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Museums and Galleries

Prague does not have a large, comprehensive museum similar to the Louvre. The riches of the National Gallery and the National Museum are spread across several buildings.

Photo on the cover: Evgeny Viktorovich Dontsov / Photobank Lory
LeMi Shop of LEGOObchod
Created by an enthusiast, this is the private museum of a very popular Danish construction toy. The entire exhibition features about one million Lego pieces. Children particularly enjoy the sections devoted to Harry Potter and Star Wars, but the museum also has the Prague airport made of Lego.
Národní, 362/31Staré Město, Praha 1, Praha, Hlavní město Praha
Šternberský palácKnihovna
This is another part of the National Gallery collection. Most notably, it features several dozen paintings by top masters, including Tintoretto, Brueghel, Durer, Rembrandt, Rubens, El Greco, Van Dyck, Goya and others.
Hradčanské náměstí, 15/57Hradčany, Praha 1, Praha, Hlavní město Praha
Veletržní palácVýtvarné výstavy / Galerie
The collections of the National Gallery in Prague are stored in multiple locations, the largest and most interesting of which is showcased in the Trade Fair Palace—a modest building built in the 1920s in functionalist style. This is where European art of 19th–21st centuries is stored. The exposition on the first floor includes works by Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt, Joan Miró, Edward Munch, and others. On the second floor, visitors can view 20th century Czech art, and on the third floor, great, mostly French 19th–20th century artists, including Delacroix, Degas, Gauguin, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec and others. The fourth-floor gallery features Czech art from the late 19th – early 20th centuries. And finally, the top floor is for temporary exhibitions of contemporary art.
Dukelských hrdinů, 530/47Holešovice, Praha 7, Praha, Hlavní město Praha
Klášter svaté Anežky ČeskéVýtvarné výstavy / Galerie
The Convent of Saint Agnes in Prague is where the National Gallery stores and exhibits medieval art of Bohemia and Central Europe. Those who want to understand the Czech Republic better should go there to get acquainted with original works by Master Theodoric, one of the key artists in the history of Czech art. Master Theodoric depicts saints in severe Gothic surroundings, yet they have unexpectedly touching, humane faces with soft, massive features.
Na Františku, 831/18Staré Město, Praha 1, Praha, Hlavní město Praha
Národní muzeumAdministrativní budova
This is the largest Museum in the Czech Republic. It is an enormous Neo-Renaissance building from the late 19th century, situated at the end of Wenceslas square and richly decorated with allegorical sculptures. It houses the Natural and Historical Museums and a library. The Museum is currently under renovation and is set to reopen in 2018. In the meantime, guests can visit its branches in different parts of the city.
Václavské náměstí, 1700/68Mezibranská, 1700/6Legerova, 1700/71Nové Město, Praha 1, Praha, Hlavní město Praha
Národní technické muzeumMuzea / Historické stavby
The Museum was founded in 1908—a time when people could hardly believe the world’s technological achievements as they first began enjoying cars, airplanes and other fruits of progress. The museum was recently renovated. The first large hall features an exhibition of cars and motorcycles, railway equipment and aircraft. The following halls showcase collections of photographic equipment, clocks and watches, typewriters and other items. Additional rooms are dedicated to the chemical and metallurgical industries.
Kostelní, 1320/42Holešovice, Praha 7, Praha, Hlavní město Praha
Lapidárium Národního muzeaMuzea / Historické stavby
The Lapidarium is a branch of the National Museum that houses original sculptures from the streets, churches and buildings of Prague, which were replaced by copies in order to protect them from the adverse effects of time and weather. Thousands of sculptures, including the original statues from the Charles Bridge, are stored there.
Výstaviště, 422Bubeneč, Praha 7, Praha, Hlavní město Praha
Uměleckoprůmyslové muzeumAdministrativní budova
This small museum showcases beautiful items from the olden times. The Neo-Renaissance interior displays a collection of glass, ceramics and porcelain, clothing and accessories. Lovers of lace and embroidery will particularly enjoy seeing this collection.
17. listopadu, 2/2Josefov, Praha 1, Praha, Hlavní město Praha
Muzeum hlavního města PrahyMuzea / Historické stavby
This museum shows the history of the city through household items, from clay pots to knights’ armor. The most informative exhibit is a cardboard model of early 19th century Prague spanning an area of 20 sq. m. The streets were recreated with detail down to the trees and benches. The model includes, for example, the Jewish district of Josefov as it appeared before the congested, insanitary buildings were replaced with modern ones in the early 20th century.
Na Poříčí, 1554/52Nové Město, Praha 8, Praha, Hlavní město Praha
Muzeum Policie ČRMuzea / Historické stavby
This is one of the cheapest and least promoted museums in Prague, but those who find it are usually very pleased. Apart from uniforms and motorcycles from different periods, batons and other special equipment, files and evidence from high-profile cases, there is also a visual explanation of forensic work, among other things.
Ke Karlovu, 453/1Nové Město, Praha 2, Praha, Hlavní město Praha
Stará čistírna odpadních vodMuzeum
The first features of the Prague sewage system appeared in the early 14th century. The system was developed to its current form in the 19th century, and the Museum was founded in the early 1980s. The main attraction of the Museum are the old underground dungeons, which visitors can tour.
Papírenská, 199/6Bubeneč, Praha 6, Praha, Hlavní město Praha
Židovské muzeum v PrazeMuzea / Historické stavby
One of the largest Jewish museums in Europe, this museum includes all the attractions of the Jewish quarter Josefov. Among these are several synagogues and the old cemetery comprising piles of thousands of gravestones. A single ticket provides admission to all of these places. The Museum was founded in 1906. It is believed that during the Nazi occupation, when over 75,000 Czech Jews were killed, the founders of the Museum were able to save the archives and the building by presenting them to the Germans as a chance to see a Museum of an extinct race. Today the Museum has exhibitions of household and religious artifacts of Czech Jews, archival documents, and drawings by child prisoners of concentration camps.
U Staré školy, 141/1Josefov, Praha 1, Praha, Hlavní město Praha
Národní památník hrdinů HeydrichiádyMuzea / Historické stavby
The crypt of the Orthodox Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius houses a Museum and monument to saboteurs who blew up Reinhard Heydrich, the head of the Nazi protectorate in the Czech Republic, in 1942. Nicknamed “The butcher of Prague”, Heydrich was terrible even by Nazi standards. His murder was a major event of the Czech Resistance. After the successful assassination, some of the saboteurs hid in the Church on Resslova Street. Taking revenge for Heydrich, the Nazis shot about 1,500 people. Given away and surrounded, the saboteurs committed suicide, and the priests who helped hide them were executed.
Resslova, 307/9aNové Město, Praha 2, Praha, Hlavní město Praha
Franz KafkaMuzeum
It is hard to imagine how this anxious genius would react if he had found out that he would turn into a souvenir character, reprinted on t-shirts and magnets. But this really could not be avoided since Kafka was Prague’s most famous writer. His Museum exhibits documents, manuscripts and letters. The modest exposition is compensated by the Museum’s design as an attraction, “Inside Kafka’s mind”, with dusky lighting, eerie sounds in the corners, a maze made of office boxes to remind guests of Kafka’s hatred of bureaucratic work, and bleak video installations reproducing the mood in early 20th century Prague.
Cihelná, 635/2aMalá Strana, Praha 1, Praha, Hlavní město Praha
DoxUmělecká galerie
This is a Modern Art Gallery, effectively integrated within a former industrial building. The gallery shops offer a great selection of art albums.
Poupětova, 793/1Holešovice, Praha 7, Praha, Hlavní město Praha
FuturaVýstavní galerie
This museum boasts three floors of contemporary art. However, the exhibition begins right in the courtyard, with the “Brown-nosing” sculpture by David Černý, the creator of the peeing men in front of the Franz Kafka Museum and the crawling infants on the Prague TV tower. This is the most straightforward, satirical and wicked work by Černý, with two five-meter tall, headless, nude men exposing their backsides for kissing, with ladders leading to their buttocks.
Holečkova, 789/49Smíchov, Praha 5, Praha, Hlavní město Praha
RudolfinumGalerie
If you are interested in modern contemporary art, during your visit to Prague you should inquire about the current exhibition at the Neo-Renaissance interiors of this gallery. This is where high-profile exhibitions, such as those of Andy Warhol or Damien Hirst, take place.
Alšovo nábřeží, 79/12Staré Město, Praha 1, Praha, Hlavní město Praha
Galerie Josefa SudkaVýtvarné výstavy / Galerie
This gallery is stored in the house where the famous Prague photographer and one of the founders of the Czech school of photography lived in 1960–1970, right until his death. Here visitors can see works by Sudek, with his very tender and watchful view of Prague during the first half of the 20th century, as well as works by other photographers who captured the spirit of the city.
Úvoz, 160/24Hradčany, Praha 1, Praha, Hlavní město Praha
Muzeum komunismuMuzea / Historické stavby
This museum offers a look at the past without nostalgia, featuring household items from the times of socialist Czechoslovakia, busts of the leaders, and installations showing the stores with empty shelves and interrogation rooms. A separate hall is dedicated to the Soviet invasion of 1968. At the museum gift shop, guests can buy shirts with the bear—the symbol of the Soviet Olympics, armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, candles in the form of Lenin’s head, and the like.
V Celnici, 4Nové Město, Praha 1, Praha, Hlavní město Praha
Muzea / Historické stavby
There are so many tourists looking for a thrill and entrepreneurs eager to make money off of this that Prague already has two museums of torture showcasing originals and copies of medieval instruments of torture and execution.
Celetná, 558/12Staré Město, Praha 1, Praha, Hlavní město Praha
Administrativní budova
This is a recently founded, commercial Prague museum targeting tourists. The museum collection contains old and modern sex toys, including enormous old sex machines designed for self-pleasure, BDSM paraphernalia, an iron chastity belt dating back to the 16th century, and terrible devices used a hundred years ago to wean teenagers off masturbation. There is also a cinema showing vintage porn movies from the early 20th century. Reviews of the Museum are mixed and inconclusive.
Melantrichova, 476/18Staré Město, Praha 1, Praha, Hlavní město Praha