Award of the Gloria Musaealis for the project of the Centre for Architectural Heritage Plasy

Prague - Representatives from the museum in Ústí nad Labem, the Museum of the Capital City of Prague, and the National Technical Museum today received the Gloria musaealis awards in Smetana Hall of the Municipal House, presented during the XIV. edition of the eponymous national competition. The award from the Czech Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) was awarded to the West Bohemian Gallery in Pilsen for last year's exhibition dedicated to Gottfried Lindauer (1839-1926), a Pilsen painter of New Zealand Maoris. It was noted as an example of deep and enriching international cooperation.

In the category of Museum Exhibition of the Year 2015, the Ústí nad Labem museum won for the exhibition titled "Back Then in the Northwest. The Year 1945 in Ústí nad Labem and Its Surroundings," which addressed the controversial theme - the turning events at the end of World War II and the first post-war months. The jury appreciated the balanced view of this period, including the documentation of the tragic impacts of Allied bombing or the violence inflicted on the German population after liberation.

The publication titled "Graves of Barbarians in Prague-Zličín. The World of the Living and the Dead in the Migration Period," by authors Jaroslav Jiřík, Jiří Vávra, Miroslava Šmolíková, and Milan Kuchařík, published under the auspices of the Museum of the Capital City of Prague, won in the second category. It presents to the public, against the backdrop of the history of the late antiquity and the migration period in Europe, the results of extensive archaeological research of a 5th-century burial site. The text is accompanied by rich photographic and illustrative material.

The annual Gloria musaealis award in the category assessing the museum achievement of 2015 was given to the National Technical Museum for the project of the Center for Architectural Heritage Plasy. It was made accessible last September, revitalizing and currently optimally utilizing part of the area of the national cultural monument, which is the complex of a brewery of the former Cistercian monastery. The grounds offer exhibitions, displays, a specialized library, and practical demonstrations of various building trades, including educational programs for schools.

"The Gloria musaealis competition took place for the fourteenth time. Over eighty projects were submitted by 72 museums and galleries from across the Czech Republic," said Anna Komárková, the Executive Director of the Museum and Gallery Association, to ČTK. The ceremonial act took place on the very day of the International Museum Day.

According to the competition director Irena Chovančíková, its purpose is to highlight the top performances of museum institutions and individual professionals in the field of museology. "In creating exhibitions and new displays, presenting museum collections in professional publications, or in the rescue and accessibility of objects and sites of our cultural heritage," she stated.

The National Technical Museum along with the Technical Museum in Brno were the patrons of the ceremonial announcement. Czech Radio also participated as a significant representative of the technical progress of society. A novelty this year was the announcement of the first edition of the visitor competition for "museum of the year." The first three places were taken by the Karel Čapek Memorial in Stará Huť near Dobříš, the Moravian Museum with its branch Mendelianum, and the Slovácko Museum in Uherské Hradiště with the branch Memorial of Great Moravia in Staré Město.

More information, including ranking in other places, can be found by interested parties at www.gloriamusaealis.cz.