In the National Technical Museum, the 150,000th visitor was welcomed

Prague - The National Technical Museum in Prague, located in Letná (NTM), welcomed its 150,000th visitor this morning since its reopening after more than four years of renovation in mid-February 2011. The lucky visitor was Lukáš Salák from Kojetice near Prague, who came to the museum with his four-year-old son Kryštof. General Director Karel Ksandr presented him with honorary tickets and a book about the museum's history.
    The first steps of the jubileeing visitor led to the renewed transport hall, which brings the history of automotive, motorcycle, cycling, aviation, shipping, and railway transport in the Czech Republic closer through exhibits that smell of oil. The photographic studio is also attractive, as well as the new printing exhibition and remarkable exhibitions dedicated to astronomy, architecture, construction, and design.
    "In the first month since the opening, 43,000 people visited the collections of the technical museum, and as we can see, interest in them is lasting," said Ksandr to ČTK.
    For the first time in its more than seventy-year history, the NTM building is entirely designated for museum purposes. Covering 5,500 square meters, it showcases over 5,000 exhibits documenting the history of human ingenuity. Interested parties can also find interactive elements in some exhibits. For instance, in the transport hall, children can touch a locomotive, and on the first floor, they can have their photo taken on a castle guard motorcycle. Notably, there is a polished Tatra 80 from 1935, used by President Masaryk, an aircraft that Jan Kašpar flew from Pardubice to Prague in 1911, and the Supermarine Spitfire fighter from 1945.
    The photographic studio also displays a rare daguerreotype of the Royal Palace in Paris from 1840, and the new printing exhibition contains authentic exhibits. It shows the development of key technologies from the invention of printing to the present, including a manual press from the Prague Jesuit printing house from the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries and a roll-fed printing machine MAN from 1876. It is the first of its kind in Bohemia and one of the few preserved in Europe.
    Among the most attractive exhibitions is the astronomical one. Visitors find themselves in a dimly lit glass maze, where unique items float in space, reminiscent of glowing celestial objects. They can view sundials, navigational aids, devices for measuring the sky, and telescopes from the 15th to 20th centuries.
    The ongoing restoration work at NTM, which will conclude its third phase in Spring 2012, has cost 370 million crowns, with the creation of exhibits costing an additional 130 million.