The Nikola Tesla Technical Museum () is a

technology museum A technology museum is a museum devoted to applied science and technological developments. Many museums are both a science museum and a technology museum, and incorporate elements of both museum genres. The goal of technology museums is to educ ...

located in

Zagreb Zagreb ( ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, north of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the ...

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

, which collects and showcases scientific and technical appliances used in the country's history. It exhibits numerous historic

aircraft An aircraft ( aircraft) is a vehicle that is able to flight, fly by gaining support from the Atmosphere of Earth, air. It counters the force of gravity by using either Buoyancy, static lift or the Lift (force), dynamic lift of an airfoil, or, i ...

car A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people rather than cargo. There are around one billio ...

machinery A machine is a physical system that uses power to apply forces and control movement to perform an action. The term is commonly applied to artificial devices, such as those employing engines or motors, but also to natural biological macromolec ...

and equipment.

History

The Technical Museum was founded in 1954, officially opening to the public on the 14 January 1963. on Savska street. The creator of the concept of this museum was Božo Težak, then a professor of at the

Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb Faculty of Science (,lit. the Faculty of natural sciences and mathematics abbr: ''PMF'') is a faculty of the University of Zagreb that comprises seven departments - biology, physics, chemistry, mathematics, geophysics, geography and geology. Th ...

, who visionarily conceived the Museum as a combination of a scientific center and a classic complex museum of technology. Professor Težak's vision is reflected in his concept of the Technical Museum, which, in addition to the basic content of a classic museum with a display of original exhibits from the field of technology and engineering, acts as an educational center for teaching a better understanding of natural sciences and technology. From the very beginning, the concept of the Technical Museum was focused on the

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

and

education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...

, as well as lifelong learning and informal education, which coincided with the new paradigm of post-war European and American museums. The history of the location at Savska cesta 18 is interesting and connected to the area of operation of the Museum. Namely, the first tram depot of today's ZET ( Zagreb Electric Tram) was located exactly on the Museum's location from the end of 1891 until the construction of a new depot on

Trešnjevka Trešnjevka is a neighborhood of Zagreb, Croatia. Forming one of the city's inner neighborhoods, it is located in the city's southwestern area. At approximately 15.67 km2 in area and a population of slightly over 121,000, it is one of the most ...

in 1936, as evidenced by the discovery of a tram track excavated during works in the Museum's courtyard.

Visits

In 2012, the museum had 125,000 visitors. In 2013, it had over 118,000 visitors, and was the most visited museum in Croatia. With 141,000 visitors in 2018, it was the 7th most visited museum in Croatia. In 2023, the museum recorded almost 260,000 visitors, of which 31,500 were from abroad. In June 2015, the City Assembly of the City of Zagreb decided to rename the Technical Museum after

Nikola Tesla Nikola Tesla (;"Tesla"
. ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ; 10 July 1856 – 7 ...

Features

The museum maintains the oldest preserved

steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs Work (physics), mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a Cylinder (locomotive), cyl ...

in the area, dating from the mid-19th century, which is still operational. There are various distinct sections in the museum: * the

Planetarium A planetarium (: planetariums or planetaria) is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation. A dominant feature of most planetariums is ...

, used to be run by Ante Radonić * the

Beehive A beehive is an enclosed structure which houses honey bees, subgenus '' Apis.'' Honey bees live in the beehive, raising their young and producing honey as part of their seasonal cycle. Though the word ''beehive'' is used to describe the nest of ...

exhibit * the

Mine Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to: Extraction or digging *Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging *Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine Grammar *Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun M ...

, model of mines for

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

and

non-ferrous metals In metallurgy, non-ferrous metals are metals or alloy An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which in most cases at least one is a metal, metallic element, although it is also sometimes used for mixtures of elements; herein only meta ...

, about long * the

Nikola Tesla Nikola Tesla (;"Tesla"
. ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ; 10 July 1856 – 7 ...

study. The Museum organises educational, study, informative and occasional exhibitions, lectures and panel discussions on popular science, as well as playrooms and workshops.

Exhibits

In the permanent exhibition, 14 thematic units are presented with a number of sub-themes:

Energy transformation Energy transformation, also known as energy conversion, is the process of changing energy from one form to another. In physics, energy is a quantity that provides the capacity to perform work (e.g. lifting an object) or provides heat. In addit ...

, Means of

transport Transport (in British English) or transportation (in American English) is the intentional Motion, movement of humans, animals, and cargo, goods from one location to another. Mode of transport, Modes of transport include aviation, air, land tr ...

Mining Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...

geology Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) and lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturate ...

with a mine model, Museums Land surveying-cadastre office, Demonstration cabinet Nikola Tesla and Firefighting on the ground floor and

Astronautics Astronautics (or cosmonautics) is the practice of sending spacecraft beyond atmosphere of Earth, Earth's atmosphere into outer space. Spaceflight is one of its main applications and space science is its overarching field. The term ''astronautics' ...

with

Agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

, Apisarium (demonstration bee hives) and the Department and info center Renewable sources and energy efficiency on the floor of the large exhibition hall A. On the third floor there is and the exhibition Open Doors, where materials from a number of collections are presented that are not represented in the permanent exhibition and are presented with a "look" into the collection. The permanent exhibit dedicated to renewable sources and energy efficiency (2013), as well as the renewed exhibit on nuclear energy (2014) and the Info corner on radioactive waste (2016) are dedicated to current topics and issues of both science and technology as well as society as a whole. In addition to more than 3,000 objects exhibited in the permanent exhibition, the Museum's storage rooms store thousands of objects that are not presented to the public. A smaller number of these objects relate to the collections represented in the permanent exhibition, while a significantly larger number of objects belong to collections, i.e. areas of technology such as:

Computer technology Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and the development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientif ...

, Gramophones and

tape recorders An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present ...

Radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...

and

television technology The technology of television has evolved since its early days using a mechanical system invented by Paul Gottlieb Nipkow in 1884. Every television system works on the scanning principle first implemented in the rotating disk scanner of Nipkow. ...

, Telegraphs and

telephones A telephone, colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that enables two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most ...

, Household technology,

Textile technology Textile manufacturing or textile engineering is a major industry. It is largely based on the conversion of fibre into yarn, then yarn into fabric. These are then dyed or printed, fabricated into cloth which is then converted into useful goods s ...

Medical technology Health technology is defined by the World Health Organization as the "application of organized knowledge and skills in the form of devices, medicines, vaccines, procedures, and systems developed to solve a health problem and improve quality of liv ...

, X-ray technology,

Instruments Instrument may refer to: Science and technology * Flight instruments, the devices used to measure the speed, altitude, and pertinent flight angles of various kinds of aircraft * Laboratory equipment, the measuring tools used in a scientific lab ...

and teaching aids,

Still image An image or picture is a visual representation. An image can be two-dimensional, such as a drawing, painting, or photograph, or three-dimensional, such as a carving or sculpture. Images may be displayed through other media, including a project ...

projectors A projector or image projector is an optical device that projects an image (or moving images) onto a surface, commonly a projection screen. Most projectors create an image by shining a light through a small transparent lens, but some newer typ ...

, Photographic technology, Cinematographic technology, Crafts, Sound carriers, Writing and text reproduction technology,

Electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...

Metallurgy Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the ...

Steam engines A steam engine is a heat engine that performs Work (physics), mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a Cylinder (locomotive), cyl ...

Lighting Lighting or illumination is the deliberate use of light to achieve practical or aesthetic effects. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources like lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing daylight. ...

Office equipment Office supplies are consumables and equipment regularly used in offices by businesses and other organizations, required to sustain office operations. For example, office supplies may be used by individuals engaged in written communications, rec ...

and supplies, and others.

References

External links