In this interview with Bibek Bhattacharya, Luis Monreal, General Manager of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) talks about the newly restored Sunder Nursery in New Delhi, and other AKTC projects around the world.
I meet Luis Monreal on 22 February, a day after the Sunder Nursery heritage garden in Delhi was inaugurated by vice-president Venkaiah Naidu and the Aga Khan. Dressed in a blue linen shirt, his shock of white hair neatly brushed back, the general manager of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), Geneva, cuts a contented figure amidst the bustle of the AKTC’s large Delhi office, just off the Sunder Nursery in Nizamuddin. Monreal is an internationally renowned historian, archaeologist and conservationist. He joined the AKTC in 2001, and, prior to that, he had curated the Marés Museum in Barcelona, served as the secretary general of the International Council of Museums, the director of the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles, and the director general of La Caixa Foundation in Barcelona.
He has reason to feel happy. The Sunder Nursery heritage garden project, 10 years in the making, is complete.
