National Handicrafts and Handlooms Museum, New Delhi, National crafts museum in Delhi, India
The National Handicrafts and Handlooms Museum is a national crafts museum in Delhi, India, that spreads across a spacious site with five permanent galleries for traditional objects. The exhibition halls cluster around courtyards and open areas where workshops and sales stalls complement the circuit.
The museum opened in the 1950s as a small project to document regional crafts and was expanded gradually over the following decades. The official inauguration by the president at the time happened only in the early 1990s after infrastructure was completed.
The museum takes its name from the two main forms of Indian handwork and focuses on living expressions like painted wood carvings from the Himalaya and embroidered wall hangings from Gujarat. Visitors see how each region developed its own patterns and tools that are still passed down today in the same forms.
The circuit passes through covered galleries and shaded courtyards that are comfortable to walk in warm weather. The workshop areas lie at the edge of the grounds and are accessible during regular opening hours so visitors can watch the artisans at work.
Behind the scenes, conservators work in specialized laboratories where they treat damaged textiles and wooden objects with chemical processes. These workshops are not usually open to the public, but occasional tours offer insight into the technical methods of preservation.
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