The renovation of the National Museum for four billion will begin next year

Prague - The National Museum will newly open spaces in the basement during its four-year reconstruction, will open a viewing platform in the dome, and will connect with the building of the former Federal Assembly through a tunnel, which it already manages. It will gain double the exhibition space compared to today and will be able to showcase many exhibits that are currently in storage. The costs of the reconstruction, including the construction of the tunnel, will be 3.8 billion crowns, and together with preparation and moving, it will reach 4.5 billion crowns. Museum representatives said this to journalists today.
    The building on Wenceslas Square from the late 19th century is in a state of emergency - it has never been significantly repaired, but has been fundamentally damaged several times. "Fire safety measures do not function, the building threatens itself, its exhibits, and visitors," said museum director Michal Lukeš. The priority of the repairs is thus the rescue of the national cultural monument, the connection of the old building with the new facility, and the creation of new permanent exhibitions. During the reconstruction, traces of bullets from the occupation in 1968 should also finally disappear from the facade.
    The museum will close to the public next June, and the reconstruction is expected to begin at the end of next year. After opening in 2015, the museum management promises visitors a unique museum complex, whose pillar will be a new permanent exhibition. It will connect natural science and social science exhibitions and, using modern technologies, will reflect the relationship between humans and the landscape from various perspectives.
    Spaces for temporary exhibitions will be expanded, and visitors will find a new cafe, a museum shop, and a children's corner. Previously inaccessible inner courtyards of the museum will also be utilized - they will receive glass roofs, creating halls for exhibitions and other events. In addition to one elevator for persons with reduced mobility, which has been in the museum from the beginning, making it the first barrier-free building in Prague, three more will be added, and disabled individuals will also be able to drive their cars up to the courtyard and then continue to the exhibition by elevator.
    Before repairs begin, thousands of exhibits must be moved to storage in Terezín and Horní Počernice, where even the most famous one, the blue whale, will wait out the reconstruction.
    The museum's management is also striving to change the situation where the museum building is an island in the middle of a highway. They are trying to negotiate with Prague and the Road and Motorways Directorate to have a part of the highway separating the museum from Wenceslas Square buried in a tunnel. The approximately 800-meter-long tunnel would cost 12.7 billion crowns, with the state expected to contribute eight billion. However, economic ministers paused negotiations on possible state funding in May, while the Ministry of Finance had already expressed discontent that the state should pay for a construction in Prague.
    The financing of the reconstruction of both museum buildings comes from a programme of care for the national cultural heritage approved by the government in 2006. The government programme finances several Czech state cultural institutions' reconstructions or new constructions of their premises.
    By 2017, it plans to invest ten billion crowns, of which two billion came from the abolished National Property Fund, with the rest gradually from the state budget for the given years. The programme also finances the revitalization of the National Library (NK) area in Klementinum, which replaced the originally intended new building. Together with the construction of storage facilities in Hostivař, the work will cost three billion, and the NK aims to have it completed by 2015.
    The programme also includes the construction of a new building for the National Film Archive, which was to begin construction in 2013 and cost around 345 million crowns, a new storage facility, the reconstruction of the historical building of the Applied Arts Museum, and a storage facility and extension to the current seat of the National Technical Museum.
    A significant investment by the state in this area was the recent construction of the National Technical Library in Prague Dejvice. It opened last September and cost over two billion crowns. The National Theatre plans to reconstruct its facade for 160 million crowns, with the first phase of repairs expected to start this year.