The opening of the exhibition will be on November 23. Museum director Irena Tronečková told ČTK.
The museum was founded in 1893. Its founder was Antonín Večeř (1853–1941). “He became a sort of ‘coordinator’ of collections for the landscape exhibition in 1893, then he also concentrated collections, ethnography, furniture for the exhibition in Prague, which took place in 1895. And when the exhibits from that exhibition came back, he took care of them, packed them and stored them on the farm school grounds. You can say that this is how our museum was created,” said Tronečková.
The status of the museum was confirmed by the city only in 1917. It never got its own building. It was moving from an economic school to a real gymnasium. In 1930, it acquired premises in the town hall building. After 1948, it moved to the castle. “It was a really quick move, because the museum staff had to do it in three days,” said Tronečková. At the same time, the museum already had 11 rooms available at the town hall. The museum did not leave the castle even after 1995, when the original owners got the castle back in restitution.
From the beginning, the museum has mainly been dedicated to national history activities. Thanks to the construction of the highway, which is within sight of the castle, it was also involved in road construction for some time. “In the entire premises of the second floor of the castle, an exhibition about (highways) D1 and D2 was created, it was opened in November 1980. Then that specialization began to recede into the background again, and in 2006 we returned to our original name, the Velké Meziříčí Museum, and we are focusing again more for the region,” said Tronečková.
The museum in Velké Meziříčí in Žďársk is a contribution organization of the city, this year it managed with a budget of 5.8 million crowns. Similar to other castles, it is open from May to October, when people can view the castle exhibition, including the bedroom of Emperor František Josef I, who stayed in Velké Meziříčí in 1909 during the imperial maneuvers. Museum exhibitions are also accessible in the main season, in which the collection of cubist furniture has an important place. It was designed by the architect Pavel Janák for František Záviška, a native of Velkömeziříč, a professor at Charles University.
During the winter, only the exhibition hall remains in operation, in which the museum’s anniversary exhibition will be accessible with a Christmas break until the end of January next year.
10,400 people visited the museum this year, about 15 percent more than last year. The long-term intention of the museum, which according to Tronečková is limited by the fact that it is not located in its own premises, is to repair and use the city granary for the museum’s needs. For now, there is a study of the repair of the granary as well as a scenario of future exhibitions, on which the museum collaborated with Professor Michal Stehlík.
