UTS Voice
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The large permanent collection of 20,000 items of folk and tribal arts, crafts and textile is housed in a concrete, but almost ‘invisible’ building. Charles Correa, the architect, had a challenge before him on the one hand to provide a pukka building for safe preservation and display of the rare art objects, but on the other, not to let the building be so imposing that it would belittle the humbler objects collected from village homes. The scale and appearance of the building had to be such that it would not attempt to upstage its ancient neighbor, the Purana Qila on the one side and the Village Complex of the museum on the other.
Consequently the low-lying building has old carved wooden doors and windows from Gujarat and Rajasthan. central courtyards having champa trees, tulsi shrines and a monumental temple-car coexist in this “modern” building not as revivalist ethnic chic exercise, but as a contemporary juxtaposition of past traditions in a modern building meant for a modern Indian Crafts Museum.
Consequently the low-lying building has old carved wooden doors and windows from Gujarat and Rajasthan. central courtyards having champa trees, tulsi shrines and a monumental temple-car coexist in this “modern” building not as revivalist ethnic chic exercise, but as a contemporary juxtaposition of past traditions in a modern building meant for a modern Indian Crafts Museum.
The Crafts Museum Shop on the premises sells books, picture-postcards and a whole range of exquisite contemporary handicrafts. The objective of the shop is to sell original creations” the finest Indian crafts persons and not to market mechanically replicated souvenir.
The Museum’s Village Complex is a remnant of a temporary exhibition on the theme of rural India. Spread over an area of about four acres, the Village Complex comprises 15 structures representing village dwellings, courtyards and shrines from Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Orissa and the Andaman 8t Nicobar Islands.
All the huts, courtyards and shrines are built in facsimile with regional construction material and by the respective village masons, artisans, thatcher’s and carpenters. In every hut and courtyard, items of day-to-day life are displayed.
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