The collections of the Czech National Agricultural Museum date from the World Fair (or Jubilee Exhibition) held in Prague in 1891. After the exhibition closed they were part of a museum of ethnography but the agricultural museum became a separate institution in 1918. The collections were subsequently displayed in various locations until a magnificent museum building was constructed in 1937-39 in the Letná area of Prague, close to the National Technical Museum. It was designed in the Modernist style by the architect Milan Babuška (1884-1953). During the Second World War it was occupied by Nazi forces and after the war was put to different uses for nearly 50 years while the collections were displayed in other parts of the then Czechoslovakia. The museum returned to the building in 1994. It includes a permanent exhibition illustrating the history of the food industries in the Czech lands during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as a display of the institution’s twenty most important artefacts, including portable engines, tractors and threshing machines. The museum has four branches in other parts of the Czech Republic. The Museum of the Czech Countryside at Kačina shows the evolution of agricultural techniques, including displays of agricultural implements and demonstrations of rural crafts. The branch at Cáslav is also concerned with machinery and has one of the largest collections of tractors and ploughs in Europe. Forestry, fishing and hunting are the themes of the museum at Ohrada, while that at Valtice is concerned with horticulture and vineyards.
National Agricultural Museum
Národni Zemĕdĕlské Muzeum
Kostelni 1300/44
17000 Prague
Czech Republic
+420 (0) 220 - 308200
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