it a South-east facing facade, the idea of these shading devices is to protect the building from the southern sun.

B.Arch Thesis: National Museum of Architecture, New Delhi, by Niranjan Kaur 2

Niranjan Kaur

  • B.Arch Thesis

11 Responses

Can I get your complete report ,please even i have some similar thoughts for the thesis project.

Is this the actual proposed site for the project ?, because I am opting for similar building and can’t find a relevant source to confirm it ..

Hi Dipangshi, There was a concept report of proposal prepared by the firm working on the museum. That is what helped me confirm the site.

mam i need your proposal report so plz can you give me ?

Can you pls share me the name of that firm who is working in it?

heyy by any chance did u get the firm name

hey by any chance did u get the proposal?

Ma’am please confirming site area?

Can u please tell me measurements from all sides od site plan please

hi, can you please tell the name of the firm who is working on this museum. its very important.

Hello Can I get your Full Report and site proposal please, Because i too have some similar thoughts for architectural research institute and Museum complex for my thesis project.

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Museums as Intangible Heritage: National Museum of Natural History (Nmnh), New Delhi : a Case Study

Profile image of Nazia Kamal

The role of museum is to acquire, preserve and promote their collections as a contribution to safeguarding the natural and cultural heritage. Preservation, study and transmission of this heritage are of great importance for all societies, for inter-cultural dialogue and sustainable development. Interaction with the constituent community and promotion of heritage is an integral part of the educational role of the museum. Museums have great potential to raise public awareness on the benefit of heritage, its value and importance for societies. In recent years museum is experiencing one of the most noteworthy transformations with global recognition of the urgent need to preserve the intangible heritage. The international community (UNESCO) has also become conscious that Intangible Heritage needs and deserves international safeguarding. This paper focuses the case study of National Museum of Natural History, New Delhi (India) with safeguarding Intangible Natural Heritage. This is the fir...

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In recent years an increasing number of state-based heritage protection schemes have asserted ownership over traditional medical knowledge (TMK) through various forms of cultural documentation such as archives, databases, texts, and inventories. Drawing on a close reading of cultural disputes over a single system of TMK-the classical South Asian medical tradition of Ayurveda-the paper traces some of the problems, ambiguities, and paradoxes of making heritage legible. The focus is on three recent state practices by the Indian government to protect Ayurvedic knowledge, each revolving around the production of a different cultural object: the translation of a seventeenth-century Dutch botanical text; the creation of an electronic database known as the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL); and the discovery of an Ayurvedic drug as part of a bioprospecting benefit-sharing scheme. Examined together, they demonstrate that neither TMK, nor Ayurveda, nor even the process of cultural documentation can be treated as monoliths in heritage practice. They also reveal some complexities of heritage protection on the ground and the unintended consequences that policy imperatives and legibility set into motion. As the paper shows, state-based heritage protection schemes inspire surprising counterresponses by indigenous groups that challenge important assumptions about the ownership of TMK, such as locality, community, commensurability, and representation. If recent years have seen the rise in heritage advocacy and assertions of ownership over all forms of knowledge, nowhere is this more evident, or cacophonous, than in the realm of TMK. From bioprospecting for natural drugs to patents on tradi-*Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Smithsonian Institution.

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Literary heritage presents a dialectic relationship between tangible and intangible elements. This complex duality presents challenges for curators, who must try to communicate this immaterial essence through the exhibition language. This article, structured on a two-phase research process, aims to identify the main challenges for literary heritage valorisation and communication in the museum context. First, interviews with specialists in literary heritage and museology from Catalonia and Russia were carried out to identify the main issues to be considered when designing a literary heritage exhibition and managing a literary heritage centre. Second, the websites of three renowned literary European museums were analysed to inspect whether and how these aspects are tackled by these museums and presented to their potential visitors. Results show that, firstly, the duality of literary heritage is vital in the designing of the exhibition; and secondly, that concepts such as human mediati...

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Literary heritage presents a dialectic relationship between tangible and intangible elements. This complex duality presents challenges for curators, who must try to communicate this immaterial essence through the exhibition language. This article, structured on a two-phase research process, aims to identify the main challenges for literary heritage valorisation and communication in the museum context. First, interviews with specialists in literary heritage and museology from Catalonia and Russia were carried out to identify the main issues to be considered when designing a literary heritage exhibition and managing a literary heritage centre. Second, the websites of three renowned literary European museums were analysed to inspect whether and how these aspects are tackled by these museums and presented to their potential visitors. Results show that, firstly, the duality of literary heritage is vital in the designing of the exhibition; and secondly, that concepts such as human mediation, literary tourism, and promotion are important in finding new strategies to communicate and visibilise literary heritage intangible meanings.

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National Museum: a legacy that will be missed Premium

India’s first museum built post-independence is facing an untimely end. a photographer revisits it ahead of its planned demolition.

Updated - October 27, 2023 04:05 pm IST

Published - October 26, 2023 06:20 pm IST

The National Museum at Janpath, with a large sculpture on the left by D.P. Roy Choudhury, the former principal of Madras College of Art

The National Museum at Janpath, with a large sculpture on the left by D.P. Roy Choudhury, the former principal of Madras College of Art | Photo Credit: Ram Rahman

Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation stone of the National Museum in Delhi in 1955, and it subsequently opened in 1960. It was designed by the first Indian chief architect of the Central Public Works Department, G.B. Deolalikar, and was constructed by Bhagwant Singh, son of Sobha Singh who built many of Lutyens’ buildings before independence. Its first director was the American Grace Morley, the former director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Jawaharlal Nehru and Grace Morley at the opening of the National Museum in December 1960. With no walls or barriers, the cyclist in the background shows the access citizens had in those days

Jawaharlal Nehru and Grace Morley at the opening of the National Museum in December 1960. With no walls or barriers, the cyclist in the background shows the access citizens had in those days | Photo Credit: Courtesy the National Museum archive

This was the first museum built by Indians after independence, and symbolised the importance of focusing on the country’s cultural heritage in the idealistic first decade of our freedom. It was also one of the more expensive buildings constructed by the government at a time when resources were thin.

The sculpture gallery at the museum

The sculpture gallery at the museum | Photo Credit: Ram Rahman

History that unites

Designed as a modern museum, the National Museum sports fine stonework and teak wood, coupled with an auditorium and library. It houses national treasures such as discoveries from Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, relics of the Buddha, and wall frescos and silk hangings from the Dunhuang desert caves in China. As school children, we were first exposed to our history in these halls, as were visitors from across India.

The famous ‘Dancing Girl’ from Mohenjo-daro. Grace Morley used Indian silks and fabrics in the display case

The famous ‘Dancing Girl’ from Mohenjo-daro. Grace Morley used Indian silks and fabrics in the display case | Photo Credit: Ram Rahman

Staircase detail, with a Vishnu sculpture on the landing

Staircase detail, with a Vishnu sculpture on the landing | Photo Credit: Ram Rahman

Detailing on the doors

Detailing on the doors | Photo Credit: Ram Rahman

In successive years, special interiors were designed to host international and Indian exhibitions, including Shah Jahan’s Padshahnama (Book of Emperors), a manuscript containing some of the finest Mughal miniatures, from Windsor Castle, a Picasso exhibition from France, and historian and curator Naman Ahuja’s landmark show, The Body in Indian Art .

Besides art and sculpture sourced from across the country, it also has collections of anthropological interest, crafts, armour and weapons, jewellery, and musical instruments. It is a familiar home to art historians and scholars who research in its library and its huge holdings in the basement.

The Chola sculpture gallery, which was specially fitted with modern display cases and lighting. The building could be easily adapted like this

The Chola sculpture gallery, which was specially fitted with modern display cases and lighting. The building could be easily adapted like this | Photo Credit: Ram Rahman

The Indus Valley gallery

The Indus Valley gallery | Photo Credit: Ram Rahman

The anthropology gallery

The anthropology gallery | Photo Credit: Ram Rahman

Must it be demolished?

The recent announcement that the National Museum will be demolished [likely in March 2024, according to several news reports] and the collection shifted to the North and South blocks of the Secretariat, has been met with shock. The question of why a perfectly fine building should be torn down and replaced with an office building has not been publicly justified. Many in the art community are worried about how the many delicate and ancient materials that need high security and careful storage and transport will be handled. The Ministry of Culture has not made any clear statement on the matter, leading to fearful rumours.

The grand courtyard of the National Museum

The grand courtyard of the National Museum | Photo Credit: Ram Rahman

These are a few photographs I took to record an institution we Indians felt was ours, one we cherished and grew up with as an independent and proud nation. They are a fond homage to an institution I hope will not remain only a memory of those years when India was flush with the hope and excitement of a new nation looking to the future.

The writer is a Delhi-based photographer and cultural activist.

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No ‘storage place’, shifting of National Museum deferred

NEW DELHI: The Central government’s plan to shut down the National Museum at the current location in the national capital and shifting of its antiquities to some other facility or building, has apparently been put on hold, this newspaper has learnt.

According to museum officials privy to the matter, the plan was put on the backburner because the authority could not find a suitable space to stock the over 2 lakh heritage articles in possession of the current museum, which was established in 1960.

Following uproar over the reports pertaining to the demolition of the existing museum building at Janpath to pave way for new constructions as part of the Central Vista redevelopment project, two officials from the Ministry of Culture took stock of the heritage objects on display at the National Museum sometime in November. During the visit, the museum officials apprised them about the risk associated with the shipping of antiquities in a haste, citing the case study of a similar exercise carried out at Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum in London.

“The proposal has been put in abeyance for the time being. The officials from the ministry, who visited the museum, were informed that it took three-four years to relocate antiquities at V&A Museum and their attention was drawn towards a short time window for taking objects in the National Museum to other places,” said officials, who wished not to be quoted.

BR Mani, director general of the National Museum, was not available for comment. The call and messages sent to Govind Mohan, secretary, Ministry of Culture, did not elicit a reply.

The museum authority was contemplating start shifting of objects in batches by November. The plan was to vacate the premises and demolish the structure by March after removing antiquities

The ministry officials added that the movement of artefacts would be done keeping in mind all the Standard Operating Procedures issued while loaning an object from one museum to another. They said the security aspects will be followed as per the protocol.

However, they said that the decision regarding the closure of the National Museum for visitors and researchers has not been taken yet. They also indicated that the present National Museum building might not be razed down.

In May last year, the Prime Minister had announced that a new museum would be set up in North and South Blocks, covering 1.17 lakh square metres. The museum officials said that movement of antiquities twice — from the museum to another place, and then to new one to come up in South and North Blocks — is not advisable.

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National War Memorial, New Delhi India / WeBe Design Lab

National War Memorial, New Delhi India / WeBe Design Lab - Aerial View Photography

  • Curated by Hana Abdel
  • Architects: WeBe Design Lab
  • Area Area of this architecture project Area:  109265 m²
  • Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2019
  • Photographs Photographs: Maniyarasan , Madhumitha
  • Manufacturers Brands with products used in this architecture project Manufacturers:   AutoDesk , Lumion , iGuzzini , Adobe , HEINRICH , Havells , JK Cement , Jakson , Jaquar , Ligman , Linea Light Group , Neptune , Oikos Group , Penetron , Rhino , Trimble
  • MEP Consultants : Edifice
  • Construction : NCC Limited
  • Structural Consultant : Roark Consulting Engineers
  • Planting Design : Savita Punde , Design Cell , Gurgaon
  • Project Management : Turner project Management India Private Limited
  • Lighting : AWA Lighting Designers
  • Architect In Charge:  Yogesh Chandrahasan
  • Design Team:  Yogesh Chandrahasan, Satish Vasanth Kumar, Udhayarajan, Malli Saravanan, Visuwanathan, Ranganathan Ravi, Anjana Sudhakar, Kamal Rajkumar, ViJay Prakash, Balachandar Baskaran, Abhishek Tiwari
  • Clients:  Executive agency of National War Memorial, Museum Ministry of Defence, Government of India
  • Fountain:  Ripples, Mr. Premkumar
  • Signages:  Ishan Khosla Design
  • Artist:  Lt.Col Arul Raj
  • Bronze Murals:  Ram Vanji Suta
  • City:  New Delhi
  • Country:  India

National War Memorial, New Delhi India / WeBe Design Lab - Image 5 of 25

Text description provided by the architects. The concept of rebirth is inspired from the quote of Captain Vikram Batra.  

Either I will come back after hoisting the Tricolor,  or I will come back wrapped in it,  but I will be back for sure.  REBIRTH –  पुनर्जन्म (in Hindi)  ‘Reborn to be an immortal’.

Great sense of pride and victory at the cost of their life! The memorial is a gestation on the idea of rebirth of those unsung heroes through their stories, journey and struggles translated as spatial expressions. A culmination to the historical Rajpath extending through the India Gate, the National War Memorial is an open landscaped public space spread over 42 acres in the C -hexagon. Mostly invisible but strongly present, it is a semi-subterranean design remaining a peoples’ place but with a different dimension of emotional weight. Progressive act of protection, sacrifice, bravery and becoming the immortal translate as a concentric arrangement of which the ‘Thyag Chakra’ holds the name of each fallen soldier who become another brick in the nation’s defensive wall.

National War Memorial, New Delhi India / WeBe Design Lab - Exterior Photography

THE VOID . . .  Six decades to come into existence: The request for the National War Memorial (NWM), India was placed by the armed forces in 1960. However, the consideration acquired momentum in 2015 and the construction was approved within the National capital's heritage zone of the British Imperial Times. Later, an International two stage competition was held for the design and implementation of the NWM by the Ministry of Defense, Government of India. WEBE Design Lab won both the first and the third place. The winning entry headed by Ar Yogesh Chandrahasan was commissioned for construction. India’s NWM was finally inaugurated on 25 th Feb 2019 by Honorable Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

National War Memorial, New Delhi India / WeBe Design Lab - Exterior Photography

CONTEXT AND DESIGN APPROACH -  The Iconic India Gate, brims with an average footfall of 50,000 ppl/day. Inset within the bustling C Hexagon the lawns were retained to be active public spaces to play, meet, relax and more. This Capitol complex has a central axis, the Rajpath- The ceremonial path from the President’s home, that runs across and ends at the India Gate. The newly built NWM retains the axis and bestows the essence of hierarchical importance upon the overall footprint. A cross-connection at the core of the New Memorial: The Yudhpath– is a metaphorical placement of the Rajpath (Path of life) with the Yudhpath ( Path of war).

National War Memorial, New Delhi India / WeBe Design Lab - Exterior Photography, Wood

Circle of Sacrifice ( Tyag Chakra ): Inspired by the historic “Chakravyuha” Ancient war formation, the Tyag Chakra is arranged in concentric circles in accordance with the wars, gloriously housing the names of 25,700 war heroes, who sacrificed their life post-independence for the Nation. It is a concrete structure, with self-interlocking granite blocks placed over it. Each block represents a Martyr, and is engraved with his name, rank and number.

ESTABLISHING SYMBOL AND MEMORY -  Circle of Protection The tree arrangement personifies the territorial line of control- The soldiers who are still there trying to safe guard us in places unseen. The circle containing 690 trees also helps in screening the busy roads of the C Hexagon thereby creating a calmer and protected space inside the memorial.

Circle of Bravery ( Veer Chakra ) A semi open corridor and gallery holding the brave stories of significant historic battles in Indian history of the Army, Navy and Air force.

Circle of Immortality ( Amar Chakra) The obelisk carrying the eternal flame symbolizes the immortality of the Jawans that they will never be dead and they will always live in our memory. It is set in a larger circular court which also is the ceremonial space.

National War Memorial, New Delhi India / WeBe Design Lab - Image 8 of 25

Lighting: The lighting in the central court around the eternal flame spearheads sideways and up building a sense of eternity as it fades out. The Thyag chakra seems floating with a series of small lights which resembles the oil lamps that are light in memory of the beloved ones in any Indian home. The streaks of light on the steps create a sense of transition through the concentric setup. The project does not have any ambient light. As much as the light brought in emphasis and character, the darkness made the required experience deeper and absorbing.

Project gallery

National War Memorial, New Delhi India / WeBe Design Lab - Aerial View Photography

Project location

Address: rajpath, india gate, new delhi, delhi 110001, india.

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Museums of the World: National Crafts Museum & Hastkala Academy

national museum delhi case study

The National Handicrafts and handlooms museum was designed by the master architect Charles Correa in the year 1990. But its famed name is National Crafts Museum & Hastkala Academy. This is situated in the nook of Pragati Maidan across the Purana Qila. The Museum celebrates India’s rich, diverse, and practising craft traditions. s Craftsmen markets were suffering due to modernisation & loss of connection with traditions; hence, it was set up for them as reference material.

Since India is known to be a culturally diverse country, each & every part of the country possesses its art techniques & traditions; from North to down South to East to West, geological features affect the art practices of its local people.

The availability of materials guides the course of art and craft in those places. 

national museum delhi case study

Arts & Crafts | National Crafts Museum & Hastkala Academy

Currently, The Museum holds a collection from various states of India. Over 33000 specimens in various artefacts and arts, those consisting of Textile, Metal lamps, Sculptures , Utensils, Woodworks, Folk Tribal Paintings, Cane and Bamboo crafts, Clay and Terracotta objects.

national museum delhi case study

The elegant examples of textiles include Kalamkaris, Pashmina, Jamawars and Shahtoosh Shawls; embroidered fabrics namely Kanthas, Chikankari works and Chaklas Tie and Die (Bandhani) fabrics, Baluchar and Jamdani Saree, Pichwais, Phulkaris, Orissa’s Ikat fabrics, and many more, Not only this but Tribal textiles of the Lambadi, Toda and Naga tribes of North- Eastern India .

national museum delhi case study

These are preserved with the intent that they would be a source of reference, revival and reproduction of our cultural heritage and Indian crafts. This serves as a guide to tourists who wish to learn about the art & culture of India. This is also beneficial for the master craftsmen, art historians and craft designers, along with the people who are interested to know India’s age-old cultural heritage. 

national museum delhi case study

Museum Boasts an art collection of a diverse and unique range of displays. A varied range of objects is made up of Cane, Bamboo , Clay Terracotta Metal, Stone, as well as Wood and Textiles; all these collections are displayed in a total of five galleries, three courtyards and passages of Folk, Tribal and Traditional community categories. All passage walls are covered in beautiful folk & Tribal paintings .

national museum delhi case study

Bhuta Sculpture Gallery displays the sculptures from the Bhuta cult of coastal Karnataka , known to be one of the largest in the world.

Museums of the World: National Crafts Museum & Hastkala Academy

The Folk and Tribal Craft gallery sculptures with other daily objects, along with a diverse selection of paintings of the folk and tribal community of India.

Museums of the World: National Crafts Museum & Hastkala Academy

Cultic Craft Gallery features all types of other accessories associated with the ritual practices of various religions in India, such as sculptures, Paintings , and textiles.

Museums of the World: National Crafts Museum & Hastkala Academy

Court Craft Gallery Court Craft Gallery features objects of exquisite craftsmanship and precious materials created for homes and palaces for the nobility in India.

Museums of the World: National Crafts Museum & Hastkala Academy

Textile Gallery covers the colourful collection of Indian textile art of handcrafted techniques found all over India.

Museums of the World: National Crafts Museum & Hastkala Academy

Design & Planning

The museum is spread across 6800 sqm. of land, a horizontal play of masses. It depicts true Indianness, with innate emotion towards Vernacular architecture and excellent craftsmanship. As mentioned before, the traditional Indian architectural elements such as internal courtyards, open passages, wooden doors with carvings, pillars, iron screens, and jharokhas make you reminisce.

Museums of the World: National Crafts Museum & Hastkala Academy

The design style of Correa is well known – The Museum has square courtyards associated with Vedic kund as displayed in Jawahar Kala Kendra, the square courtyards in the museum do not follow a strict Mandala Pattern but are stepped at several places forming an informal social arena, the variation in levels articulates spaces for rejuvenating the mood says Jain, the Director of the National Crafts Museum in Delhi .

Museums of the World: National Crafts Museum & Hastkala Academy

He also adds that the metaphor of Indian streets exists in the low-key building and mentions that the concept of museums and displaying objects was never a part of Indian tradition. All of these courts with different scales also give access to exhibits via pathways in an informal manner. Village Court, Darbar court, and Temple court.

Museums of the World: National Crafts Museum & Hastkala Academy

It Retains the timeless quality of India. Around 40% of the area is occupied by courtyard & exhibition spaces. The complex follows a rectangular geometry. Columnar, Planar, and Structure all of these define the space. The amphitheatre at the centre of the site creates symmetry and balance. The circulation is free-flowing, it leads from open, semi-open and closed series of space. The light source is mainly natural light from the courtyards, a pucca building which keeps the experience of nature. It is a load-bearing Structure, which uses exposed concrete, and stone, a pucca building masked with a clay-tiled roof, one story high with walls around 3m high.

Museums of the World: National Crafts Museum & Hastkala Academy

Correa often creates a space which is not easy to label. The museum is almost invisible. It doesn’t overshadow the Purana quila across which it sits or the artist’s village complex . The passage throughout the building is a play of unveiling the mystery, in this case, exhibits along the way; The Museum seems unfinished in a way, and Correa deliberately tried to create this sense. All these features make the National Museum speak its own telltale.

References:

Wordpress(2020). National Crafts Museum, Delhi . [online]. (Last updated: Sep 26 2020). Available at: https://architecturecasestudies.wordpress.com/2020/09/26/national-crafts-museum-delhi/ ments   /[Accessed date: 15/02/2023].

SHUBHAM JAIN(2016) . Crafts Museum by Charles Correa . [online]. (Last updated: Feb 7 2016). Available at: http://archmonk.weebly.com/architects-and-their-works/crafts-museum-by-charles-correa [Accessed date: 17/02/2023].

Ramaarya(2022) . National crafts museum, New Delhi – 90 minutes at the museum. [online]. (Last updated: June 27 2022). Available at: https://ramaarya.blog/2022/06/27/new-delhi-national-crafts-museum/                   [Accessed date: 17/02/2023].

national museum delhi case study

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Issue 3, Vol 1

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Museuming Modern Art NGMA: The Indian Case-Study

This brief essay on India’s National Gallery of Modern Art traces the early years of the institution from when it was set up in 1954. It was an important site for the art world as much as for the newly independent nation state declaring its commitment to modernity.

In recent years there has been a considerable interest in Indian museums and their relationship to audiences. Appadurai and Breckenridge in their seminal essay ‘Museums are Good to Think’ look at the museum’s role in the “elaboration of the public sphere in non-western nations.” 1 The authors are interested in the transformation of the museum site under global impulses where “new visual formations link heritage politics to spectacle, tourism and entertainment.” 2 The sub-category of the art museum, however, does not present them with many possibilities when it comes to mapping contemporary public gaze in Indian life. They write, “…Except for a small minority in India and for a very short period of its history and in very few museums there, art in the current western sense is not a meaningful category…. In place of art other categories of objects dominate, such as handicraft, technology, history and heritage.” 3

While not disputing the marginality of the art museum in terms of the general public it draws, in the Indian institutional landscape, this essay chooses precisely such an institution that focuses on the category of ‘art’. This emblematic institution, the only of its kind, was set up in 1954 by the Government of India. From 1938 when such an institution was first proposed by an artist-based organisation, the All India Fine Arts and Craft Society (AIFACS), through the sub-sequent artists’ conferences that delineated the nature and scope of this institution, to its establishment by the government in 1954, and through the political leadership and the museum directors that determined its contours, and of course the parallel developments in art practice that it was trying to account for and represent, the NGMA has been subject to different pressures and imaginings. In the course of this unfolding history it has grappled with ideas of modernism, nationalism, tradition and internationalism and equally tried to address questions of identity and Indian-ness.

Proposing a National Art Gallery – The AIFACS Version

By early 20th century one can see a complex relay of styles, institutions, publications and exhibitions emerging in the Indian art scene. And it is from within this community of artists and critics that the first demands of a national art gallery were made. Unlike the National Museum which was a key project for a government body like the Archaeological Survey of India from 1912 onwards, the first proposal for a National Art Gallery was made by a Delhi-based artists’ organisation, the All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society (AIFACS), in 1938. In the subsequent years, however, AIFACS claims were diluted by the factions that arose amongst the artists, with the newly set up All India Association of Fine Arts, Bombay putting forth its own agency as a central organisation at the Third All India Art conference in 19484. The All India Academy of Fine Arts, Calcutta, also proposed converting the Arts Section of the Indian Museum into a National Art Gallery.

It was left to the 1949 Art Conference at Calcutta, organised by Government of India, to resolve the matter once and for all. The Conference called for the formation of a Central Advisory Board of Art (formed in 1950) and passed a resolution for the early establishment of National Art Gallery and the improvement of National Museum as well as the formation of the three Akademis as part of a Sub Commission for Culture of the Indian National Commission for Cooperation with UNESCO.

The first attempt at the setting up of the National Art Gallery was made by an artist group whose founders owed their allegiance to the Bengal School and were, in keeping with the School’s ideals, keen to institutionalise the category of ‘national art’. The Bengal Schools move to identify an indigenist form of art with national sovereignty had a specific function in the anticolonial struggle. But with the passage of time, agendas had shifted, and from imagining itself as a site of resistance, India was now assuming a new authority as a post-colonial nation. AIFACS tried to address this shift by envisaging an art museum based on mass support, which organised art exhibitions as appendages to official conferences and meetings, and devised pragmatic roles for artists as makers of public commemorative art and assistants in government-driven mass education schemes. But the category of the national modern was being recalibrated by various members of the artist community, and above all by the state, and the museum would now be taken on a different course.

Institutionalising the Modern

Already by 1947-48 there were signs of the state’s interest in this project with Nehru personally intervening in the major purchase of the Amrita Sher-Gil collection and the more minor one of a few Brunner paintings. 5 These, among other moves, by the Indian state in general and Nehru in particular, made evident the desire to centralise and nationalise the modern art museum.

Meanwhile another sequence was unfolding at the Burlington House, London with the ceremonial 1947-1948 exhibition titled ‘The Arts of India and Pakistan.’ Organised by Royal Academy of Art, to mark the transfer of power in British India, it was followed by another version of the exhibition, ‘Masterpieces of Indian Art,’ at the Government House, New Delhi in the winter of 1948. In her extensive essay on these ceremonial exhibitions that eventually led to the formation of the National Museum, Tapati Guha-Thakurta shows how the London exhibition was bracketed by sections on ‘British Artists in India’ at the start, and ‘Modern Paintings, Drawings and Sculptures’ at the end. 6 The catalogue rather apologetically acknowledged a motley section of Bengal school, Amrita Sher-Gil, Zainul Abedin, N S Bendre, F N Souza, Dhanraj Bhagat and Kanwal Krishna, which were “nothing comparable in aesthetic interest with the great achievements of Indian sculptors,” 7 but were included nonetheless to present a complete image of Indian art abroad. However, neither of these sections was carried over to the subsequent exhibition held in New Delhi at the Government House. Here one sees a definite exclusion of the modern from “this spectacle of India’s art heritage. …and we find ourselves fully in the grips of an art historical past.” 8 The modern was bypassed and the great nation was conjured exclusively through its ancient and medieval art heritage.

While the mandate of the ‘national’ was being handed to the art objects from India’s great past, the state had a different role in mind for modern art and by extension the NGMA. It was seen as one among a series of cultural institutions that were set up in the post-colonial landscape of the 1940s-50s which served to dislodge the modern from the discourse of the national. Geeta Kapur notes how culture becomes an important means to disentangle the modern from the nationalist polemic. “The latter had often to speak in the name of tradition even as it covertly strengthened the desire for the modern. While national struggle had attempted to simulate a civilisational quest, the nation state was bound to privilege culture as a means of cohering contemporaniety.” 9 Under Nehru’s leadership a whole set of institutions were founded that carried the overall mandate of the modern. They were part of what Partha Chatterjee terms India’s statist utopia. 10

National Gallery of Modern Art was formally inaugurated by the Vice President of India, Dr S Radhakrishnan, on March 29, 1954 in New Delhi. It was located in Jaipur House which had been originally built as the winter palace of the Maharaja of Jaipur in the 1930s. German scholar and museologist Hermann Goetz was brought over from the Baroda Museum where he had been the director between 1943 and 1954, and given charge of the institution. The Gallery opened with an exhibition of contemporary sculpture apart from showcasing its initial collection of around 200 works which consisted of paintings by Amrita Sher-Gil, Rabindranath Tagore, Jamini Roy, Nandalal Bose and MAR Chugtai, among others. The works displayed at the sculpture exhibition also doubled as the First National Exhibition of Modern Art 11 and sculptor D P Roy Chowdhury’s Triumph of Labour won the first prize and was commissioned to be made as a public sculpture on the lawns of the museum.

National Gallery of Modern Art – The Sher-Gil Collection

The core of the NGMA collection was without doubt a suite of 96 paintings by artist Amrita Sher-Gil that came into the hands of the state as early as 1948. In many ways, it is this cache of paintings that determined the course of the institution. The search for a reconfigured national modern that could translate the impulses and the potential of the ‘new paradigm’ found resolution, as much by design as by default, in the figure of Amrita Sher-Gil 12 .

In 1947 when Amrita Sher-Gil’s husband Dr Victor Eagen offered 33 paintings to the Government of India for sale, the Finance Ministry rejected the proposal to procure the collection given the price. The matter might have ended prematurely but for the insistence of Sher-Gil’s father, Umrao Singh Sher-Gil, who was keen to remove the paintings from Eagen’s possession. Umrao Singh offered to gift a large body of Sher-Gil’s works to the nation but on the precondition that the latter was able to obtain the paintings in her husband’s collection. In a letter to Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, dated 23 April 1948, Umrao Singh wrote, “Most of her earlier juvenile work, when she was at School of Art in Paris, is with us. We wish to give them freely to the nation, along with sketches and studies which Amrita had intended to destroy. They serve along with her early works to show the development of her art and talent…. But if her later works are not actually acquired by our nation, then what good will the old style work, which she herself did not value, be.” 13

At this point, Nehru intervened to ensure the acquisition of the Sher-Gil paintings. He also took up the matter with Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, on March 7, 1948, “I think it desirable for government to acquire her paintings as a whole. Just a few chosen ones would not be good enough. It would be possible to get the paintings from Amrita’s parents without payment provided we make it clear we are getting the collection from the others also. As for the husband, he is not very well off and can easily sell them separately and may well do so if we delay.” 14

Thus we see a number of events converging–ranging from Sher-Gil’s charismatic artistic persona and untimely death, the subsequent family feud and Nehru’s personal intervention in resolving it, the sheer range of the collection, the fragile material conditions of many works– to place the Sher-Gil collection at the centre of the Gallery, six years before its actual formation.

In 1953, the Gallery had a nucleus of 163 paintings consisting predominantly of Amrita Sher-Gil paintings, apart from collections of the other ‘three pioneering modernists’–Rabindranath Tagore, Jamini Roy and Gaganendranath Tagore. The press reviews of the opening of NGMA in 1954 lavished praise on the Sher-Gil rooms (the only air conditioned rooms in the Gallery because of the fragile material conditions of the paintings) for their complete chronological display. Art critic Charles Fabri wrote, “The glory of the collection is Amrita Sher-Gil…. Paintings that are from her childhood to her years in Hungary, Budapest and Paris, right upto her last, unfinished canvas found on her easel.” 15

In the initial years the Sher-Gil collection, which came into its possession much before the formation of the actual institution, made the Gallery align with a modernist practice that was progressive, cosmopolitan and in conversation with an international modernism. It was a practice that was supported by a generation of powerful writers and intellectuals like Mulk Raj Anand and W G Archer who were close to the political establishment. But despite this ‘solid core of greatness,’ 16 the emphasis within the Gallery remained on marking the moments of modernism’s origin. Accordingly, it enshrined the four initiators of modern art in India, Rabindranath Tagore, Amrita Sher-Gil, Jamini Roy and Gaganendranath Tagore, even as the new generation of Progressive Artists’ Groups sprung up all over the country. The mandate of making sense of the current art movements was handed over to another cultural institution set up in the same year as NGMA – Lalit Kala Akademi (LKA) – which was an autonomous body governed by artists, scholars and government nominees but without any government interference in its activities. The NGMA thus absolved itself from needing to respond to current art scene or the needs of the artists, working with a more classical understanding of a museum as a historical and highly insulated institution. The LKA played the role of the democratic state institution responding to the artists’ needs – showcasing latest trends with its annual national exhibitions and creating a climate of state patronage that gave equal representation to different schools and movements. The success and failure of this enterprise is, of course, another story.

The text is an excerpt from the essay ‘Museumising Modern Art, NGMA: the Indian Case-Study’ to be published in the upcoming volume tentatively titled No Touching No Spitting No Praying: Museum Cultures of South Asia, Routledge, edited by Dr Kavita Singh and Dr Saloni Mathur.

References and Footnotes

  • Arjun Appadurai & Carol Breckenridge, ‘Museums are Good to Think’, in Representing the Nation: A Reader, Eds. David Boswell & Jessica Evans, Routledge, London & New York, 1999, p. 418
  • Ibid, p. 406
  • The All India Association of Fine Arts, Bombay was set up in 1946 with G Venkatachalam as president and members like Karl Khandalvala. The Association organised the 3rd All India Conference for Arts in 1948 because it noted that the first two conferences in Delhi had not been able to form a central art organisation that was wholly representative. They received a sum of Rs 21 lakhs for arts, education and cultural activities from the Government of Bombay. They declared that arts did not depend on official support alone but needed individuals and groups to come together spontaneously. If AIFACS was interested in being an official body, AIFACS was asking for the status of an autonomous artist association.
  • B P Singh, ‘Arts, Cultural Pageants and the state: The Nehru-Azad Dialogue’, India’s Culture, the State, the Arts and Beyond, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2009, p. 100 – 111. Singh looks into the purchase of the Brunner paintings by Jawaharlal Nehru. In June 1948, the PM visited Nainital and chanced upon paintings of two Hungarian artists Sass Brunner and her daughter Elizabeth Brunner. Touched by their sensitivity, he purchased a few of them including the one of Mahatma Gandhi in meditation, for his own collection. On his return to Delhi, he wrote to Abul Kalam Azad (14 June, 1948) recommending the paintings be acquired by Government of India. Azad referred the matter to the Ministry of Education (MOE) who solicited the help of R N Chakravarty, chief artist in Publications Division, MOE, and Barada Ukil for their opinions on the paintings. Both stated that the works were mediocre and did not deserve the price being asked. Nehru joined in to counter this assessment of the artists. The matter finally ended with the Government of India buying the works but not before the Ministry of Finance emphasised the need for prior clearance before making any financial commitments. It eventually led to the constitution of the art purchase committee for museums under the chairmanship of Vice President of India, with experts like Moti Chandra, Karl Khandalvala, Rai Krishnadas and others.
  • Tapati Guha-Thakurta, ‘The Demands of Independence: From a National Exhibition to a National Museum’, Monuments, Objects, Histories: Institutions of Art in Colonial and Post-Colonial India , Columbia University Press, New York and Permanent Black, New Delhi, 2004, p 277
  • Ibid. quoted by Guha-Thakurta from the catalogue Exhibition of Art, chiefly from the Dominions of India and Pakistan, Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, London, 1947-48, (London: Royal Academy, 1947) p. 192 – 195 held at the Government House
  • Ibid. p 274 9. Geeta Kapur, ‘Sovereign Subject: Ray’s Appu’, When was Modernism, Essays on Contemporary Cultural Practice in India, Tulika Books, New Delhi, 2000, p. 202
  • Ibid p. 201
  • The competition is referred to in the Hindustan Standard , 7 July 1957
  • The flamboyant artist of mixed Indo–Hungarian parentage, Amrita Sher-Gil studied at the Ecole des Beaux, Paris, between 1929 and 1934. In ’33 she exhibited at the Grand Salon, where she won a medal for her painting Young Girls and was also elected an Associate. She returned to India at the end of 1934, taking on the mantle of an Indian artist. She died at the very young age of 29 in December 1941, a few days before her major solo exhibition in Lahore. Her death was mourned at an almost national scale and public figures like Nehru and Gandhi sent condolences to the Sher-Gil family.
  • Letter by Umrao Singh Sher-Gil to Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Minister of Education, GOI, dated 23 April 1948, F.178–16/48–G–2, National Archives, New Delhi, unpublished
  • Ibid, letter by Nehru to Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Minister of Education, TOI dated 7 March, 1948 15. Charles Fabri, ‘review of NGMA opening’, Marg , Volume 8, No. 3, 2nd Quarter, 1954
  • File on W G Archer’s letter to Ashfaque Husain, F.3-112/54 – A.2, National Archives, Government of India, 1954, unpublished. W G Archer, who had served from 1931 – 1948 as a civil servant in India, returned to England after India’s independence to become the Keeper of the Indian collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Well respected for his research and scholarship on Indian folk, popular and miniature traditions, as well modern art, he was commissioned between January 2 and March 26, 1954 by the Ministry of Education to conduct a three month survey of national, state and art galleries and provide suggestions for their better administration. Archer complimented the government on its Sher-Gil collection which he described as “a superb achievement, giving the Gallery a solid core of greatness”. At the same time, he stated candidly, “It has to be remembered that the actual number of living artists whose works really deserve to be represented is probably small and it takes a great deal of courage to recognise originality.”

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About Author

national museum delhi case study

Vidya Shivadas is a curator and art critic based in New Delhi. Working at the Vadehra Art Gallery since 2002, she has curated exhibitions like Faiza Butt, Ruby Chishti, Masooma Syed (three Pakistani women artists) (April 2009), Fluid Structures: Gender and Abstraction in India (1970s – 2008) (April 2008), Objects: Making/Unmaking (April 2007) and Are We Like This Only (March 2005). In 2009 she was a guest curator at Devi Art Foundation and worked on the solo exhibition of Bangladeshi artist Mahbubur Rahman. In her researcher capacity, she is interested in the relationship between art institutions and art practice.

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