Across Europe, immersive cultural experiences have moved from experiment to mainstream, and Czechia is no exception.
A 2021 survey of cultural tourism projects found AR and VR initiatives in all 27 EU member states, showing how digital technology has become part of the way destinations present history, art, and heritage.
Rather than replacing traditional museums, immersive attractions are becoming another way to spark curiosity, allowing visitors to step into historical environments, interact with stories, and experience culture in a more physical and personal way.
Prague has embraced the shift. From a 200-year-old paper model of the city brought to life with digital storytelling to galleries where visitors become part of the artwork, a new generation of attractions is blending history, science, art, and technology.
For visitors looking to escape the heat, wait out a rainy day, or experience Prague beyond its famous landmarks, these spaces offer culture you don’t just look at, but participate in.
History you can walk through
Museum of Prague (Muzeum Prahy)
After a major reconstruction, the Museum of Prague reopened its historic main building with City in Time, an exhibition that uses digital storytelling to explore how Prague has changed over two centuries.
The exhibition combines historical collections with immersive experiences. Visitors can take a virtual flight over 19th-century Prague, seeing landmarks such as Charles Bridge and the Astronomical Clock from above; encounter animated scenes of everyday life from the past; and watch the city transform through time along the banks of the Vltava.
One of the most unusual features uses artificial intelligence to bring Antonín Langweil, creator of Prague’s famous paper model, back to life through an animated portrait.
The centrepiece remains Langweil’s extraordinary city model. Created between 1826 and 1837, the 20-square-meter model contains more than 2,000 detailed buildings and captures a Prague that has largely disappeared. Created over 11 years, it remains an invaluable historical record and is still used by architects and researchers studying the city’s development.
Story of Prague Museum
This three-floor museum turns 800 years of Prague’s history into a walk-through narrative. Using augmented reality, film installations, projections, and a virtual guide, it takes visitors from the medieval city and Renaissance Prague through World War II, communism, and the Velvet Revolution.
Created over three years with input from specialists across nearly 100 fields, the museum blends historical research with the language of cinema, transforming major moments in Prague’s past into an interactive experience rather than a traditional display.
Back in Time Experience
A “time machine” hidden inside the renovated Máj Národní department store takes visitors on a 50-minute immersive journey through 1,200 years of Prague and Czech history.
The experience combines physical sets, holographic projections, surround sound, scents, special effects, and a 5D cinema to recreate key moments from the city’s past. Visitors travel from the legendary founding of Prague through the court of Charles IV, the creation of the Astronomical Clock, the legend of the Golem, and the dramatic events surrounding Czech Radio in 1945 and 1968.
Hands-on Czech culture
NaFilM – National Film Museum
Guests can try historic filmmaking devices including zoetropes, optical discs, flip books, lantern projectors and early film machines that reveal the science behind cinema. The museum also explores Czech animation traditions, including the country’s beloved animated character Krtek (The Little Mole), and connects early filmmaking techniques with contemporary technology through projects such as VR cinema.
Small but packed with things to try, NaFilM offers a different kind of immersion: not stepping into a fictional world, but discovering the inventions and imagination that made those worlds possible.
Mozart Interactive Museum
Mozart’s special relationship with Prague is brought into the digital age at this newly opened museum on Old Town Square.
Prague played an important role in Mozart’s career. The composer received an unusually warm welcome here and premiered Don Giovanni at the Estates Theatre in 1787. The museum explores that connection through a combination of music, storytelling and interactive technology.
Spread across 1,000 square metres over two floors, visitors can conduct a virtual orchestra, play the harpsichord, explore interactive exhibits and use an AI photo experience to see themselves transformed into an 18th-century character.
Karel Zeman Museum
Long before digital effects and computer-generated worlds, Czech filmmaker Karel Zeman was creating cinematic illusions through animation, miniatures and practical effects.
This hands-on museum explores the techniques behind his imaginative films, including The Fabulous World of Jules Verne and Journey to the Beginning of Time. Visitors can experiment with forced perspective, special effects and optical tricks inspired by Zeman’s pioneering work.
Instead of simply explaining film history, the museum lets visitors discover how filmmakers created impossible worlds before modern technology existed.
Art that changes when you look at it
Signal Space
Created by the team behind Signal Festival, Prague’s annual digital art event, Signal Space gives immersive digital art a permanent home.
Visitors move through installations combining projection, light, sound and movement. Some artworks respond directly to visitors’ presence, making the audience part of the work rather than simply an observer.
The gallery’s temporary exhibition Dream On! Where It All Began runs until the end of August and brings some of Signal Festival’s most memorable video mappings back indoors, including projections previously shown on the Basilica of St. Ludmila at Náměstí Míru.
Illusion Art Museum Prague (IAM Prague)
IAM Prague explores how art can change depending on how you look at it. Located between Old Town Square and Wenceslas Square, the museum combines illusion art, anamorphic installations, spatial experiments and Czech-inspired storytelling.
Visitors become part of the artwork, completing optical illusions through movement, perspective and interaction.
New additions include mirror anamorphoses by South African artist Jonty Hurwitz, whose distorted forms transform into images when viewed from the correct angle; Florian Goerlitz’s kinetic work Infinity, which introduces movement and mechanical precision; and Slovak digital artist Andrej Boleslavský’s Liquid Mirror, a responsive artwork exploring the relationship between image, movement, and perception.
Science you can experience
Prague Planetarium
The newly renovated Prague Planetarium is probably the city’s clearest example of immersive science. Reopened after a two-year, CZK 300 million reconstruction, it features the world’s largest LED dome of its kind, 22-meter-wide with more than 45 million display points creating a near three-dimensional view of space without the need for special glasses.
Instead of looking at astronomy as a diagram or lecture, visitors are surrounded by moving images of planets, galaxies, and cosmic phenomena. The result is part classroom, part cinema, and part journey beyond Earth.
Despite the spectacular technology, the planetarium remains focused on education. Live presenters continue to introduce visitors to the night sky and explain the science behind what they see.
Immersive pop-ups in Prague
Immersive pop-up exhibitions bring films, books, and cultural icons to life through recreated sets, interactive technology, and hands-on experiences. They are part of a wider rise in “set-jetting” and pop-culture tourism, as travelers seek out the worlds and stories they know from screens and books.
Beyond nostalgia, these exhibitions can also benefit host cities: research into immersive cultural tourism suggests that more than 60 percent of visitors to such exhibitions are tourists rather than locals, creating a boost for nearby hospitality and retail.
Prague is part of this global trend and currently hosts two major immersive pop-culture exhibitions:
Sherlock Holmes: The Exhibition
This interactive exhibition transforms Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective stories into a hands-on mystery experience. Visitors explore Victorian-style environments, examine clues, and follow the world’s most famous detective through a theatrical investigation.
Harry Potter: The Exhibition
The Wizarding World arrives in Prague with a walk-through experience featuring original props, costumes, recreated settings, and interactive elements inspired by the Harry Potter films and wider franchise. Visitors can explore themed environments and take part in activities that bring the fictional world to life. Opens Aug. 6, 2026; timed tickets required.
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Summary for: 10 immersive experiences bringing Czechia's history, art, and science to life
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