Pantheon of the National Museum

The Pantheon of the National Museum is one of the most beautiful halls in the Czech Republic due to its artistic decoration. The architect Josef Schulz (1890) ambitiously designed the architecturally noble interior of the ceremonial hall in his project. The interior of the Pantheon impresses not only with its overall architectural and artistic execution, including the decoration of the walls and portals and the pavement with a dynamic radial pattern, but also with a portrait gallery of busts and statues of personalities who contributed to cultural and scientific life in Bohemia. The Pantheon houses a total of 54 bronze statues and busts and two portrait marble busts of the imperial couple, Franz Joseph I and Elisabeth of Bavaria (Antonín P. Wagner, 1891). The vaults are dedicated to the monumental lunettes by František Ženíšek – The Calling of Přemysl the Ploughman to Rule, St. Methodius Completes the Translation of the Holy Scriptures in Velehrad Before His Death in 885 (1903), Václav Brožík – Charles IV Founds the Prague University in 1348 and Jan Amos Presents His Didactic Works to the Amsterdam City Council in 1657 (1898), and paintings in the pendentives by Vojtěch Hynais – Power and Progress, Inspiration, Art, and Science (1899–1900). The Pantheon's glazed painted dome with the head of Bohemia in the center was restored during the museum's reconstruction (2015–2019) according to original preserved 19th-century documentation. The Pantheon auditorium has always served not only for museum purposes but also for ceremonial gatherings and meetings, and it was also a place where memorial services were held and from which funerals of outstanding personalities of the Czech nation were dispatched, such as the statesman and second president of Czechoslovakia Edvard Beneš, politician Karel Kramář, poet Alois Jirásek, or writer Eliška Krásnohorská.

Augmented Reality in the Pantheon

In the National Museum in your Pocket mobile application, visitors have access to the virtual augmented reality Pantheon: Living Roots. Thanks to cooperation with Česká spořitelna and the use of modern technologies, it offers a unique experience that connects the past with the present. Through the application, in the spaces of the Pantheon of the National Museum, you will be transported into augmented reality, which will introduce you to important personalities of our history and allow you to experience a new dimension of visiting the National Museum. When you open the application upon entering the Pantheon space and point your mobile device at any place in the Pantheon, you will see the Pantheon's augmented reality on the display, dominated by a mature tree representing the key historical stories of the Czech Republic: The Story of Truth, The Story of Women, The Story of Money, The Story of Science, The Story of the Homeland. These gradually unfold before you in the form of spoken word and text, depending on how you move through the Pantheon space. At the same time, the application displays individual personalities of the Pantheon in augmented reality as soon as you point your mobile device at one of them.