From the first public telephone booths in Slovenia to the last impulse

In a time when making a phone call required more than just reaching into your pocket, public telephone booths played an important role in connecting people. They enabled phone calls in public places and were especially indispensable in areas where the telephone network was not well developed and many residents did not yet have a landline at home.

The exhibition Call from a Phone Booth (Klic iz govorilnice) presents more than a century-long history of public telephony in Slovenia—from the first public phone booths at the end of the 19th century to their gradual removal from the streets with the rise of mobile telephony.

Visitors will learn about various telephone sets used in payphones, including devices made by the domestic manufacturer Iskra, as well as the means of payment used to make calls: from coins and tokens to phone cards. The exhibition also reveals some of the ingenious ways users tried to avoid paying for their phone conversations.

The history of public telephone booths is complemented by stories, memories, photographs, and newspaper clippings that illustrate how communication habits, the appearance of public spaces, and the accessibility of phone services evolved alongside telephone technology. They remind us of a time when making a call meant finding a phone booth, preparing the right coins, tokens, or phone card, and sometimes even waiting in line.

Although public telephone booths have almost completely disappeared from our daily lives today, they remain an important part of technical heritage and collective memory. Their story is also a story of technological changes that marked our lives and continue to transform the ways we connect and communicate.

Accompanying the exhibition, an e-catalog featuring an expanded expert article and a catalog of selected items from the collections of the Museum of Post and Telecommunications will be available on the museum’s website.

Photo: Tomo Jeseničnik