The 185-year old Currency Building here will soon be turned into an exhibition hall for the National Gallery of Modern Art, Union Culture secretary, Raghvendra Singh said today.
Singh told PTI here, "We will turn this place into a National Gallery of Modern Arts(NGMA), Kolkata chapter.... There is so much which this heritage building can offer as a National Galley of Modern Arts. Our whole plan is to make it a hub of arts."
The senior official visited the building located in the central business district accompanied by ASI and NGMA officials, said "We are building this on revenue model, How we will run this place with a good amount of footfall, people who are interested in art, people who love going around, young people, everyone will be happy."
He said the initiative was to make it a happening art place where musical concerts will take place in the open courtyard which will be developed in sync with the heritage elements of the building.
"We are just restoring the building and maintaining ambience as it had been over the centuries. We are not adding anything to this," he said adding restoration work is nearing completion and the building will be opened for public before the Durga Puja.
As National Gallery of Modern Arts, Kolkata chapter, the restored building will house a gallery which will house all kinds of priceless exhibits from the antiquity section of National Gallery of Modern Arts, Delhi and elsewhere and the exhibits will be replaced in every six months, he said.
"We have decided to open the Kolkata chapter of NGMA in a building which have been restored beautifully by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and now everything being put together by the ministry of Culture. You can definitely call it a synergy of sorts between one arm of government and another," he said.
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In 1998 the entire structure was declared as a heritage building and a monument of national importance by thus a protected place. The ASI took charge in 2003 but got the possession only in 2005.
Singh, who also visited the National Library earlier in the day, said four permanent exhibitions will come up at the library - themed on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and INA, Rabindranath Tagore, Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay and Shyamaprasad Mukherjee as part of an initiative of the Union Ministry of Culture.
"We have plans to organise light and sound shows at National Library in future dwelling on its rich past and legacy," he said.
The National Library is the largest library in India by volume of books.
While the history of the National Library began with the formation of the Calcutta Public Library in 1836, in Independent India it was named as National Library and on February 1, 1953 was opened to the public.
Singh said the ASI was also doing restoration work at Metcalfe Hall, a "truely majestic building."
"When we went there we discovered there was lot of partition walls coming up in recent times. We had removed these walls to create a feel of space.
"We plan to turn it into a museum of Kolkata," he said adding there will be proper illumination by restoration experts in all these buildings.
"We are doing restoration, renovation, complete revamp work in all these places - basically to bring an entirely new experience, to what all these places can offer. These places did not offer anything for long," he said.
Metcalfe Hall was built between 1840-1844 according to the design prepared by the city magistrate, C.K. Robinson and named after Sir Charles T. Metcalfe.
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