NTM: FROM OUR TIMES TOWARDS FUTURE
Today, the National Technical Museum has a status of the
central museum of the Czech Republic and the scientific
institution with the documentation, presentation,
methodological, and information functions. The basis of its
activities are the collections that have been created as the
nation's memory. They amount about 60,000 filing items
(comprising several times as high the number of individual
objects), majority of them being stored in depositories on
about 13,000 m2 because 9% only of the collection objects
are shown in permanent exhibitions. The collections
include such unique objects as astronomical instruments from
the 16th century used by Tycho Brahe, the first Czechoslovak
car, some of the oldest daguerrotypies in the world and many
other unique items. The scope of collections and
difficulties associated with the care of them can be
documented by about 100 railway vehicles owned and partially
operated by the National Technical Museum. The collections
also encompass a large archive of history of technology and
industry including 3,500 running metres of archival items
and the library with about 250,000 books. The collections,
archival items and and book funds are not only presented to
the public on permanent and temporary exhibitions but also
through educational and professional programmes; the
publication activity of the Museum is oriented in this
direction.
The Media Library of the Museum has been established that
makes it possible to study written, audio and video sources
on traditional as well as most up-to-date digital multimedia.
The status of the National Technical Museum implies also its
liabilities with respect to the future. This relates not
only to short-time planning of the Museum activities within
one or several years but also to establishing a strategy of
the institution with the outlook to 10 to 50 years. Here, it
is necessary to join the philosophical disputations on
heading of the society, the discussions evoked by the
approaching end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st
century, the entry to the new millennium of the human
mankind history. As it has been shown by current
disputations, the mankind expects not only technical but
also spiritual changes, the changes that would bring not
only material but also spiritual satisfaction of our needs,
that would bring back the spiritual integrity of man. Within
this framework, the National Technical Museum reveals its
activities already today: through creating bridges between
two cultural paths, between science and technology on one
hand and art on the other. This is facilitated by creating
a special gallery for presentation of tech-art: computer
graphics, video-art, multimedia presentations, kinetic art,
as well as the directions and tendencies associated with
material technologies, such as paper art, textile art, etc.
The exhibition programme of the Museum also tenaciously
supports presentation of photographic art, a significant
attention is paid to architectonic exhibitions. A direct
connection of technology and fine arts is design; here,
after establishing the collection department and arranging
the exhibition of industrial design, we will continue in
introducing the evolution of the Czech design art: after the
period 1900-1940, the current exhibition 1940-1960, the next
stage will be devoted to the works from 1960-1980. Moreover,
actual trends in design will be presented and distinguished
Czech and foreign designers will be introduced in separate
exhibitions.
Major part of disputations on the mankind future is oriented
on reasoning on development of information systems of the
global network type associated with general digitalization
of data. Here, it should be stressed that the National
Technical Museum does not conceive this trend as an
objective for itself but as a tool for elaborating and
improving its activities, beginning with care of the
collections (creation of a valid complex computer database
of collections, including video records of unique items),
via presentation activity (multimedial inputs and outputs on
exhibitions, collective presentation of the National
Technical Museum on Internet) to editorial outputs (the
Museum's own video records and CD-ROMs, including not only
scientific studies and catalogues but also accompanying
materials of exhibitions). New media and technique are
finding their assertion in the National Technical Museum
even today. However, the enhanced vision associated with the
future is creation of the Museum of 4th generation: an
interactive continuous field of the cultural history where
a Museum visitor can, through "cyber-space" including
virtual reality, transit from real exhibits to the view of
the society and the live style of particular period.
In the near future, the National Technical Museum shall face
more concrete and more prosaic tasks. In the care of
collections, it is necessary to complete the inspection of
the whole collection fund, of a particular importance is
preparation and accomplishment of the design of construction
of the central depository. In the field of scientific
activities, works will proceed in elaborating, preparing and
issuing the collection catalogues. An important task for the
years to come will also be editing and issuing of the Studies
in technology in Czech lands in 1945-1992. These
works should also become a base for systematic acquisition
policy of the Museum; here we count upon collaboration and
coordination with universities and Czech industry, the
Partners' Club should also be helpful. The orientation of
presentation activities has already been discussed; the
nearest permanent exhibition to be opened should become the
interactive History of communications (or, if you prefer,
From telegraph to satellite communications). The synthetic
exhibition World of technology should be realized in
a farther future. Here, science and technology should be
presented as a continuous way of adventure of cognition from
the invention of wheel to, let say, the design of space
shuttle, in the integrity and linkage to metamorphoses of
the whole society. A long-time schedule of the project is
caused not only by an obvious professional and financial
challenge but also the fact that realization of the
exhibition is connected with building of a new pavillon in
the neighbourhood of the stone building at Letna. All the
above mentioned projects, including the already commenced
contemplations on the central depository and the new
building of the Museum, should help the National Technical
Museum in keeping its position as a central institution also
in the future and in fulfilling its commission: the care of
cultural heredity of the nation in the field of science and
technology.
Ivo Janousek , iso@ntm.anet.cz