Subcollection: Science, technology and industrial production

Collection

Collection of the National Technical Museum in Prague

Number of record numbers

44,826 (as of Oct 2006)

Archival documents

No

Cultural monuments

Yes

Territory

The collection mainly comes from the Czech lands. It does, however, according to developmental contexts, cross over into Central Europe and even throughout Europe and the world. Much in the history of technology of advanced countries is represented in the collection objects.

Period

The collection mostly documents the industrialisation period from the onset of the industrial revolution in the first half of the 19th century to present. But it also contains older objects – archaeological finds from the proto-historical and early historical period from metallurgy and mining, astronomical instruments from the 16th century, artefacts and tools of guild metal-working crafts, etc. The collection began to be assembled with the museum’s establishment in 1908, but also contains older artefacts that came from collection activities of the estates engineering school (founded in 1717), the Prague Poly-Technical School (1806), the Association for the Encouragement of Industry in Bohemia (1833), the Czech Industrial Museum (1873) etc. Until nationalisation (1951) the collections consisted of 29 independent specialised groups of the Technical Museum Club, and also the collection departments, established according to the structure of the technological sectors. The collections were first made available to the public in 1910 in the temporary headquarters of the technical museum at the Schwarzenberg Palace in the Hradčany district of Prague, later in the provisional conditions of Prague’s Invalidovna (1941) and, from 1947, in the museum’s new own building on Letná in Prague, where choice exhibits are still on display.

Objects

The NTM collections reflect the history of the Natural Sciences and Technology in our country and are divided into 11 main collection groups (see the more detailed description of the subcollection). The groups are further divided into 56 collections. The collections of railway technology and collections of architecture, Civil Engineering and industrial design, which are registered in the CES of the Czech Ministry of Culture as separate collections, are detached from this collection. The collections consist mainly of original objects that document both the development of production technology (mining, metallurgy, chemistry, food industry, engineering, etc.) and final products (engineering, transportation, consumer goods industry, photo-cinema, etc.) The collection also features numerous models of machines and production equipment that cannot be documented differently in the museum due to their size. Most of the objects are metal, but a considerable number of them are made from mixed materials. The type composition of objects is very diverse and defies brief description. The NTM's web pages provide a detailed characterisation. The collection consists of 44,826 entry records.

A detailed description of sub-collections

From a departmental perspective the subcollection and its main collection groups (11) contains these collections (56): the Exact Sciences group 6 collections (Astronomy, Geodesy, Mathematics, Physics, Maps Collection, Music Machines), the Chemistry and biotechnology group 3 collections (Alchemy, Laboratory Equipment, Applied Chemistry), the Food Industry group 5 collections (Sugar Industry, Brewing Industry, Spirits Industry, Milling Industry, Other Foodstuffs), the group Mining 6 collections (Historical Mining Technology, Present-day Mining, Geology and Mineralogy, Geophysics, Diving, Photo-documentation of the history of mining), the Metallurgy group 5 collections (Iron Metallurgy, Metallurgy of Non-ferrous Metals, Mechanical Engineering Metallurgy, Artistic Cast Iron Works, Blacksmithing and Locksmithing), the Mechanical Engineering group 7 collections (Engines, Mechanical Engineering Technology, Measurement in Mechanical Engineering, Chronometric Technology, Clockmaker Technology, Non-electrical Lights, Work Safety), the Electrical Engineering group 6 collections (Energy, Measuring Technology, Electrical Lights, Telecommunications, Electronics, Information Processing Machines), the Acoustics group 4 collections (Electro-acoustic Transducers, Sound-recording equipment, Audio carrier media, Measuring sound and vibrations), the Transportation group 6 collections (Aviation, Boats, Automobiles, Hippomobiles, Motorcycles, Bicycles), the Photography-Cinematography group 4 collections (Past Processes of Photography, Instruments and Accessories of Photography, The Prehistory of Cinematography, Instruments and Accessories of Cinematography) and the Consumer Goods Industry group also 4 collections (Printing, Writing Technology, Textile Technology, Household Technology).