CSMVS’s restoration project: Refurbished building set to be unveiled next month

Designed by Scottish architect George Wittet, the building was called the Prince of Wales Museum of Western India until it was renamed in 1995.

Designed by Scottish architect George Wittet, the building was called the Prince of Wales Museum of Western India, until it was renamed CSMVS in 1995.

The complex, comprising the main building, an annexe, a visitors’ centre, a children’s museum and a lawn, is called the Crescent Site, owing to its shape. Sabyasachi Mukherjee, CSMVS’ director who lives on campus, described the museum building as “the jewel on the crescent”. Mukherjee said, “The museum is more than just a building. It is also a symbol of cultural unity.” The museum building references pillars from the Vimala Vasahi Temple in Mount Abu, Gol Gumbaz of Bijapur for the dome, the finial from the Taj Mahal, and a wooden arched pavilion from a wada in Nashik. Wittet, who also designed the Gateway of India, was instructed by the committee to make the museum “Indian in character”, which he did so through the use of the Indo-Saracenic style, which typically employs Mughal, Hindu and other Indian architectural elements.

The museum, an autonomous, not-for-profit body, commissioned award-winning conservation architect Vikas Dilawari to undertake the restoration. Dilawari started in 2018 with a yearlong audit followed by on-site work which addresses structural weaknesses, waterproofing, lighting and colour palettes. He devised a four-part plan, starting with exterior repairs of the main building and the annexe, then interiors, the dome, and ending with the museum premises. The total cost of the project is Rs 21 crores, sponsored by Tata Consultancy Services.

Restoration work was scheduled for completion ahead of the centenary, but the pandemic, lockdowns and unseasonal rains delayed it. “Even so, we took advantage of the lockdown. Since the museum was shut, we started doing the interiors early on,” Dilawari said. Once lockdowns were lifted, restoration work was carried out though visitor footfalls increased in the museum. “Working in a functional museum is like treating a patient without giving anaesthesia,” Dilawari said.

The museum’s glistening dome placed on a lotus pedestal is one of its major features.

The museum has 70,000 objects as part of its collection, of which 2,000 were on display during this restoration phase. Before centenary celebrations start in January, restoration will be complete in critical areas such as the key galleries, grand staircase, sculpture gallery, European art storage and the curators’ office. The museum will also bring back its former display of about 10,000 objects. The dome exterior and the premises are targeted ahead of the 2022 monsoon.

The museum’s glistening dome placed on a lotus pedestal is one of its major features. Dilawari said that the original dome was lime plaster and bore the brunt of algae and moss over time. Around the late 1960s, lightning struck the dome and it had to undergo heavy repairs, undertaken by engineer JG Bodhe, who would later become the sheriff of the city. As part of his repairs, Bodhe added a layer of bluish China mosaic to the dome, to prevent water seepage and moss.

The CSMVS building under construction between 1904-1914. (Photo Courtesy: CSMVS)

Dilawari will repair the dome and redo the mosaic entirely in the process. “Bombay was a city of spires and towers, and then it became a city of domes,” he said.

Indo-Saracenic architecture, often notable for its use of domes, was popular during the British Raj, sometimes in competition with Gothic Revival buildings. Dilawari said, “Although they were designing the best of Gothic Revival buildings, architects realised that it is not very climatically responsive in Bombay. The climate response in Indo-Saracenic, such as chajjas and brackets, and jaalis that tone down the light, are functional and make the building good and durable. These suit and adapt well here but we have to look after them, too.”

Of equal importance is the dome interior, for which Dilawari has provided a new colour palette. Lighting has been improvised with the help of Pune-based lighting consultant Suresh Koke. Earlier floodlights have been replaced by ambient lights that will deflect off the dome. “The original idea of the dome was to make light fall into the gallery below,” Koke said.

Over the years, the museum has added modern amenities. “A building has to evolve with time. If we don’t change, the present will reject us. What is important is the conversation between past and present,” Mukherjee said. The restoration plays down modern interventions with a coat of steel grey paint, so that Wittet’s design is foregrounded.

With restoration work carried through a pandemic, both Mukherjee and Dilawari believe that it closely ties in with the origins of the building. Wittet completed it in 1914 but it opened as a museum only eight years later. In the interim, it served as a military hospital during the First World War and then as a hospital during the Spanish Flu in 1918-20. Its history is closely tied in with the history of the city, a bond that the museum is set to highlight in its upcoming centenary, Mukherjee said.