Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya

This guide to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya in Mumbai follows architect George Wittet as he assembled an Indian-style museum from borrowed pieces: vaults copied from Bijapur, a carved wooden pavilion shipped from a Nasik manor, and a finial modeled on the Taj Mahal. It traces the building's detour as a wartime hospital before it ever held an exhibit, and points you toward the Nainsukh paintings and the jewel-studded Rewa Dagger waiting in its galleries. The museum carried a colonial name for decades before that finally changed. Look up at the wooden railing on the first floor as you pass beneath the dome.