JAYAPRAKASH NARAYAN MUSEUM OF SOCIALISM

The JPN Museum is a gateway framing the centre placed as a wedged-shaped monument with a massive arch carved out of the mass; its nine-metre height and twenty-metre ambitious span are clearly attempts to push the limits of structural design and construction. Its stepped roof terminates in a pavilion that gifts a panoramic view of the R.M. Lohia Park and the Convention Centre.

The museum within is an experience in space design with the depiction of Jayaprakash Narayan as a chronological narrative of a linear journey. It is divided into two zones; the zone of absorption and the zone of reflection. As the names suggest, these spaces enable absorption of information triggering curiosity and contemplation which then is expected to lead to reflection and assimilation. Thus the museum is not just a container that preserves frozen albeit inspiring moments of a past but breeds them and ensures that they percolate into current reality, and lay the foundation for the future.Thus while the various exhibits and narratives remain centre stage, the building offers surfaces, volumes and elements as   tactile backdrops.

The contemporary nature of the museum’s architecture takes responsibility for creating what will be tomorrow’s history, while narrating the current one. Although it celebrates and shares the ideology of socialism in retrospect, it also reflects the times we live in – both in its experience and space-making. The monolithic and bold form of the building takes a stance, and exudes empowerment, saying that, be it a building or man, one must be undaunted while envisioning and realizing a dream. It is much like what we understand of Jayaprakash Narayan’s life. The conception of the institution was a journey that evolved with the project. The architecture sits in conversation and merges seamlessly with museum and exhibition planning, experience design and landscape.