Crafts Museum

Founded in 1956 to keep hand skills alive rather than to embalm them, the Crafts Museum is arranged as a sequence of courtyards and verandas designed by Charles Correa over the 1970s and 80s — a building that behaves like a street. Along one side is a village complex: full-size dwellings from Gujarat, Bihar, Rajasthan and the north-east, built by craftspeople from those places.

The collection runs to some thirty-three thousand objects — terracotta, textiles, metalwork, folk painting — but the museum's real argument is the demonstration area, where weavers, potters and painters work in residence. It is the rare national institution where the things on display are still being made a few metres away.

Pragati Maidan, Blue Line, is a very short walk away — the museum sits just inside the same exhibition complex.

Parking is available within the Pragati Maidan grounds, shared with whatever exhibition is running that week.

Café Lota, run by the team behind some of Delhi's better-known restaurants, operates in the museum courtyard — worth planning a meal around.

Closed Mondays. Inside the Pragati Maidan complex; the entrance has moved more than once, so check before you go.