Mgr. Karel Ksandr has devoted his entire professional life to history, art and technology. He has gained work experience in the management of many “national” institutions. He tries to explain the history of technical development at home and abroad. Since 2010, he has been the Director General of the National Technical Museum.
Your museum, which has a rich history, is a testament to the technical skill and advanced industry in the Czech Republic. How can learning about the history of technology influence creating innovative thinking in today’s managers?
Learning about the history of technical development is always an important lesson, and, of course, it also brings many innovative insights that seem new to us but have been used before. The basic idea of the development of technical thinking presented by our museum was defined by one of the founders of this museum, Dr Josef Gruber, who wrote in 1908: “Historical-technical collections are not meant to be a dead storehouse, but always a living source of technical instruction, a monument to the past and a spur encouraging progress for the future, a museum and an institute of education and teaching.”
The museum has the epithet “national” in its name. Do you manage to present these national values abroad?
Yes, absolutely. First of all, this can be seen in the traditional participation of the National Technical Museum at the EXPO world exhibitions. The National Technical Museum was presented for the first time at the EXPO 1986 World exhibition in Vancouver. Our museum then participated in the EXPO 2015 World Exhibition in Milan in 2015, and we are currently participating in EXPO 2020 Dubai, where we will present the exhibition project “Technology Tree”, which will take visitors back to the beginning of the history of technology and explore selected human tools. The Czech Republic and the Czechs have made their mark on the history of world science many times in the past, and that is why we will exhibit selected Czech inventions of global signifi cance.
The COVID-19 era certainly brought changes to the museum’s activities. How do you use modern technologies in the presentation of your work and how do they facilitate visitors’ access to the museum?
The COVID era was perhaps a great challenge for all of us. But it was also a valuable experience that allowed us to improve our online communication as well as our remote working and public relations skills. We have made significant progress in the virtual access to the museum’s exhibitions, providing those interested in the museum with modern virtual tours of the NTM’s main building, and we are currently preparing tours of the exhibitions at the NTM Plasy Building Heritage Centre and the NTM Railway Depository in Chomutov. We have also started to use social networks more. In 2019, the fi rst streamed opening in our museum took place — it was for the exhibition “ADOLF LOOS COSMOPOLITAN”. Even before COVID-19, the NTM collaborated with GoodShape to create a mobile app called the “National Technical Museum”. Thus, we try to use modern technologies and communication methods as much as possible, although they are no substitute for a personal visit to the museum.
Thank you for the interview
