Nehru Museum is all set to get a Rs 10-cr makeover

The Nehru Museum is part of the Teen Murti complex.

The Delhi-based Nehru Museum (which is part of the Teen Murti complex consisting of the museum, the Nehru Memorial Library and the planetarium) is set for a revamp, for which Rs 10 crore have been set aside to modernise the place. Several rooms where Jawaharlal Nehru stayed, as the first Prime Minister, will be refurbished.

Discussions in the EC, which runs the affairs of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, have been around maintaining the drawing room and the study, but keeping a more thematic feel in the other rooms . Abha Narain Lambah, a well-known conservation architect, has been selected to refurbish the museum. She has been associated with a wide variety of projects in the past like the Viceregal Lodge in Shimla, the Chowmohulla in Hyderabad, the Textile Mill Museum and other Victorian buildings in Mumbai and also the Ajanta Caves in Maharashtra.

Lambah, who is from the School of Planning and Architecture, is a consultant to various international organisations and the recipient of eight UNESCO Asia-Pacific awards for conservation projects across India.

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Given the often fraught relationship this government is said to have with Nehru and his family, there has been concern if the museum being modern implies making it less about Nehru. Director Mahesh Rangarajan refused to comment, but sources said “It will continue to be about Nehru, but museums have to be modernised and be made more welcoming for new visitors”.

Others say talks to develop and modernise the museum have been going on for the past three years.