Museums, Zagreb

The Museum of Arts and Crafts is situated right across the National Theater & it's celebrating its 125th anniversary. The Hidden Treasure exhibition represents everything that's been going on in the Museum from its foundation up to today, especially focusing on those unseen items, those who haven't even left the museum storage rooms The exhibits cover everything from paperclips to evening dresses, from the famous Cul de Paris to Alvar Aalto's famous chairs.

Unfortunately, this exhibition is orientated towards local population, so there's nothing written in English [which I find absurd in the 21st century]. However, there are guides who can show you around & another option of calling a machine that tells you an item's story. I went there with a group & we had a really good guide who introduced us some very interesting details...

The exhibition contains some amazing black & white photos, commercials from the advertisement beginnings, the world-wide-known Pag & Lepoglava laces, jewelry, furniture, glass, paintings, graphics, altar statues, cutlery, books, clocks, dishes, souvenirs etc.

The museums permanent exhibition provides a survey of the history of the art styles, forms & techniques that reflect Croatia's economic & cultural life & its background in art production.

From the original idea for it to be "a collection of specimens for master craftsmen and artists who must advance once again the production of utility and artistic objects, so deprived by the appearance of machines and industrial processing", the , with its 160,000 exhibits, today acts as the national museum of artistic production and history of material culture in Croatia. It is located in the building erected for the purpose back in 1888, designed by Hermann Bollé, the famous architect in Historicist style.

This is also one of the must-see buildings in Zagreb. It is situated between HNK and hotel Opera, near the city centre. Not only it's beautiful from the outside,it has a special value inside. It consists of more than 3 750 works including sculptures,paintings, crafts and much, much more.
Don't surprise to see skateboarders in front of it...it's their favourite place to skate.

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It's hard to give an opinion about this museum. I like the building and there are some really nice pieces inside. The thing is that with modern art, you can never know, it's quite subjective, so I guess you should discover it on your own ;)

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The Technical Museum will delight anybody who has the faintest interest in matters technological. it is an absolute cornucopia of anything mechanical. There are locomotives, old cars, trams, fighter planes, boats, old fire engines, steam engines and even a real submarine. Would you believe they even have a live beehive made out of perspex with a tunnel to the outside world so you can see the bees doing their thing?

I can't even begin to tell you the number of fascinating things in there - perhaps my favourite was the three seater motorbike, I've never seen anything like it in my life.

Admission is inexpensive (I can't remember the exact amount) but your Zagreb card (see seperate tip) attracts a good discount.

When I was there, there were lots of groups of schoolchildren there, and I think any child would love this place.

Perhaps the best way to show you this place is throught the photographs, and to this end I have posted a travelogue on my Zagreb page. this perhaps will give you some idea of what I'm talking about.

An absolute must when in Zagreb.

Quite impressive building from the outside....with nice park full of flowers on the back side...
As for the inside...host of many exhibitions and a restaurant (form the back side...entrance from the park)

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Housed inside a converted palace is a large collection of artefacts and paintings acquired by Ante Topic Mimara. As well as items from around the world and from all ages there is a large gallery in which you can find art by the likes of Manet, Rembrandt, Degas and a stunning painting by Renoir. The Renoir of a woman bathing just dominates the room and I spend a while just admiring it.

This was probably one of the best museums I visited on my trip around Eastern & Central Europe. The museum takes you through the history of Zagreb from its foundations through to its modern appearence. There are a lot of artefacts and displays and all the information is in English as well. At one point there is a large scale model of what Zagreb used to look like and there are also temporary exhibitions such as one on Zagreb sporting achievements.

I highly recommend any vistor to the city to spend an hour or so here to find out about the city history and find out what makes it tick.