The world-famous Prince of Wales Museum is located in the ancient city of Mumbai (Bombay), in the southern part of the city, right next to another landmark of the city - the Gateway to India. The museum was built on the initiative and at the expense of the honourable citizens of Mumbai in honour of the Prince of Wales, the future British King George V, who laid the foundation stone of the building in 1905. A plot of land of just over 1 hectare called the "Crescent Site" was allocated for its construction, and George Whittet, who later became famous for another successful project - the already mentioned Gateway to India - was chosen as the chief architect. The construction of this grandiose museum was completed in 1915. But during World War I, the building was used as a children's centre and military hospital, and only in 1922 a full-fledged museum was opened.
It is a basalt three-storey building of rectangular shape, made in Indo-Saracenic style. Its roof is adorned with a large dome finished with white and blue tiles, which is a kind of additional floor. This dome, along with the balconies and tiled floors, adds to the building's characteristic features of Mughal buildings.
In the early 2000s, the museum was renamed Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya in honour of Shivaji, the founder of the Maratha Empire.
The museum collection is very large with about 50,000 objects collected not only from India but also from all over the world. It is divided into three main sections: art, archaeology and natural history, and since 2008, several exhibitions on God Krishna, textiles, traditional Indian costumes, and pictorial miniatures have been added.
Today, the museum is under the care of the government as well as the Bombay Municipal Corporation, who annually give it grants for all sorts of programmes.
