<Krkonš_Museum>Krkonoš Museum</Krkonš_Museum>

The Krkonošské Museum in Vrchlabí was founded in 1883 as the Riesengebirgsmuseum by the Austrian Krkonošský Club, to: “Explore the nature, history, and people of the Krkonoš and gather collections that document this”. Since 1966, it has been located in the building of the former Augustinian monastery. The layout of the ecclesiastical building does not meet the needs of contemporary exhibitions sufficiently. It was necessary to proceed very sensitively and to find common touchpoints so that, while preserving the maximum values of the monastery building, the exhibition gained as much space as possible for the current storytelling of the mountains.
In the Krkonoš, people and harsh nature have always encountered each other since their settlement. They lived together, influenced and transformed each other. In the classic building of the monastery, we sought the echo of this duality. The ambulatory, as a space originally covered but open to the outside, led us to place the exhibition dedicated to nature, while the cell, as a closed and safe refuge for people, contains information about the history of the mountain inhabitants. And as the route of the exhibition intertwines from the ambulatory to the cells and back, this dual story of the mountains and the people in them also unfolds. The specific position is held by the paradise courtyard, which symbolizes the connection between the earth and the cosmos and its spiritual essence both in the monastery and in the exhibition.
It was necessary to supplement some spaces in the modern museum that the old building did not provide. We proposed a new entrance building for the lecture hall, museum shop, and elevator, as well as sufficient social facilities. To preserve the integrity of the original volumes, we designed it as one of the exhibits that “penetrates” the monastery wall outward, or rather, emerges from the monastery garden. The contrast of the glass cube with the organic shapes of the concrete rock reflects the motto of the entire exhibition, that is, the dialogue between nature and humanity.
With the new entrance, the entire tour route is also newly organized. From the entrance hall, the visitor first descends “into the mountains” by the grand staircase under the cover of rock to calm down and prepare for the exhibition. In the basement, they are transported into the mystery of the mountains and to their greatest treasures. After climbing to the ground floor, they find themselves on a timeline that guides them from the Big Bang and the beginning of the formation of the planet and mountains to the present day.
All new architectural elements in the exhibition are strictly white. The floor, the facades of the set, and the symbolic trunks of trees tell the story of the forest. Large graphic images illustrating the context of the story are in black and white. Real models and exhibits have natural colors, just like the large paintings on the windows of the ambulatory. Real exhibits are displayed outside of traditional showcases as much as possible.

A Walk Through the Museum
The museum has many layers of perception. A quick visual for the visitor who seeks immediate visual stimuli; detailed for those who want to explore individual topics in depth; playful, telling stories in a fun way using real and virtual games, and not just for children; or contemplative, allowing one to perceive less distinct elements, such as the composed scenic music permeating all areas.
The museum can be walked through according to the recommended route, or one can choose just a part (the basement or the 1st floor), or navigate star-like, based on personal interest.



The scenario of the exhibition can be read from the names of the individual rooms:
001_descending into the mountains, two projections of aerial images
002_Krakonoš's cave, the Lord of the mountains in his true, unembellished form
003_vision, a mysterious natural phenomenon supplemented with three forms of mysticism and faith
004_treasures of the mountains, the black treasury of the highest values of the mountains
005_DNA, what can happen when the DNA of nature or human society is disrupted
006_meander of the Elbe, the most protected area of the Krkonoš reduced to an underground hall
007_Úpský waterfall, a scaled-down scenery of the iconic waterfall with live fish in the pools
008_passing by, how easy it is to miss the true essence of the mountains
Entrance to the ambulatory and the timeline. In the first part, the ambulatory does not connect to the cells; this is where the story of the mountains unfolds before the arrival of humans.
011_birthing of the mountains, from the Big Bang to the movement of continental plates that brought the stones of the Krkonoš from the Southern Hemisphere
012_surface of the mountains, through the action of water, wind, frost, and sun
013_arcto-alpine tundra, why the Krkonoš are the southernmost outpost of this biotope
014_primeval forest and the first people, the first cell appears along with the first people, another black treasury, this time dedicated to the greatest treasures of people
015-017_mines, a detour leads back to the basement, to the oldest mines, to small industrialization, crafts, and small-scale production; there is also a children's mine on the playful path of the museum
018_clear-cutting, the forest is felled, establishing meadow enclaves, the highest contemporary values of the mountains
019-020_meadow enclaves, developing meadow agriculture
021_great industrialization, the first large factories, the development of tourism and clubs
022_Sněžka as a phenomenon
023_community pinnacle, society between wars and the invasion of Hitler
024_disruption of DNA, the expulsion of Germans and the disintegration of society
025_socialism, two faces of normalization
026_sulfate devastation, fatal impacts of errors on the organism of the mountains
027_searching for a new primeval forest, learning from blind paths, we seek the way of natural order
028_tribes, contemporary inhabitants of the mountains