HMT Heritage Center and Museum

Architecture, a time keeper to the nation: Adaptive Reuse of HMT House

HMT Heritage center and Museum

At the stroke of midnight of August 14, 1947 as India attained independence. This led to a phase of vigorous initiatives in agriculture, industry, infrastructure and other such core sectors to make independent India self-reliant. HMT was entrusted with the vital task of building machine tools and in 1953.

The first Machine tool factory was set up at Jalahalli, Bangalore. In the year 1961, HMT set up a watch manufacturing Unit at Bangalore in collaboration with M/s Citizen Watch Co., Japan. It was closed in 2016, largely due to mismanagement of the company, leading to heavy losses. In the same year, the Government of India also shut down HMT Chinar Watches Ltd., HMT Bearings, and HMT Tractors. HMT Machine Tools Limited still manufactures industrial machines and tools with a workforce of around 2,500 in six manufacturing units situated at Bangalore (Mother unit), Kochi, Hyderabad (2 units), Pinjore and Ajmer.

In recent decades, the demographics of Bangalore have changed dramatically, with a rapidly declining HMT watches, which has had as a result the deterioration of the original HMT layout planning. A part of the HMT Watches division of the Bengaluru headquarter HMT Ltd. manufactured from 1961, till it phased out in 2016 – selling over 200 million pieces during its golden period. The layout includes a bungalow from the chairman of HMT watches. As part of a new sub-urban development the old Bungalow has embraced renovation and adaptive reuse.

The Museum is situated in HMT estate along the Jalahalli road with a unique historical context, India’s first watchmaker. The advantage of a large landscape area of the existing bungalow, the new project by the Common Service Division of HMT Ltd aims to capture the essence of the Journey of HMT through “HMT Heritage Centre and Museum”.

HMT, mother of machine tools in India started in 1953 with its burgeoning demand and millions of people's reliability for its durability and quality in the country. Our golden agers would know how special HMT (Hindustan Machine Tools) is, with its old long stories of passing on in generations and later the brand has achieved a vintage status.

The HMT Heritage Centre and Museum opens its doors to the public today with an impressive collection of watches, tractors, machines and tools. The museum covers an area of 4.17-acre with a total built-up area of 4,246 sq.ft, ground-plus-one-storey centre. More than 1,500 models of HMT watches, pocket pieces and wall clocks for every age and those which belonged to every round the country.

The ground floor gives a glimpse of its various divisions – machine tools, watches, bearings, lamps, dairy machinery, and more. Next, you see a huge cut out of Janata, HMT’s first mechanical wristwatch, which was launched by our first Prime Minister late Jawaharlal Nehru. Since assembling a watch requires a lot of patience, 70 of the staff used to be women, it shows the women's participation in the machine tool factory.

Entrance to the Museum

The factory also needed the dust proof environment for precision and detailing of the watches. When a worker entered the assembly unit, workers had to put on a dust-proof uniform and pass under an air shower to blow off dust, if any. For the same reason, women couldn’t wear kum kum inside the unit.

Multiple spaces scroll through the evolution of HMT watch models. Apart from the flawless watches, the museum center is also shed in tractor parts, lamps, ball bearings and other machine parts.

The famous Flower Clock at the Lalbagh Botanical Garden is also one of the historical marks of HMT watches and one such has been installed in the museum. The HMT’s articles on display turns out, the wooden blocks that these exhibits have been mounted on are actually benches, windows and doors taken from the school and employee quarters that HMT once used to have as part of the layout.

“HMT House” which is now the HMT Museum and Heritage Centre, the erstwhile residence of the Chairman of the HMT company. The current Chairman S Girish Kumar permits the use of HMT House to set up the museum. This bungalow was designed in the early 1950s by Kanvide and Rai Architects on a lush green landscape, Bungalow is of 3200 sq.ft and with addition of sheds it sums to 4,246 sq.ft. The museum is set up with minimum alterations to the structure retaining its original architectural style. Similarly, the display structures are created by using refurbished doors, windows, frames.etc. All exhibits are collected from various HMT factories spread across the country. Both the bungalow and its change into a museum was funded by HMT.

The Bungalow glows with the white masonry walls with an open porch when entered after crossing the landscape. The steel shed occupies the machines and has wide skylights for a bright interior of the museum.

The variation in the architectural use of the residence into a museum, a private space which was used for residing turning into a public space as a museum. It gave a glance and access to the people of a private space as a museum.

Residence into a Museum: As it was a residence it was isolated and kept away from busy traffic roads, now as it is a museum it is made much welcoming to public by adding few activities within the compound like:

• Souvenir Shop:Indulge in shopping for that right memento, right emotion. A souvenir to take home a memory of your experience at the museum.

• Information Centre: With over 3,000 books, find everything about the manufacturing of yore. Your key to the past, Discover “how they did it”.

• Cafeteria: After a walk through the Museum, take some time to relax and satiate your taste buds in lush green garden settings.

• Children Park: Bring along your young children and introduce them to the museum at an early age, enjoy with them in the spacious children park.

• Nursery: All nature lovers can take along a part of this beautiful landscape and gardens seeds that are sown here

• Tractor Ride: All City Kids, experience a fun Tractor Ride along a winding track in this “Rath '' made of original HMT tractor.

Important events - Their Foundation Day is celebrated on 12th Feb every year where whole employees of HMT gather around together. They inaugurated HMT floral clock at the center of HMT Museum by the Honourable Chairman and Managing Director.

People are proud to be a part of history through the HMT museum.