Printing
The journeys of polygraphy from Gutenberg to digital printing.
In this exhibition visitors can find in one place a number of unique printing machines and devices that have accompanied polygraphy over the course of its almost 500-year development from Gutenberg's invention of the letterpress to today, which presents a selection of the most interesting objects from the printing collection of the National Technical Museum collected over the last 150 years of its existence.
Printing, which is associated with the production of books, magazines, newspapers and other printed matter, has an extraordinary place in the Czech lands. Book culture and the printed word were closely connected with the formation of modern national consciousness. Through the machines and equipment on display, visitors to the exhibition have the opportunity to learn about the development of the main printing technologies and follow their technical development from the invention of letterpress up to the present day. Original period printing and typesetting machines are displayed in this space with an architectural design reminiscent of the authentic atmosphere of the industrial environment of a printing house. Due space is devoted to the Czechs, Jakub Husník and Karl Klíč, who significantly influenced the development of printing with their inventions.
The collections include a handmade printing press from the Jesuit printing house in Prague from the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries and a MAN rotary printing press from 1876, made for the Governor’s Printing House in Prague. This piece is the first machine of its kind used in Bohemia and one of the few preserved in Europe.
Part of the exhibition is furnished as a workshop in which individual printing operations can be practically demonstrated or graphic works, drawings, paintings can be created, or teaching courses can be conducted.
We have also prepared new games for you to explore the secrets of old methods of polygraphy. In the games created by Jakub Mareš you can try out the procedures involved in individual printing techniques, directly with the help of advice of their inventors. There you can find: the key to the heliogravure, Gutenberg's letterpress and Senefelder's lithography.
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