The National Technical Museum has prepared a new exhibition called PART(n)A OF BUILDING ENGINEERING in the Centre of Building Heritage of NTM Plasy. The theme of the exhibition is the wood-scented craftsmanship that helps create and populate our homes. The exhibition tells the story of wood from the rough beam to the perfectly crafted door leaf, the story of the woodworkers who found their way from working wood by hand to using machines, the story of windows and doors that changed their appearance according to the demands of the time and the function for which they were intended

“The exhibition was created thanks to the Programme for Supporting Applied Research and Development of National and Cultural Identity, in which the National Technical Museum regularly participates with its projects,” explains Karel Ksandr, Director General of the National Technical Museum. “I think we can be rightly proud of the scientific activities of our staff and their outputs.”

Discover the mastery of joinery
The author of the exhibition, Lukáš Hejný, introduces the theme of the exhibition. Nevertheless, when we encounter their quality workmanship, we can subconsciously appreciate it. The exhibition can help us to recognise why this is so, what the sometimes invisible and hidden mastery of joinery consists in.” In a demonstration of the process of making a door leaf, the visitor will see what all needs to be done and in what order, how individual joinery joints work and when each is needed, and what specific tools are used for what.

It is also very interesting to compare a traditional hand joinery workshop with a machine workshop. The machines, the shape of the wood being worked, the space requirements and most importantly the mindset of the people have changed. The journey from the initial rejection of machines, because “everything is best done by hand”, to the view “what a machine can do, the hand does not have to do” was not easy. The traditional carpentry workshop, whose installation visitors will see at the exhibition, among other things, brings to mind a time when, as Lukáš Hejný says, “it was natural to be proud of your craft, to be passionate about it; a time when it was natural to be humble before your master-teacher and to have the patience and diligence to become one too”. But equally fascinating are the fine cast iron woodworking machines on display.

In the selection of windows, doors and other products of construction joinery that visitors will see at the exhibition, the authors reveal to visitors interesting facts, construction details, at first sight unsuspected connections, “pearls ” from the industry.

The exhibition also shows traditional parquet craft
An important place in the exhibition is devoted to parquetry. The exhibits show the development of wooden floors from plank to parquet to moulded, and examples of common types of parquet floors used in the Czech lands are complemented by luxury parquet pieces from bourgeois houses and castles. “Especially for locals, the parquet flooring made in the Nebřeziny parquet factory near Plas is definitely worth noticing. It has been preserved with the original production label on the reverse (K. k. Privil. Maschinen Parquetten Fabrik Leonhard Spieller in Plass in Böhmen.) Around the middle of the 19th century it decorated the floor of the castle in Slatiňany,” points out Martin Ebel, who prepared the section on parquet.

The exhibition “WORKS OF BUILDING ENGINEERING” is also supplemented by haptic exhibits. Once the restrictions imposed by the anti-coronavirus measures are over, visitors will be able to try out the usual joinery joints such as the clamp, tenon and spline or even the herringbone tooth. For children, there is a parquet puzzle which, once assembled, can be placed in the mirror house, where the parquet pattern is revealed in all its glory, as if it covered the entire room.

The exhibition will run from 9 June to 1 November 2020 at the NTM Plasy Building Heritage Centre.