Civil engineering as a field consists of specific processes and rules for preparing and carrying out various typological types of constructions (buildings and engineering structures, hydraulic and road structures) or their parts. Civil engineering is a field directly linked with practical experiences in constructing structures, a knowledge of construction materials and construction work in conjunction with the knowledge of other building sciences.

The direct transfer of practical craft knowledge from generation to generation has been an unconditional necessity of practically every epoch. Medieval architectural works and later guilds of trowel trades bear witness to this fact. Theoretical education gradually gained momentum from the 18th century, both at the estates engineering school and later at the polytechnic school in Prague, as well at other lower schools providing an education in construction.

The first objects included in today’s civil engineering collection were from the exhibition of the Prague Chamber of Commerce organized in 1908. From 1910 the civil engineering collections were presented to the public as part of the exhibit at the Schwarzenberg Palace. Following a separate exhibition of hydraulic engineering bridges and waterworks engineering, the permanent exhibit of architecture and Civil Engineering opened in 1917. Acquisition activities at this time mainly consisted of donations of models. In 1921, the civil engineering collection was made up of 169 inventory numbers. The exhibit at the Schwarzenberg Palace had to be cleared out in 1941, and many of the objects were stored in the Invalidovna building in the Karlín quarter of Prague that was hit by the 2002 flood. Since World War II the collection has grown mainly thanks to occasional donations.

Building components and construction

At present the collection consists of models of roof frames of normal and important buildings, towers and samples of carpentry interior elements (stairways, windows, doors). Samples of construction materials come directly from manufacturers and a set of mechanical aids for construction calculations are among the unique objects. The NTM’s collections also feature authentic parts of buildings saved from demolished or rebuilt buildings. Chochol’s cubist windows from a villa beneath Vyšehrad, Hübschmanno’s fire-resistant doors from mills in the Holešovice part of Prague or part of the external cladding of the School of Electrical Engineering of the Czech Institute of Technology in Prague – Dejvice bring the needed authenticity to the collection.

Structural Engineering

Road engineering is represented by models of motorways, tunnels, overpasses, gradients; bridge engineering by models of bridges, their details and auxiliary constructions.

Hydraulic structures

Hydraulic structures are represented by dozens of models of dams, weirs, sluices, ice-aprons, etc. A separate part consists of water gauge instruments.

Waterworks engineering and gas engineering

Objects related to waterworks engineering, sewerage and gas engineering have been part of the collections since 1908 and this group consists of models of waterworks structures, parts of water and sewage pipes and fittings, water-gauge instruments and models of medical technology.

The Civil Engineering collection focuses on the standard in this field. The main area of interest is construction in the narrowest sense and also the directly related trowel trades (masonry, stonecutting, stuccowork, carpentry and locksmithing, smithery, painting and decorating, others). A related area is represented by a collection of object related to the construction materials industry and theoretical construction disciplines (statics and mechanics, building construction, economics and building organization, building physics and chemistry, geodesy and cartography, etc.).
The most important project related to the Civil Engineering collection is the Center for Building Heritage in Plasy aimed at displaying and providing a study depository for construction components, structures and materials located on the premises of the former monastery brewery there that is now undergoing renovations.