The Government Museum, Madras

Abstract

UNDER the superintendence of Dr. F. H. Gravely, an important extension to the Government Museum, Madras, has been completed and opened to the public, following the plans of the late R. Dann, consulting architect to that Government. The new building has provided accommodation for the staff of curators, the block which they formerly occupied being now given up to the zoological collections. But its main function is to give suitable expression to the evolution of the decorative motives of the architecture of the magnificent temples of South India. For the Tamil country, these changes form an interesting and logical sequence. The temples of other parts of India differ from those of Tamil origin, and although the development of their architecture is not yet fully understood, attempts have been made in the new building to indicate the succession of changes. A short account of these arrangements, based upon Dr. Gravely's address at the opening ceremony, which was performed by His Excellency the Governor of Madras, Lord Erskine, appears in the July number of the Museums Journal (40, 109; 1940).