Construction work has been completed at the North Bohemian Museum in Liberec

Liberec - After two years, construction work at the North Bohemian Museum in Liberec has ended, and exhibitions have started to be prepared. The museum is expected to open to the public this September, as stated by the museum director Jiří Křížek.

The museum has been closed since January 2018 due to modernization costing 143 million crowns, primarily focusing on interior work. The architecture of the building, constructed 122 years ago, will remain unchanged after the reconstruction, but the exhibitions will radically change and the building will be barrier-free. The construction has already been accepted. "Including unfinished parts and defects, which will be rectified by mid-May. Concurrently, the exhibitions are already being prepared,” Křížek noted.

According to the original plans, the museum was supposed to open by the end of last year, and the reconstruction costs were not expected to exceed 100 million crowns. However, during the course of construction, it was found that some parts were in worse condition than the builders had anticipated. This was particularly true for the floor in the main hall, for which it was necessary to unexpectedly create a foundation of compacted gravel, waterproofing, and ventilation. It also turned out, for example, that there are at least three generations of different electronic security system and fire alarm wiring in the walls of the museum that no longer meet current standards.

According to Křížek, builders did a lot of work during the reconstruction that visitors would not notice from the outside. The technical equipment of the museum will be improved; there will be air conditioning, and new sewer and water connections will be provided. "Still, there is a lot that has not been done. What worked and would last for years, we did not change. I believe, however, that it will be quite nicely prepared for visitors,” said the director. In the future, it will be necessary to replace the heating systems, and the museum would also like to revitalize the park. "We are currently looking for funding for it; it hasn't been touched in 30 years. And we want to repair the underground depository as well,” Křížek added.

The North Bohemian Museum in Liberec was founded in 1873 as an applied arts museum and is the oldest museum of its kind in the Czech lands. It changed locations several times until 1898, when the construction of the building, where it is still located today, was completed. The building, in a romantic historicist style, combines elements of sacred and palace architecture. For the ongoing renovation of its interior spaces, the region, which is the museum's founder, received a European grant of nearly 100 million crowns.