Why cities struggle to preserve their stories
Unlike Western cities such as Amsterdam, New York, or Berlin, where city museums chronicle the evolution of the metropolis itself, India’s megacities do not have spaces that tell their stories
New Delhi India’s cities are repositories of layered histories — Mumbai with its colonial trading ports and textile mills, business and Bollywood glamour; Delhi with its imperial capitals and Partition scars, Kolkata with its literary salons and revolutionary past, Bengaluru with its transformation from garden city to tech powerhouse. Yet, unlike western cities such as Amsterdam, New York, or Berlin, where city museums chronicle the evolution of the metropolis itself, India’s megacities do not have spaces that tell their stories.
The gap is striking. Most of roughly 1,000 museums in the country are artifact-driven, built around archaeology, natural history, or national icons. Very few tell the living, evolving story of their cities — their streets, people, dialects, food, crafts, and the architecture that has been built, demolished, and rebuilt over time.
“Cities like Delhi and Mumbai are defined not just by monuments but by migration, colonial history, post-independence growth, informal economies, neighbourhood resilience, and small-scale architectural innovations,” says Delhi-based architect and urbanist Dikshu Kukreja. “Without city museums, these stories remain undocumented, creating a disconnect between people and their city’s history.”
Indeed, across the world, city museums are central to how urban identities are shaped and remembered. In Amsterdam, the Amsterdam Museum traces the city’s rise from a 13th-century trading hub to a multicultural metropolis, showcasing the influence of merchant guilds alongside the diverse stories of migrants who arrived centuries later.
Similarly, the Museum of the City of New York brings together the immigrant experience, Broadway posters, Wall Street finance, and civil rights movements, offering residents and tourists a layered understanding of the city’s evolution from a 17th-century Dutch trading post to a global cultural and financial hub.
Even smaller European cities, from Barcelona to Vienna, have museums that capture neighbourhood life, social struggles, and local crafts. Far from static repositories, they function as civic spaces — hosting regular exhibitions, debates, and workshops, serving as forums where cities tell their stories through people, not just monuments.
A cultural blind spot
Why, then, have Indian cities failed to create institutions devoted to their own urban narratives? Part of the answer, says Aloka Parasher-Sen, retired professor of history at the University of Hyderabad, lies in culture itself. “The museum concept, rooted in colonial traditions, is foreign to India. Unlike Europe, where memory is preserved in museums, India keeps history alive through lived traditions — temples serve as art and story repositories, and festivals pass down local lore.”
But relying only on lived traditions to preserve urban history has its limits. “History takes three forms — remembered through collective memory, recovered through artefacts, and invented through constructed narratives,” she explains.
“City museums belong to recovered history, but they must go beyond static artefact displays and bring together visual, archival, and ethnographic material to capture both tangible and intangible urban heritage.”
Kukreja agrees: “A well-curated city museum doesn’t just highlight grand narratives. It showcases everyday stories, vernacular architecture, past settlement patterns, community networks, and local craftsmanship often missing from official records.”
The barriers to city museums in India, Sen says, are also institutional.
“A key barrier is fragmented responsibility: the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) controls most recovered artefacts and site-specific museums, while municipal corporations, ideally suited to run city museums, lack authority over heritage,” says Sen.
Failed and forgotten experiments
If the absence of city museums in India reflects a cultural blind spot, the fate of the few attempted underscores a deeper malaise: poor execution and institutional neglect.
Take ‘Kolkata Panorama’, a multimedia museum launched in 2002 to celebrate the city’s layered past—from its colonial capital years to its intellectual and revolutionary ferment. Housed in the grand and historic Town Hall, it offered interactive exhibits long before they were common. But by 2017, it had shut down for “renovation”. In 2019, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) announced plans to reopen it as a more comprehensive city museum with new galleries. Six years on, those plans remain only on paper.
“It’s unfortunate that Kolkata, with its vibrant history, lacks a dedicated city museum,” says Swarnali Chattopadhyay, founder-member of Purono Kolkatar Golpo Society, a group dedicated to promoting and preserving the city’s heritage. “Kolkata was the capital of British India and the cradle of the Swadeshi movement and Bengal Renaissance. It welcomed diverse communities — Jews, Armenians, English, and others — who shaped its cultural fabric. Its historic cemeteries draw global visitors eager to explore this past. Yet, there’s no single place offering a comprehensive narrative of Kolkata’s story.”
Her organisation was asked to provide content ideas for the proposed museum. “We submitted them in 2022, but nothing has moved,” she says. A Town Hall official adds: “The Detailed Project Report (DPR) is ready, but funds have not yet been released. At this stage, I cannot say when the work will begin.”
Ahmedabad’s Sanskar Kendra City Museum, offers a similar cautionary tale. Designed by Le Corbusier in his signature modernist style — with an exposed brick-and-concrete façade resembling a casket hoisted off the ground — the museum, completed in 1954, was perhaps the first building in post-independent India purpose-designed as a museum. It was meant to showcase the city’s mercantile traditions, textile legacy, Indo-Islamic architecture, and links to Gandhi’s life and the freedom struggle. Its eclectic exhibits included the foundation block of Ellis Bridge, a 1907 fire engine, and numerous other city-specific objects.
But neglect took its toll. The building fell into disrepair and has been shut for over five years now for restoration. The prolonged closure is ironic, given that Ahmedabad is India’s first Unesco World Heritage City — a distinction that should be matched by a strong urban museum. “The work is in full swing. The museum will reopen with new artefacts, restored collections, and interactive design,” says an Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation official.
Delhi too has toyed with the idea of a city museum. Since 2011, there have been proposals to convert the 1863-built Town Hall in Chandni Chowk into a museum tracing the capital’s evolution. In 2022, the Union ministry of culture showed interest in developing it with a library and research centre. By 2023, the MCD floated plans for a history museum. None materialized.
Recently, the MCD reportedly engaged a consultant to conduct a structural study of the Town Hall and suggest options for its reuse.
Lessons from Mumbai’s city museum
In a country with few museums dedicated to telling the story of its cities, Mumbai’s Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, housed in a Victorian building in Byculla, stands apart.
The museum was first conceived in 1857 as the Victoria and Albert Museum, Bombay — possibly Asia’s oldest such institution — and opened in 1872. At a time when Bombay was celebrated as Urbs Prima in Indis — Latin for primary city in India — the museum reflected both its commercial importance and cultural ambitions.
In 1975, it was renamed after Dr. Bhau Daji Lad, a historian, physician, and the first Indian Sheriff of Mumbai. By the 1990s, however, the building had fallen into disrepair, its interiors faded and collections neglected.
A turnaround began in 1997, when the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) brought in the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH).
A 2003 agreement between INTACH, BMC, and the Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation created the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum Trust, leading to a five-year restoration of the museum. Conservation architect Vikas Dilawari oversaw the effort, reviving Minton-tile floors, gilded ceilings, and chandeliers. “Restoring a museum is different from restoring other heritage buildings,” Dilawari says. “You must ensure dust- and weatherproof storage, security, and accessibility, while integrating lighting, climate control, CCTV, and fire systems — without compromising character.” The project won the Unesco Asia-Pacific Award of Excellence in 2005, and the museum reopened in January 2008.
Since then, the museum has expanded its focus to the city itself. “Bombay is an extraordinary city, one that was planned and built as a city — and this was the first colonial building in India designed as a museum,” says museum director Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, widely credited with leading its revival. “The collection features miniature models, dioramas, maps, manuscripts, and rare books documenting Mumbai’s layered history. Temporary exhibitions have included themes like Dharavi, ensuring marginalised communities are represented in the city’s narrative,” she adds.
After closing in 2022 for pending repairs and refurbishments by BMC’s Heritage Cell, the museum reopened in January 2025. “ We have plans for a new 120,000 sq. ft. wing, including a research centre, conservation labs, and more Mumbai galleries,” says Mehta.
A glimmer of hope
If Mumbai shows what’s possible, Bhopal suggests the tide may be turning. In March 2026, the city will open its own City Museum at the 178-year-old Moti Mahal, once the residence of Nawab Sikandar Begum. The restored palace is being transformed into a ₹25-crore museum by the Madhya Pradesh State Tourism Development Corporation. Spanning 20,000 sq. ft. across 11 galleries, it will showcase everything from prehistoric rock paintings to Nawabi culture. “Ten of the eleven galleries here are devoted to Bhopal’s story,” says conservation architect Shikha Jain, founder of Drona, the organisation which is restoring, designing and curating Bhopal’s City Museum
“In India there wasn’t much focus on museums during colonial rule or the decades after Independence,” she says. “But the museum movement is now picking up in India and cities are showing interest in creating their own museums. We’re also working on the expansion of Patna Museum, where the government wants more city-focused galleries.”
Jain says municipal corporations have to take the lead in setting up city museums. “Even with limited funds, they can build partnerships with the private sector and find patrons.”
Kukreja says city museums are more important now than ever.
“They aren’t a luxury—they are civic tools that help us reflect, understand, and create more inclusive, thoughtful, and resilient cities.”
