If everything goes to plan, Mysuru will get another museum by the end of this year. This gallery is to come up on the sprawling campus of the University of Mysore (UoM) at Manasagangotri, which has produced many legendary and celebrated personalities.
Called the ‘Centenary Heritage Museum’, the facility has been proposed to showcase various facets of the culture, heritage and history of the century-old university. UoM celebrated its centenary in 2016 and the museum was proposed as a centenary project.
Although the museum should have become a reality by now, the project was delayed for various reasons. But the university is now hopeful of making it happen before the year ends as the museum building is ready and an Expression of Interest (EoI) has been invited for implementing the project. “Some design agencies and architects having experience of conceptualising and implementing similar projects have approached us showing interest in developing the museum. We thought of consulting a few more experts in the field as UoM wants to make the museum project a one-stop centre to understand the A to Z of the university,” said Vice-Chancellor G. Hemantha Kumar.
He told The Hindu that the project had been expedited and the detailed project report was expected to be ready by the end of July, with presentations lined up for the month from the interested museum designers.
Famed varsity
Founded by Nalvadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar in 1916, UoM is the sixth oldest university in the country and the oldest in the State. The university took off from Maharaja’s College and the courses were moved to the Manasagangotri campus in 1960.
The “ready to occupy” interactive museum building has been constructed at a cost of ₹3.75 crore, with a total built-up area of 14,738 sq.ft, near the MBA Institute on Hunsur Road. “We also wanted to expand the building to make it even more spacious before the concept was finalised,” the V-C said.
The museum’s concept note said it would be India’s first thematic and interactive museum of a centenary-old university, enabling effective content delivery and user interaction by employing modern techniques such as touchscreen terminals to illustrate the exhibits and multi-media systems to render documentary videos. The museum model should be a blend of traditional and modern methods of exhibiting items chronicling the origin, growth and development of the university, besides the exemplary contributions and academic achievements in the last 100 years.
UoM hopes to make it a one-stop centre for accessing key information for researchers, professionals and students with sections such as ‘origin, history and the royal patronage’, ‘glorious growth of 100 years’, ‘eyes on the stars’, and ‘mending milestones’.
