Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya

The museum was conceived in 1905, when prominent citizens of Bombay resolved to build a public museum to commemorate the visit of the Prince of Wales, later King George V, who laid its foundation stone. The government granted the Crescent Site where the museum stands, and after an open competition the architect George Wittet was commissioned in 1909. The building was completed by 1914, but its opening was delayed by the First World War, during which it served as a military hospital, and by the influenza pandemic; it finally opened to the public on 10 January 1922 as the Prince of Wales Museum of Western India. It was renamed Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya in 2001.

Designed by the Scottish architect George Wittet, also responsible for the Gateway of India, the building is one of the finest examples of the Indo-Saracenic style, blending Hindu, Islamic, Maratha and Jain elements. Its central dome, inspired by the Gol Gumbaz of Bijapur with a finial echoing the Taj Mahal, rises above intersecting arches, and Wittet incorporated a wooden arched pavilion from a Nashik wada into the interior. A Grade-I heritage building set in gardens in the Fort precinct, it forms part of the Victorian Gothic and Art Deco Ensembles of Mumbai, a UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 2018.