National Crafts Museum & Hastkala Academy, New Delhi

The National Crafts Museum and Hastkala Academy, located on Bhairon Marg in the Pragati Maidan area of New Delhi, is the largest crafts museum in India and one of the most distinctive museum experiences in the country. Established in 1956 by the All India Handicrafts Board under the efforts of noted freedom fighter Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, the museum was built over several decades as an ethnographic space where craftspeople from all over India could come together to preserve and demonstrate their arts. Today it holds over 35,000 rare and distinctive pieces spanning tribal and rural crafts, courtly arts, textiles, clay sculpture, metalwork, woodcarving, and popular culture. The architectural complex, designed by renowned architect Charles Correa and developed between 1975 and 1990, incorporates traditional Indian architectural vocabulary into a modern design. A 5-acre open-air village complex with 15 traditional structures representing dwellings from different Indian states is among the museum’s most remarkable features, originally created for a 1972 exhibition on rural India. Traditional craftspeople are in residence year-round, demonstrating their skills and selling handmade objects directly to visitors. The museum is managed by the Ministry of Textiles, Government of India, and is open Tuesday through Sunday. Café Lota, the in-house restaurant, is a popular cultural destination in its own right.