Our tribute to Nikola Tesla: his Zagreb museum, room by room, in 360°
This isn't a demo: it's our tribute to Nikola Tesla. The museum photos are ours; the ones from his time are public domain or freely licensed, each with its author.
The video, recorded live
Nikola Tesla, a tribute: his Zagreb museum all in 360, and Tesla throwing lightning0:22
Who it's for
- Anyone in Croatia who wants to go: how to get there, opening hours and the demonstration in the Cabinet.
- Anyone anywhere else who wants to walk through it from home, room by room.
- Anyone who wants to understand his inventions by touching them, and read his life told with sources.
What's inside
- The Nikola Tesla Technical Museum in Zagreb, all of it in 360°: 315 spots across 16 rooms, with steps from one photo to the next and a guided tour.
- 696 pieces that light up in the viewer and come to the centre, plus a 3D model of the pavilion to pick a room from.
- His inventions in 3D, to touch: the rotating magnetic field, the coil, alternating current, the teleautomaton, Wardenclyffe and the bladeless turbine.
- Tesla at Colorado Springs, 1899: he draws lightning down from the storm and sends it back wherever you tap the sky.
- His life in nineteen chapters, from Smiljan to New York, mapped on a globe, with a source for every fact.
- An archive of photos from his time, and how to visit the museum, in Spanish, English and Croatian.
Nikola Tesla was born in 1856 in Smiljan, in Croatia's Lika, and died in 1943 in New York. He lit up the twentieth century, and he's been our hero for as long as we can remember. This isn't a demo we're selling: it's our tribute. At tesla.themariscal.com you'll find his life, his inventions and the Zagreb museum that bears his name.
The museum, every corner
In October 2026 we walked the Nikola Tesla Technical Museum with a 360 camera and a tripod, and didn't skip a single display case. At each spot we shot twice, with the photographer on a different side of the camera each time, then merged the two so only the museum remains. Then we developed every photo by hand, in the light of its own room. That came to 315 spots across 16 rooms: the main hall, transport, energy, firefighting, astronautics and the planetarium, and the Nikola Tesla Cabinet, where his inventions still come alive. In the viewer you step from one photo to the next, a guided tour stops at what matters, and 696 pieces glow and come to the centre. To start, there's a 3D model of the pavilion: pick a floor, tap a light and you're in.
His inventions, hands on
Six ideas, one at a time, with the piece in your hands: the rotating magnetic field, switched on phase by phase; the coil, with a lamp you bring close; alternating current heading out into the world; the teleautomaton, the radio-controlled boat from 1898; Wardenclyffe; and the bladeless turbine, which turns when you blow on it. Each one with its year and its patent.
Master of lightning
In 1899, at Colorado Springs, Tesla made lightning bolts over forty metres long, according to his notes. On the site he floats at night above that same field, next to one of his coils: he draws lightning down from the storm and sends it back. Tap the sky and he throws one there.
His life and his time
Nineteen chapters, from the parish house in Smiljan to room 3327 of the Hotel New Yorker, with the map of his life on a globe: Graz, Budapest, Paris, New York, Colorado Springs. Told with sources: what's documented, what he said himself and what's legend, each called by its name. Alongside it, the archive: portraits, laboratories, patents and places, every photo public domain or freely licensed, each with its author.
Go and see it
The museum is at Savska cesta 18 in Zagreb, and the site takes you from the globe to the front door: opening hours, the demonstration in the Cabinet and the trams that drop you right outside. Head to tesla.themariscal.com, pick a room and start walking. And if you're ever in Zagreb, go in person: no photo beats the coil when it's switched on.
