Museum of Art & Photography

The Museum of Art and Photography grew from the collection of the industrialist, philanthropist and collector Abhishek Poddar, who from a teenage passion for Indian art, mentored by the artist Manjit Bawa, built one of the country's significant private collections. Conceived through the Art and Photography Foundation, MAP launched first as a digital museum in 2020 during the pandemic, inverting the usual order by going online before opening its physical doors on 18 February 2023, when it became the first major new private museum to open in India in a decade. Led by its founding director Kamini Sawhney, and with a collection gifted by Poddar, it set out to democratise art and build a museum-going culture, especially among the young.

MAP occupies a landmark building of around 44,000 square feet on Kasturba Road, in the heart of Bengaluru's museum quarter near the Government Museum and Vidhana Soudha, designed by the Bengaluru architects Nisha Mathew and Soumitro Ghosh of Mathew and Ghosh. Spread over five storeys, its distinctive steel-panel facade evokes an industrial water tank, a metaphor for storing something as precious as art, and it houses galleries, an auditorium, a library, a multimedia and technology centre, a sculpture courtyard, conservation facilities and a rooftop restaurant. Its comprehensive accessibility features earned it a Universal Design award.