Portál Pražana
What is The City of Prague Museum offering in 2019?
Over the course of the year, The City of Prague Museum is preparing a total of six exhibitions. These exhibitions will show Prague past, with interesting historical crafts, as well as present-day Prague, with photographs by a well-known photographer. The museum has permanent displays, such as the archaeological collection in the main building, which is the museum's biggest collection and mostly comes from the museum's archaeological research. Collections of applied art are also valuable, including a high-quality collection of graphics. The most valuable part of this collection is the vedute, which are views of Prague, including its squares, individual street, important buildings, emerging suburbs and natural surroundings outside the city's baroque fortifications. Visitors can also admire these views in Langweil's model of Prague, which contains more than 2,000 buildings on a 1:480 scale, with all the fine details of facades, courtyards, gardens and farm outhouses belonging to buildings. In the case of many demolished historical buildings, Langweil's model of Prague is the only physical record of their appearance.
Temporary exhibitions
In addition to the permanent displays, the museum offers temporary exhibitions. Some exhibitions from last year are still on display, including an exhibition of dance cards and fans, ‘Asking for a Dance’, and a beautiful exhibit devoted to a unique musical project, ‘The Tap Tap at the Museum / Story of a Super Band’.
Outdoor panels
From March on, an outdoor panel exhibition in front of the main building will draw attention to The Czechoslovak Red Cross in the city of Prague in 1919-1989, marking the organisation’s 100th anniversary. Portraits of significant figures related to the Czechoslovak Red Cross, such as Alice Masaryková, Rudolf Jedlička, Hana Benešová and others will be displayed. A unique collection of photographs, posters and leaflets from The City of Prague Museum’s collections, along with pictorial material from periodicals will display the organisation’s humanitarian activities.
The Homeless in Prague
The forthcoming exhibition ‘EPOS 257: Smoke Mountain’ is a fairly surprising exhibition for the museum. It deals with a contemporary social topic, exploring how homeless people live in Třebešín, Prague, which is referred to as Dýmová hora (Smoke Mountain) by its inhabitants. The story of Dýmová hora was recorded by the artist EPOS 257, who is interested in the depiction and mapping of urban jungles and suburbs. The exhibition is a project that shows Dýmová hora in several related chapters. It combines factual data, objects that help to explain the functioning of homeless communities, photographs, documentary film, and also captures the subjectivity of the legends and myths associated with Dýmová hora. The exhibition culminates with a stone monument of Dýmová hora, which the author created with Marcel, a former inhabitant of “Smoke Mountain”, in the conditions of homelessness.
Magic tiled stove
Another upcoming exhibition looks at Prague’s past, by showing a Renaissance tiled stove. It also introduces the exceptional archaeological discovery of a pottery workshop in Truhlářská Street (formerly Hrnčířská) in Nové Město pražské (Prague’s New Town). The workshop was discovered during an excavation of the former barracks, Jiří z Poděbrad in Náměstí Republiky in 2003-2006. Its owner was a Prague burgher, master pottery and the stove maker Adam Špaček. Besides the tiles and the reconstructed tiled stove, visitors will see period paintings, workshop reconstructions and children's workshops.
Three more exhibitions
In Ctěnice Chateau, the museum will introduce Nový Bor Glass School. The main building will once again have a historical theme, ‘POOR PRAGUE People – Places – Institutions (1781–1948)’. In this exhibition, visitors will learn about various perspectives of poverty in Prague’s suburbs and about how the city took care of its poor in this period. The final exhibition of 2019 will be dedicated to photographs of Prague by a well-known journalist, photographer and artist Jovan Dezort.
Exhibition schedule
20/03/2019 – 30/06/2019
The main building of the museum: Prague at the service of the Czechoslovak Red Cross
24/03/2019 – 13/10/2019
Ctěnice Chateau Complex: See You on the Glass / Contemporary Production of Students and Teachers from Nový Bor Glass School
03/04/2019 – 25/08/2019
The main building of the museum: POOR PRAGUE People – Places – Institutions (1781–1948)
03/04/2019 – 30/12/2019
The main building of the museum: EPOS 257: Smoke Mountain
15/05/2019 – 29/03/2020
House at the Golden Ring (Dům U Zlatého prstenu): Stoves from Špaček / Tiles and Stove-Making in Prague during the Renaissance
01/10/2019 – 31/12/2019
The main building of the museum: The solo exhibition of photographs by Jovan Dezor