The Indian Trade Promotion Organisation, that comes under the union commerce ministry, has decided to pull down the Nehru Pavilion and the Hall of Nations in order to replace them with a state of the art convention centre.

This is part of a larger plan announced last November to give Pragati Maidan a makeover, the first step of which is to demolish all non air-conditioned halls. The entire project is expected to cost around 3,000 crores.

However, several people, including the architect who designed the structures have raised questions on why buildings of historic significance are being torn down in this manner. The Indian National Trust for Art and Heritage (INTACH) put in a request to stop the process. An online petition to save the buildings has more than 3,000 signatures. Members of the architectural and artistic community have spoken out against the demolitions.

Photographer Ram Rahman told The Wire that efforts are being made to create more awareness about the historic and architectural importance of the spaces. “The Nehru Pavilion is a classic of Indian modern architecture, in two senses. One is the design concept, which was the giant space frame. It was done in 1971, at a time when our resources were quite low. So it was a hugely audacious design, and Mahendra Raj (the engineer for the project) didn’t have enough material to make a building like that. But he managed to engineer it in hand-poured concrete, which was an engineering feat on its own. The building is regarded internationally as a classic of modern design, both in concept and in execution,” Rahman said.

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....the chief curator of architecture from the Museum of Modern Art wrote to union commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman, asking that the architectural sites be preserved.

The exhibition shown at the Nehru Pavilion is equally historically important, Rahman adds. “The Nehru Pavilion is also a classic because of the exhibition it holds on Nehru which was designed by the great designers Charles and Ray Eames who helped found the National Institute for Design. The making of this exhibition was one of the key steps in the foundation and development of NID as an institution. So destroying that exhibition and building is also, on another level, a terrible destruction of a heritage we should be proud of. That exhibition again has an international reputation.”