Calico Museum of Textiles

The Calico Museum of Textiles in Ahmedabad was founded in 1949 by Gautam and Gira Sarabhai with the Calico mills, after Ananda Coomaraswamy suggested a textile institute for the city, a centre of the textile trade since the 15th century. Jawaharlal Nehru inaugurated it. It began at the Calico Mills and moved in 1983 to the Sarabhai House in Shahibaug; the Sarabhai Foundation manages it.

Gira Sarabhai curated the collection and also designed the building, set around a courtyard and fitted with carved wooden facades salvaged from old Gujarati houses. By the 1950s the museum had narrowed its focus to India's handicraft textiles, and it later ran a publishing programme on historical Indian textiles and a survey of contemporary textile crafts.