The central theme of the new exhibition at the St Nicholas Bell Tower is safety and security, referring both to the tower’s past as a watchtower that warned of fires and to its history under the communist regime, when members of the State Security Service established an observation post there. The exhibition also includes the tower keeper’s apartment, a black kitchen and a wallpapered room. Visitors can learn more about the tower’s role in Czech history and now also play and listen to the sound of the St Nicholas bell, weighing more than 300 kilograms, which summoned the inhabitants of Lesser Town to mass and warned them of disasters from the 16th century onwards. A new audio guide, available in Czech and English, also brings to life stories associated with the history of the site. The tower keeper’s apartment is a functionally designed apartment where a municipal employee lived while on duty, often with his entire family. The apartment illustrates the living standards of the lower social classes in Prague in the second half of the 18th century. It was not a particularly comfortable space, and its occupants often complained about the cold and difficulties with heating. The living quarters consisted of rooms typical of the period: a living room and a utility room known as the black kitchen. The living room served as a place for rest, dining and work. The arrangement of the furniture reflects the apartment’s orientation towards the sun, its layout in terms of movement and practical use, and the customs of the period. The simple furnishings and tiled stove represent the modest living conditions of a municipal employee. The black kitchen was a standard space for cooking and heating in all types of residential buildings of the period. It consisted of a simple smoke hood through which smoke escaped (here a vault with a wooden lintel known as a mantel beam), a cooking platform, and openings for feeding fuel into the stove and for smoke escape. The watch room served as the tower keeper’s base while on duty. Its interior is designed to reflect the first half of the 19th century. The bell tower served as a municipal watchtower until 1 December 1891, when its function was discontinued. The exhibition also includes a view of the Baroque sewerage system. The bell floor, with its bell frame and the St Nicholas bell dating from 1576, now features an exhibition dedicated to the Bells of Remembrance project, which regularly commemorates, through the ringing of bells, the lives of men and women who stood up against totalitarian regimes. The wallpapered room is a unique example of housing for the poor, with no comparable space having survived elsewhere. The built-in wooden structure originally served as the apartment of an assistant watchman. The original wallpapers, or rather decorative papers supplemented by sheets of newspapers and magazines forming an insulating layer, were covered with wood-wool cement boards in the 1960s and were therefore not discovered until surveys were carried out in 2016. The revitalised room authentically reflects the lives of Prague’s lowest social classes at the end of the 19th century. The State Security Service observation post is located at the top of the tower. In the second half of the 20th century, the room was used by the Security Service primarily to monitor the movements of people near Western embassies. Its code name was Kajka, but it was informally known as Dědkostroj or Dědkárna, as the observation posts were often staffed on a part-time basis by retired Security Service officers. The exhibition designers have preserved the authentic decorations in the observation post. Information panels on every floor feature QR codes that visitors can use to listen to the audio guide. The changing nature of safety and security over time is narrated in Czech by actress Antonie Formanová and in English by musician Charlie One. Prominent Prague-based creators contributed to the new exhibition at the St Nicholas Bell Tower. The exhibition’s concept was developed by writer Vratislav Maňák. The “Guardian of Safety” exhibition opened to the public on 6 October 2026. More