Výroční zpráva Národního muzea za rok 2010 - Národní muzeum

výroční zpráva 2010 XV. English Summary < > 1131.A Word from theGeneral DirectorPhDr. Michal Lukeš, Ph.D.2010 was a momentous year for the National Museum inmany ways and one of the biggest ongoing events of the yeareven had a special name – “Ball of Lightning”. What was thisabout? It was all about getting ready for the start of a majorproject, which is the total reconstruction of the museum’shistoric home. There were a number of project milestones,which had to be met in 2010 – including all the preparationsfor moving both collections and personnel from the existingbuilding and ongoing planning and design for the newlyreconstructed facility. There were millions of items in thecollections which had to be moved and hundreds of museumstaff to be relocated and re-housed. As can be imagined,both efforts required special care. Collection items had tobe cleaned and properly prepared for transportation and forstorage in new depositories.New offices had to be found and furnished for our employeesso the work of our different departments could continue withthe least possible interruption. A great deal of this relocationwork was completed in 2010. Hundreds of thousands of itemsfrom the collections of the National Historical Museum andthe National Museum Library were moved to new depositoriesin Terezín and Zbraslav. The collections of the Natural HistoryMuseum were moved to depositories in Horní Počernice. And,last but not least, the fourth major department of the NationalMuseum, the Czech Museum of Music, also had to prepare torelocate its collections to the newly acquired central depositoryin Litoměřice.All the hard work preparing for these various moves and theactual relocation, which took place in 2010, almost unbelievablywent off without any hitches and on schedule. A big thanksfor this must go to all of the participating employees at theNational Museum who made an astounding effort, well-beyondthe call of duty and well-beyond regular working hours; and, allof this under conditions in which the employees themselveswere also moving out of their regular offices in the historicalbuilding to the new National Museum building or to its newfacilities in Horní Počernice.Thanks to all this continuing hard work, I am sure that in 2011,when the whole relocation is behind us, we will be able to lookback and see a job-well-done that was completed on schedule.At this point, the historical museum building will be readyfor actual reconstruction work to begin. Also, the conditionsfor the storage of the museum’s collections will have beensignificantly improved – as the storage conditions in the oldbuilding were far from ideal and there really wasn’t enoughspace. This had been a decades-old problem, which is nowfinally being solved.The relocation of collections and staff was preceded byextensive reconstruction of the Terezín II depository, whichincluded the installation of new storage systems and newtechnical equipment. The offices in the new building had to beprepared to receive entire museum departments and this had tobe done in such a way that the work of staff wouldn’t be undulyinterrupted. Everything was finished in good order and on-timefor which extra big thanks must go to all of the employees in theplanning and logistics departments of the museum. 2010 wasan extremely busy year for everyone in these departments.Almost in contrast to what might have been expected with themuseum being so focused on its need to prepare and relocateto new facilities, the museum actually had a great year interms of exhibitions and public attendance. In 2010, a majorexhibition by the Natural History Museum entitled “The Storyof Planet Earth” continued in the historical building, which wasfollowed by a second exhibition, “Old Czech Legends”. Thissecond exhibition was put together by the National MuseumLibrary as its last major offering to the public in its historichome. A unique exhibition was opened in the new buildingoffering the public a chance to see all of the most interestingitems from the museum’s Moravian collections. The show called“Treasures of Moravia” was put together with the assistance ofthe Moravian Provincial Museum.Not to be left out of the spotlight in 2010, the NationalMonument in Vítkov staged a very successful exhibition titled“Golden? Sixties – Memories and Reality”. The show was verywell attended by visitors and helped establish this new facilityin Prague as the place to go to learn about 20th centuryhistory.The Czech Museum of Music also made its own splash in 2010with its Beatlemania project, which, with its accompanyingprograms, almost doubled the museum’s regular attendancefigures.The Ethnographic Museum prepared a special exhibition forvisitors in 2010 titled “Modern Czech Legends”.Exhibition projects by the National Museum in 2010 were notonly very successful, but also broke new ground and broughtnew, modern and often atypical exhibition trends to Czechmuseums. The exhibitions held at the museum’s individualfacilities were thematically related and they were also relatedin terms of promotion and marketing activities. The NationalMuseum thus launched a new strategy for communication withvisitors in which the museum will concentrate on a uniform andcoordinated presentation of all its exhibition buildings duringthe closure of the main historical building for reconstruction.Another project called “Fun Museums” was also put togetherto start in 2011– which is designed to increase the interest andinvolvement of both children and their parents and teachers inmuseum programs.While 2010 was a very successful year in terms of exhibitions atthe National Museum, it was not a year without its downside.This was directly related to funding cutbacks that were a resultof the global economic crisis. As we look ahead to 2011, wehave to expect these budget constraints to continue. Themanagement of the National Museum will continue to do all itcan to minimize the impact of budget cutbacks on staffing andoperations. The museum will continue to provide the strongestpossible support to the sciences and will continue to providestrong support to its new exhibitions program. Similarly, theNational Museum doesn’t want to slowdown or cutback on