The Paper Restoration Department was created by merging the department of Drying Frozen Archive Documents (VZA) and the Paper Restoration Studio. The VZA was established in 2004 as a specialised workplace for the manual drying of archive documents damaged by the flood in 2002. In May 2005, the Czech Committee for UNESCO assumed the patronage of the project of manual drying of archive documents. In 2006, the jury of the Gloria musaealis competition awarded the documents drying workplace 3rd place in the category of Feat of the Year 2005. In August, 2011 the drying was completed after nine years. But this workplace will continue to provide consultancy and advisory services for the public and other institutions.

The need to restore select rare plans and designs damaged by the flood arose with the rising number of dried archive documents. Therefore in 2009 there was opened the Paper Restoration Studio, which specialised in conserving and restoring large planning documentation. The workplace was established with the financial support of the Czech Ministry of Culture and donations from the Friends of Old Prague Club – SOS Architecture Archives.

After the drying process was completed, the Paper Restoration Department also focuses on the conservation and restoration of collection objects of a paper nature (graphic sheets, posters, mining and astronomy maps, globes, historical photographs or negatives, etc.), stored in the NTM’s collections and archives. This mainly consists of their preparation for transfer and long-term storage in the new depositories in Čelákovice, as well as the preparation of documents for display purposes at permanent exhibits.

Collaboration with the NTM’s laboratories is a great advantage for this department; the laboratories conduct various types of analyses (FTIR material composition, optical microscopy) that help determine the various techniques, bonding agents or pigments. This is important for both restoration and for preventative conservation.