The founder of the museum

"I am often asked by the visitors of Spolecenske centrum how an idea of founding the museum came across my mind and where all the exhibits come from or how long I had been searching for them"

The idea to create an exposition of old traditional crafts came in the autumn of 1996 when I first stepped into the empty floors of the Baroque granary in Nový dvůr. Centuries-old massive frame-works and plank floorings offered in the evening gloom seemingly large areas to use. I think that the space itself expressed then, what it would like to be in the coming years. I remembered the memories of the interior of the mill in "Granny's valley" in Ratibořice, where we were making school trips. It occurred to me to place in the similar interior more crafts than just a miller. At that moment I did not know to what extent I and my colleagues would manage to create a museum.

Exhibits come mainly from the Eagle Mountains. I was hunting for them using my knowledge of the region and looking at advertisements. Expositions of individual crafts I drew in plans of then two floors of the granary. The installation of machinery itself was then performed in 6 weeks (!). At that time we had not more time. The museum was opened on May 18th, 2000, two years later was even extended to the third floor.

Positive evaluation of the project of maintaining heritage of our ancestors by the vast majority of visitors to our museum obliges me to further service improvement, and on the basis of their proposals also to further extension of expositions and creating more options for tourists to spend time in the area of Nový dvůr.

In April 2007 the museum area, therefore, was extended to mechanical workshops in the ground floor of the neighboring building. Further extension occurred in 2009 and 2010, when the vehicle depot and the manufacture for children were opened. Not even now all plans have been made.

Since 2009 we have been organizing a big "CRAFT SATURDAY", bringing together interesting craftsmen from all over the country. I thank to everyone who helped me to carry out this plan in any way. I thank to all museum visitors for their opinions, advice and assistance. I also thank to those who offered or helped to get sometimes very rare machines and equipment which enriched the whole collection of the museum. We are still interested in machines which have not been included in expositions yet. I am really delighted with high appreciation of Museum of Crafts in a competition of tourist destinations "Ceny Kudy z nudy" (Escape from Boredom awards), organized by the agency CzechTourism. I very much hope that visitors would not regret the entrance fee, which must be used to cover all related costs. I hope that Museum of Crafts visit does not disappoint you and enrich your knowledge.

Pavel Tacl