Uměleckoprůmyslové museum v Praze

In the Czech and international context, the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Prague collects, processes and preserves the past and present of crafts, applied arts and design for the future. He believes in combining utility with quality and beauty, he wants to be an inspiration, a lesson and an experience. The Museum of Applied Arts and Crafts in Prague is a place for innovative education that conveys the importance of applied art and design in connection with architecture and art disciplines.

The Chamber of Commerce and Trade, which opened in 1875 a small but permanent exhibition of handicraft items in today's Platýz on Národní třída. As elsewhere in the world, efforts to preserve arts and crafts were linked to the emerging era of mass machine production. When Česká spořitelna offered the Chamber of Commerce exhibition space in the newly opened Rudolfinum, the museum could actually be founded. This happened in February 1885, when the museum's activities were launched with the first proper exhibition in the Rudolfinum, in 1886 the first permanent exhibition was opened, and a year later the library and study room were made available. In the years 1897 – 1898, the rough construction of the museum's own new building was carried out according to the project of Josef Schulz in the style of the French Neo-Renaissance. It was built on a purchased plot of land between the old Jewish cemetery and Sanytrová street on the outskirts of Josefov. The construction was carried out by the firm Schlaffer and Hübschamnn.

Work was carried out on the interiors until 1900, when the first floor of the museum with collections and the public library was inaugurated. The generosity of the museum's patrons and supporters made the generous decoration of the building and interiors possible. The window arches on the main facade of the building are decorated with reliefs of craft emblems by Antonín Popp and Bohuslav Schnirch. On the first floor, basketry, goldsmithing, locksmithing, lacemaking, weaving, tinsmithing, silversmithing and bell-making are depicted, on the second floor there are cartouches with symbols of cities that became famous for individual artistic crafts. The interior decoration was designed by Josef Schulz.

Among the most famous patrons of the museum were the president of the Chamber of Commerce Bohumil Bondy, the former chairman of the curatorship of the museum Václav Němec, the imperial councilor Josef Wohanka and others. Among other things, the most generous benefactor, successful collector and excellent connoisseur knight Vojtěch Lanna donated half of his own rare glass collections to the museum, which still makes it possible to present a detailed development series of glass monuments from antiquity to the present day. This collection of glass is one of the largest in the world. The first custodian and director of the museum was the art historian dr. Karel Chytil, who also worked in the Commission for the Inventory of Prague Monuments and, as its member, co-created the first monument care system in Bohemia. The second director was briefly the historian of art and book culture František Adolf Borovský, followed by František Xaver Jiřík and Karel Herain, who significantly involved the museum in supporting the Czech Republic. design and applied arts.

During the occupation, when the building was taken over by the German aviation company Junkers, the collections were stored in various places in the Czech countryside, in the National Museum and elsewhere. In 1949, the museum was nationalized, in the years 1959-69 it was connected with the National Gallery, since 1970 it has again been an independent institution established by the Ministry of Culture.

The museum manages collections of glass, porcelain and ceramics, used graphics and photography, textiles , fashion and design, furniture, watches, as well as a collection of precious and common metals, rare materials, jewelry, toys and a lot of written and pictorial documentation. Currently, the museum has half a million collection items from antiquity to the present, located in the central depository (2014 – 2016), the historical building underwent renovation and modernization in 2014 – 2017).