Description: Oct-Apr: Daily 9am-5pm
May-Sep: Daily 10am-6pm
Closed first Tuesday of the month
Dominating the top of Wenceslas Square in Prague is the monumental neo-renaissance building, the National Museum. Designed by Josef Schultz as an architectural symbol of the Czech National Revival, this is the largest and oldest Czech museum. The National Museum sits on the site of the former Horse Gate. Construction started in 1818 and was completed in 1891.
The Museum houses over 14 million artifacts covering all aspects of science and history. There are permanent exhibitions divided into five categories: Primeval history of Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia, Mineralogy, Zoology, Paleontology and an Anthropological collection.
The permanent exhibition of the Prehistory of Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia, which I found most interesting, is divided into two sections. One depicts the concurrent development of the varied cultures in the area and the other contains archaeological discoveries and models of fortified dwellings and ritual burials. The collection of the Department of Mineralogy and Petrology has over 200,000 specimens of minerals, rocks, gemstones, meteorites; tektites and dynamic geology, but only around 12,000 are on display.
The museum also holds a number of temporary exhibits. These are generally housed in the Hollareum exhibit hall on the ground floor of the main building as well as the two corridors leading to this space from the entrance vestibule. There are often other small exhibits in the Museum of Book Culture also on the ground floor before the entrance into the study room of the national Museum Library.
What was a quiet, leafy area a hundred years ago is now the busiest place in Prague. With congested motorways on both sides of the building and two metro lines crossing right underneath it, the National Museum building is suffering considerably.
Since the building was erected in 1891, it has not been renovated--only damaged: by everyday wear and tear, but mainly in two attacks. In 1945 a few bombs were dropped on the building. They did not explode but still damaged the building. And then in 1968 its façade was riddled with bullets when Soviet troops probably mistook it for the nearby Czechoslovak Radio building. Amazingly, when a metro rail line was built underneath it, the structural integrity of the building was impaired and the repairs are still only ‘provisional’. The building is also affected by pollution from the busy roads and so are the exhibits, as there is no air-conditioning.
An interesting sidelight is that the grand staircase in the central lobby was used in the movie "Mission Impossible" to represent the American Embassy in Prague.
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