Culture in the Czech Republic: Prague's museums

This beautiful Functionalist building dating from the 1920’s is home to the very rich art collections of the 20th and 21st centuries of the National Gallery. The exhibitions present works from every field of art: paintings and sculptures of course, but also graphic design, architecture, design, industrial art, stage design …

It is one of Prague’s pre-eminent museums, where you can see masterpiece after masterpiece, particularly in the first halls dedicated to 14th century sculptures and paintings, the century of Charles IV, a golden age for artistic creation in Bohemia.

Prague, a Baroque city, is renowned for its sumptuous palaces, the St Nicholas Church or the sculptures adorning Charles Bridge. A lesser known fact is that the city also shelters an incredibly rich collection of Baroque paintings and sculptures, with quite a few masterpieces still unknown to most foreigners.

Walking down the Celetná street, you won’t be able to overlook the House at the Black Madonna, Prague’s first Cubist building. It was designed by Josef Gočár between 1911 and 1912 as a manifesto for modernity on the Old Town’s boundaries. Don’t hesitate to walk through its beautiful gate to discover the Czech Cubist art collection ...

Mere steps from the entrance to the Prague Castle, the big Baroque Palace formerly owned by the counts of Sternberg is home to part of the National Gallery’s European collections.
If you stay in Prague for more than just a few days, you will enjoy a visit in this museum, as much for the exhibited collection as for the ...

The long prospect from the lower part of Wenceslas Square up to the National Museum is one of the most famous sights of the Czech capital city. The majestic Neo-Renaissance building is home to very rich natural science collections (zoology, mineralogy, anthropology…) and natural history collections (prehistoric and numismatic collections…).

Prague offers plenty of opportunities to enjoy some music, from the world renowned Spring festival to the countless little concert halls, which keep alive its age-old musical tradition all through the year. The Czech Museum of Music, although little known to foreign visitors, shelters true gems that ravish eyes and ears…

The Sova watermill, a picturesque building on the Kampa island that was several times rebuilt since the Middle Ages, is home to the city’s most dynamic and contemporary modern art foundation, the Museum Kampa. You will find among others a rich collection of works by František Kupka and Otto Gutfreund.

Are you seized with lassitude when you see the countless Bohemian glass shop-windows that appear all over Prague? Come rediscover decorative arts and design by visiting a museum dedicated to these fields. It displays diverse and fascinating collections.

The old Jewish town, razed to the ground during massive renovation works at the turn of the 19th century, doesn’t exist anymore strictly speaking. Apart from the old Gothic Old-New synagogue that you can visit independently, the other historic synagogues are administered by the Jewish community within a single structure: the Jewish Museum in Prague. Its rich collections belong ...

At the turn of the 16th century, the Emperor Rudolph II of Habsburg, passionate collector and great patron of the arts, put together in Prague the greatest art collection in Europe, with a renown that crossed Czech borders. The Thirty Years War, which was accompanied by ransacking and looting, scattered for ever this huge collection. What remains, although it was ...

The present day look of the Prague castle is the result of an age-old history, and the stages of its construction are sometimes difficult to grasp for those who visit it for the first time. The exhibition Story of the Prague Castle is thus more than welcome and constitutes an enriching introduction to the visit of the castle itself.

Alphonse Mucha is particularly renowned for his work created during his Parisian period (1895-1904). He remains the unchallenged icon of the 1900’s spirit for his feminine figures that incarnate in the best way the collective idea of “our” Belle Époque. But we cannot forget that Mucha is first and foremost a Czech artist, virulently attached to his country and ...