Restored Michael's Tower prepares for re-opening. (source: MMB/Dominika Bolgáčová)
After more than two years of reconstruction, people will soon be able to visit Michael’s Tower again. The Bratislava City Museum (MMB) is already preparing for the grand reopening of one of its most popular sites, planned for September.
However, the Museum of Weapons will not return to the tower. This despite historian and MMB curator Michal Augustovič believing that it made sense to have this museum in the tower and that it was a well-designed exhibition in its time. Nowadays the approach to handling historical premises such as Michael’s Tower is different. While in the past they were seen as spaces where something could be exhibited, today the emphasis is on the premises themselves, on how they looked in the past and what purposes they served.
“We didn’t want to enter that space with any significant interventions; I will simply say that we didn’t want to clutter it up,” said Augustovič during a guided tour of the tower as part of the MMB Spoiler summer programme. Four groups of visitors were given the opportunity to peek inside Michael’s Tower before its official reopening.
The first exhibition in the reopened tower will focus on its restoration. Through this temporary exhibition, the MMB wants to present the reconstruction of Michael’s Tower in detail, to allow visitors to learn about this construction and understand the logic of these premises. It will include a number of interactive elements that will enable visitors to look at the roof of the tower with the help of modern technologies.
The next exhibition will focus on Michael’s Tower, which in its time, due to standing on a small hill, was the tallest building in Bratislava, as part of the city fortification.
“There will be some showcases, of course, and maybe some weapons, too,” said Augustovič.
