Museum Matters: History in ink and stone

In Porvorim, a ship-like museum rises from the middle of the road, carrying within it stories of Goan houses, Portuguese traditions, and even forgotten ragi mills from Doddaballapura, writes Shree D N.

There is something pleasantly disorienting about arriving at a museum that sits in the middle of a road. No grand entrance, no sweeping driveway — just a triangular, ship-like structure rising like a traffic island in the village of Torda, Salvador-do-Mundo, in Porvorim, Goa.

It feels as though the ship sailed in from some colonial-era sea. Yet the earthy hues and creepers running across it give it a distinctly homely feel. Conceptualised by architect Gerard da Cunha, the museum stands like a vessel anchored at a junction where roads branch in three directions. Locals even call it “Gerard’s traffic island”.

The origin of the museum is, in itself, a story worth knowing. Da Cunha, speaking to DHoS over a call, recalled how his interest in the architectural history of Goa led him into years of research in the late 1990s. Through interns sent out to measure and document houses during their time at his office, he gradually accumulated architectural artefacts and written material.

But no publisher would take on his book, Houses of Goa, which drew from this research. So da Cunha mounted an exhibition in Panjim using the material he had collected. The response was immediate. Visitors began pre-booking the book, and the exhibition travelled to Lisbon, Porto, Mumbai and Delhi before returning to Goa.

Around 2003–04, da Cunha finally built the museum, driven by two simultaneous needs: a permanent home for the travelling exhibition on Goan houses, and a structure that could also function as a traffic island on the site.

The museum is built largely with laterite stone, abundant in Goa and prized for its natural thermal insulation. Even in the coastal heat, the interiors remain noticeably cool. Spread across multiple levels, the museum traces the history of Goan architecture through its materials, traditions and stylistic shifts, presenting it in a way that is both detailed and accessible.

Visitors are asked to remove their footwear at the entrance. After learning that we were from Bengaluru, museum staff member Jovito Andrade pointed to three massive supports holding up the structure. “This museum stands on three pillars, and they have Doddaballapura roots,” he said.

The “pillars” are actually enormous grinding mills once used in the farms around Doddaballapura. Farmers tied oxen around them to mill ragi. Da Cunha later explained that he had first spotted these abandoned structures during bike rides around Hesaraghatta in the 1980s, while setting up Nrityagram. Each weighed around 2,500 kilos. He bought 15 of them for Rs 500 apiece.

Many found aesthetic use within Nrityagram itself, but three were transported to Porvorim and incorporated into the museum as structural pillars. The ground floor houses a shop selling books, mugs and cards, some featuring the work of celebrated Goan cartoonist Mario Miranda. A spiral staircase leads to the first floor, where the exhibition begins.

This level narrates Goa’s history from 1300 BC onwards through sketches by Mario Miranda, paying particular attention to the deep architectural impact of Portuguese arrival in the region. Miranda’s presence runs through the museum in more ways than one; he also released da Cunha’s Houses of Goa in 1999.

The first floor also contains models of Goan houses, photographs of architectural styles from around the world, and house plans of structures such as Palacio Santana de Silva, laying the foundation for the museum’s larger exploration of Goan domestic architecture.

Nearby panels explain the logic behind different house forms. There is a recreated Deshprabhu house, a traditional dwelling associated with the Saraswat Brahmin community, marked by functional simplicity. In contrast stands the Brahmin wada, a sprawling multi-storeyed mansion reflecting the wealth and status of Goa’s elite classes.

This is where the museum fully earns its name.

The second floor contains elements salvaged from actual Goan houses: paintings, ornaments, railings, doors and fragments of buildings displayed almost as living memory. Particularly compelling are the text-and-photo panels explaining features such as tulsi vrindavanas — ornate painted structures used for growing holy basil — and balcaos, the distinctive porch-like frontages of Portuguese-style houses, often approached by broad stairways.

A wall cupboard from 1917, chapel doors, altars, ceramic tiles and old furnishings populate the floor. In one corner sits the machila, the hand-carried two-person carriage once seen in old Goan hotels, as though it might still be waiting for passengers.

The third floor opens out into an auditorium-like space lined with more wall exhibits on balcaos, tulsi vrindavans, hallways, wooden furniture and old paintings. After the denser lower floors, the room feels almost like an exhalation.

Da Cunha himself admits the museum now requires some modernisation. Things are, as he puts it, “looking a little old”. Yet there is something apt about that. A museum dedicated to houses that weather time, absorb generations and continue standing perhaps ought to show its own age a little gracefully too. The Houses of Goa Museum is small enough to finish in about ninety minutes, but it offers a remarkably concentrated portrait of how architecture shapes people and place, and how Portuguese stone and Konkan laterite slowly learned, over four centuries, to belong together.

The Houses of Goa Museum is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10 am to 7.30 pm. Entry costs Rs 100 for adults and Rs 25 for children. The ticket also includes a Rs 50 coupon redeemable at the in-house café or souvenir shop.