Museum of puppets Chrudim — Attraction in okres Chrudim

The Museum of Puppets opened in 1972 in a renaissance building called the Mydlar House. It was built by a Chrudim burger Matej Mydlar in 1573-1577 and a little minaret-like tower was added later by his son Daniel. The museum funds were based on a private collection of Prof. Dr. Jan Malík (1904-1980), an inexhaustible organiser of events connected with puppets, a practical puppeteer, historian, pedagogue and collector. He also asked each UNIMA (Union Internationale de la Marionnette) national centre to donate a sample of their national puppets to the museum. Over the first 30 years, the museum collections grew in size and new additions continue being made. Today the museum owns about 8300 puppets and some 43600 other models (stage designs, decorations, graphic art inspired by puppetry, posters and programmes, photographs, manuscripts, publications and many more). A performance with puppets, as any other stage performance, is a transient experience. It is alive only at the time of acting. That is why we must be all the more thorough in assembling any and all available material on the art of puppetry, records, and, today, also videorecordings. What can be preserved is the puppet itself. It is true that it cannot tell us much about the quality of the performance, but it is a work of art in itself. It may attract you by its expression, it may be a demonstration of the techniques used, various national puppet traditions, and the characteristic style of its creator and carvers. It may be quite an emotional experience just to look at it. All of these are the reasons why there is such a museum such as this one which collects and deals with documents related to the development of Czech and, as far as possible, international puppetry, and exhibits puppets both in its own premises and other places in the Czech...

This place is a very nice museum for adults that can read some information, as for children that can approach the museum in more playful way. There are actually few inside playgrounds/rooms for children to run around freely so you don't need to be afraid that they will be bored. The place consists of both temporary and permanent exhibitions, making it interesting for visitors that are returning to the museum repeatedly. The wifi at the place was not working at all and the interactive system was trolling me and my boyfriend at the time of our visit, making the interactive parts of the exhibition not usable. As the result, anything connected to a computer or phone was just not working. Hopefully, it will get fixed soon, if it hasn't happened already. Staff working at the place is very nice. There is a shop that you will go through as the last stop of the museum, creating an opportunity for you to buy some...

We arrived late at Chrudim, but we still wanted to visit the museum - even to just have a taste of it and quick look at what is available - we have heard it is an interesting place. We enter the building at 4.20 (with 40 minutes still available before the closure), but without even being greeted, we were told that we cannot enter because it is too late, so we cannot visit the museum and we have to come next day. Well, it is very unlikely we will ever go to Chrudim again. The museum clearly does not consider hospitality to be a priority. There was no attempt at giving us a chance to even explain anything. Just "Go away, we do...