On Thursday, 24 June 2021, the National Technical Museum in Plasy in the Centre of Building Heritage of the National Technical Museum in Plasy officially launched the Exposition of Medieval Construction Machines with the act of tapping the memorial stone. The project supported by the IROP will enable the restoration and opening to the public of another building on the premises of the National Technical Museum in the monastery in Plasy, which will house an exhibition presenting medieval construction with large-scale replicas of construction machines from the Gothic period. On the same day, a new exhibition dedicated to building locksmithing was opened, the outdoor exhibition Building of the Year 2020 was presented and the sixth visitor season was inaugurated.

“ I am very pleased thatthe NTM Plasy Building Heritage Centre, which we built six years ago in the economic part of the Plasy Monastery, is developing further. Next year, in the newly renovated building of the former lager cellars, the Exposition of Medieval Construction Machines will be opened. I appreciate the fact that we were able to tap the memorial stone that will commemorate the project with distinguished guests today.”

Daniel Dvořák, the architect of the upcoming exhibition, added: ” Medieval construction must fascinate us, no matter how we look at it from the perspective of today’s modern times. How did they measure those cathedrals, cities and castles? What kind of logistics, transport, staffing did they have? Who were the project managers of the time? Who drew up the network schedules? How did they communicate? What did they use to process the material, how did they move the tons of material? Who was managing it all? What software did they create schedules in? Who did the catering and how? The questions are endless. But the most important thing to face in the face of today’s construction industry is the fact that everything that was created back then has survived the centuries and, most importantly, is still BEAUTIFUL. The new exhibition will also contribute to the understanding of medieval construction.”

General Director of the contractor KONSIT a.s. Ing. Pavel Polcar added . Our company KONSIT a.s. has long been involved in the reconstruction of historical buildings and monuments. The construction of the Exposition of Medieval Construction Machines in the Centre of Building Heritage of the National Museum of Modern Art Plasy involves mainly the modification of ceilings, making penetrations in the original walls, repairs to plaster, cleaning of masonry, supply of doors, sliding walls, electrical installations, lighting of future exhibits, etc. During the construction work, the original granite portal of the elevator, which was used to transport beer barrels between floors, was uncovered in the place of the load-bearing wall. The entrance to the exhibition space will be reshaped and part of the stone elevator portal from the basement will be moved to a new position on the ground floor.”

The National Technical Museum has been managing the former farm part of the premises of the national cultural monument Klášter Plasy since 2008. After an extensive adaptation, the NTM Plasy Building Heritage Centre was built in the former brewery and in the premises of the farmyard between 2009 and 2015. This has created a unique workplace whose programme combines the presentation and educational functions of the museum with experiential activities aimed at the general public. Thanks to the new project, another part of this complex will be open to the public. In 2022, an attractive exhibition will open in the former lager cellars, featuring large-scale working replicas of medieval construction machines that were part of the National Technical Museum’s exhibition “Civitas Carolina, or Construction in the Time of Charles IV.” prepared for the 700th anniversary of the birth of Charles IV. The replicas were made on the basis of the study of historical sources and were consistently produced using contemporary craftsmanship. They represent a unique reconstruction of the original medieval construction technology in Europe and making them available to the public as part of the new modern exhibition will enrich the comprehensive interpretation of the history of construction on the NTM premises. One of the exhibits, a crane, could be seen by the public in the past during repairs of various monuments, e.g. at Točník or Kost castles.

For the sixth season, the National Technical Museum in the NTM Plasy Building Heritage Centre has prepared the exhibition Building Locksmithing, for Use and Decoration: the Transformation of Window and Door Fittings.
The collections of the National Technical Museum illustrate well the development of window and door fittings over the last 400 years. Until the Baroque period, door hardware was deliberately emphasised – the locksmith work was often more expensive than the joinery itself. From the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, hardware on windows and doors began to be partially hidden. The exhibition traces not only the aesthetic side of the fittings, but also their basic developmental breaks or the historical names of the individual elements. At the same time, it is intended to draw attention to the fact that even today many window and door fittings are irreversibly destroyed when windows and doors are replaced, causing damage that the owners of the buildings may regret a generation later. The exhibition also includes a section documenting the development of padlocks.

Other temporary exhibitions also deserve visitors’ attention. Due to the great interest, the exhibition The Favorit Phenomenon, designed especially for the large group of cycling fans, and the exhibition Works of Construction Joinery, showing both historical exhibits related to this craft and specific technological procedures of manual and machine woodworking, have been extended. A special space in this exhibition is devoted to the history of parquet and parquetry.

Press release of the National Technical Museum 25 June 2021
Contact:
Bc. Jan Duda
Head of PR and Public Relations Department
E-mail: jan.duda@ntm.cz
Mob: +420 770 121 917
National Technical Museum
Kostelní 42, 170 00 Prague 7