Czech museum exhibition grand opening set for April 17-18

Finishing touches are being completed as one piece of the flood-recovering Czech Village readies to open this weekend.

A grand opening is set for Saturday at the Kosek Building, 87 16th Ave. SW, a new location for the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library.

The building will house a multimedia exhibition: “Rising Above: The Story of a People and the Flood,” with free admission both Saturday and Sunday.

Museum staff moved into the building in March.

“We're all very excited to be back in Czech Village,” museum president/CEO Gail Naughton said. “This is our first big step back.”

The staff had been in temporary quarters at Frank N. Magid Associates in Marion since the museum, next to the Cedar River at 30 16th Ave. SW, was inundated with 8 feet of water in June 2008.

Naughton said she is grateful for the Marion company's hospitality.

The museum building, visited by three presidents during its dedication in 1995, has been cleaned and will be lifted and moved nearby this fall or next spring.

That building, with a new addition, is expected to open in late 2012.

In the meantime, the 9,600-square-foot Kosek store has been transformed for the museum with basement classroom, office and storage space, a museum store and upstairs office space.

Naughton pointed to woodwork and other details that retain the building's sense of history.

The Viktor family opened the two-story building in 1910 as a dry goods store.

Its best-known incarnation was Kosek's Dime & Dollar Store from 1946 to 1979. Pre-flood, it housed the Music Loft.

Funding for the $2 million project came from the state I-JOBS program, donations from the Czech Republic and corporate and individual gifts.

“Rising Above” tells the history of Czechs and Slovaks in Cedar Rapids and the Floods of 2008.

An interactive scale model of the cityscape of Cedar Rapids compares the flood to previous floods of 1929 and 1993.

News stories, video and eyewitness accounts will carry visitors through moment by moment, culminating with a walk-in model of a flooded house.

Naughton said the exhibit will help visitors and future generations understand the epic flood and demonstrate why the national Czech museum is in Cedar Rapids.

FYI:  The grand opening of the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library exhibition, "Rising Above: The Story of a People and the Flood," will be Saturday and Sunday, April 17 and 18, at 87 16th Ave. SW.

Admission is free from noon to 4 p.m. each day.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday. Iowa Gov. Chet Culver will attend, along with Marek Skolil, Consul General of the Czech Republic in Chicago and Czech Embassy Cultural Attaché, Jana Racova.

Musical guests will perform before and after the ribbon cutting.

After opening weekend, admission will be $6 adults, $5 seniors, $2 children 5 and older, and free for members and children younger than 5. Regular hours will be 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays to Saturdays.

Information: (319) 362-8500 or

www.NCSML.org