Museum
The National Crafts Museum & Hastkala Academy, celebrates the rich, diverse, and practicing craft and weaving traditions of India. Situated at the corner of Pragati Maidan, opposite the majestic Purana Qila, the museum was designed by the renowned architect Charles Correa.
Museum is a visual repository show casing the traditional architectural marvels simulated in the museum building. The heritage crafts and textiles collections displayed around in the open air areas ,the galleries and the intricacies of making of handicraft and handloom artefacts can be seen under one roof. Also if the visitor so desires may purchase few souvenirs direct from the artisans and weavers.
At present the Museum collection consists of over about 29,395 specimens in various crafts acquired over a period of 70 years sourced from various states named as Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal and Union Territories of India named as Andaman & Nicobar islands, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Lakshadweep and Puducherry. The collection reflects the continuing traditions of handicrafts and handlooms, over the ages.
Museum collection consists of a variety of traditional artifacts such as Textiles, a vast range of metal lamps, sculptures, utensils etc, wood-works, folk/tribal paintings, range of cane and bamboo crafts, clay and terracotta figures and a lot more. The exquisite examples of textiles include Kalamkaris, Jamawars, Pashmina and Shahtosh shawls, embroidered fabrics especially Kanthas, Chikankari works and chaklas Tie and Die (Bandhani) fabrics, Baluchar and Jamdaani saris, Pichwais,Phulkaris, Ikat fabrics of Odisha, ChambaRumals, Block printed textile fabrics of Gujarat and Rajasthan, Himru textile pieces of Maharashtra, Naga shawls, Chanderi saris and a variety of tribal textiles of the Lambadi, Toda and Naga tribes.