A disappearing act

Humayun’s Tomb Site Museum by Vir.Mueller Architects revels in absence

10 Mar 2025

I first saw the section drawing of the Humayun’s Tomb Site Museum in architecture school. It was projected onto a screen, a crisp slice through the earth. A subterranean world held together by light. We analysed it the way students do: tracing the lines, measuring the proportions, admiring the clarity of the design. But, like all theoretical encounters, it remained just that. An abstraction. Now, the idea comes alive in solids and voids.

For most of us who grew up visiting Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi, the experience was always the same — arrive, marvel, leave. “There was no reason to be in the vicinity of the building once you had seen it,” says Pankaj Vir Gupta, the museum’s principal architect, who with his partner Christine Mueller, leads Vir.Mueller Architects. The tomb was a moment of beauty, but never a place to stay. This museum, commissioned by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture changes that.

“The minute you sever the links with beauty, with the capacity for architecture to impart joy, you undermine the entire architectural identity” – Pankaj Vir Gupta

A section through the subterranean portion of the museum; Image courtesy Vir.Mueller Architects

Approaching the site, you expect a building, but what you find is an absence. The museum does not rise, it disappears. Its entry is subtle, a quiet descent into space rather than a statement on the landscape. And yet, the moment you step inside, the architectural enclave reveals itself. “The entire building, which is six metres underground, never once let us feel that we were isolated from natural light,” Pankaj recalls. Light punctures through the skylit volume, guiding the way, dissolving the weight of the earth above. The shadows move yet the sky remains omnipresent.

But what strikes you most is its generosity. The museum is not just a place to learn about Mughal history, it serves as a third space. “You have several options now,” Pankaj explains. “You want to have a meditative communion with nature? Walk in Sundar Nursery. You want to see Humayun’s Tomb up close? Go ahead. But if you want to gather with friends, sit, learn, absorb the significance of this history, then the museum gives you that final piece of plurality.” People linger here. They sit on the benches in the galleries, they climb to the rooftop plaza, which in the crisp Delhi winter, becomes its own public space.

The red sandstone and marble jaali inspired by Mughal architecture; Photograph courtesy Vir.Mueller Architects

Mediating a relationship between human and nature, the museum draws on the spatial semantics of Mughal-era architecture; Photograph by Ashish Sahi

In school, we rarely spoke of beauty. We spoke of function, of efficiency, of structure. But here, beauty is not an afterthought. It is embedded in the very act of making. “The poetics of architecture are absolutely intrinsic to its value,” Pankaj says. “The minute you sever the links with beauty, with the capacity for architecture to impart joy, you have actually undermined the entire architectural identity.” This is manifest in the pleated concrete ceilings that soften the light, in the carved jalis that recall Mughal craftsmanship, in the red sandstone facade made from the very same stone that was left over from the restoration of Humayun’s Tomb. The past and present are in conversation here.

Standing in the museum’s galleries, the drawing that awed us in the classroom years ago comes to life. It exists now, no longer just a diagram but a space you can walk through, touch and sit within. “The section that you probably studied in architecture school is still intact when you have your spatial experience of the building,” Pankaj says. “Rather than rely on trivial flourishes or veneers, we kept it austere, bold and clear, because it was essentially reduced to its simplest volumetric spatial narrative. This is for the people of our country. And in decades to come, the museum building, the urban validation of this enterprise should hopefully resonate with our fellow citizens.” As you leave, you climb to the plaza, where people sit, watching the sun dip behind the dome of Humayun’s Tomb. The museum is behind you, the tomb before you and the city all around.