Guided tour of the Paris Room of the Croatian School Museum

A guided tour of the Paris Room of the Croatian School Museum, which found temporary accommodation in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb after the museum was closed due to the damage suffered in the 2020 earthquakes.
The Paris Room, which was part of the permanent exhibition of the Croatian School Museum, is an exceptionally valuable cultural and historical ensemble with which the education system of the Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia was presented at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900. The historicist furniture was made, to designs by the architect Herman Bollé, by pupils of the Royal Provincial Crafts School in Zagreb, while the watercolours with motifs of educational and cultural institutions were painted by well-known Croatian artists of the time such as Slava Raškaj, Oton Iveković, Celestin Medović, Bela Csikos Sesija and others. The display cases contain pupils’ works and albums of photographs of school games and scenes from school life, as well as a “school map” showing all the schools in the kingdom. Today the Paris Room is part of Croatian cultural heritage and, together with the grand prix medal from the World Exhibition displayed within it, has borne witness to the history of Croatian education for more than 120 years.