Museum of Applied Arts closed for years due to restoration in Hungary

The Museum of Applied Arts will get renewed, reports pestbuda.hu. Its building is considered one of the most beautiful examples of the Hungarian Art Nouveau. Now it needs to undergo a total reconstruction and expansion. After the one-year-long moving out, the construction will last three years. After that, the public can attend the museum after waiting another year from moving back.

The Museum of Applied Arts (IMM) closes on the 3rd of September due to a total reconstruction, but before that, it says goodbye to its visitors with a number of programs in the next few weeks. Before closing, guided tours, museum yoga and interactive programs await the guests, but those ones, who – besides the exhibitions – are interested in the building’s secret corners and storerooms, can buy the golden ticket – the institution’s director-general stated at the press conference of IMM on Thursday.

Zoltán Cselovszki added that the lookout-tower taken down from the building designed by Ödön Lechner will be reconstructed. However, its original onion dome weighing 13 tons will be taken to Sziget Festival, where visitors will be able to touch it before the Museum’s tent. The museum will open at midnight on 3rd September to say goodbye with a series of programs before the reconstruction, thus visitors can watch the sunrise from the terrace on the rooftop – he added.

Collection on the Internet

The director-general emphasized that the Museum of Applied Arts has the most significant collection of applied arts in the world, and this collection will be available on the Internet in a few years. Sixty per cent of the main collection will be digitalized by the end of the year and it will be available on http://gyujtemeny.imm.hu.

The villa of György Ráth operated by IMM will be restored to its original conditions, but the building on Városligeti fasor will have a seasonal stand from April 2018. The exhibiton of furniture history in Nagytétény Castle will also be renovated – Zoltán Cselovszki stated.

According to the report of vice-director-general Zsombor Jékely, many pieces of the collection will be available for the public elsewhere while the building is closed. An exhibition of Herend Porcelain is currently in Japan, but it will also be exhibited in Hungary together with pieces that cannot be taken abroad. The objects of the Ottoman-Turkish collection will be located in the museum of the Castle of Eger from the end of August.

Total reconstruction

Zoltán Cselovszki told MTI that besides the total reconstruction, an underground garage and a new annex will be built in excess of 80 million EUR. Public procurements are happening right now. The 3-thousand-square-kilometre exhibition hall will be expanded to 10 thousand square kilometres, and visitors will be able to attend the building considered one of the most beautiful examples of the Hungarian Art Nouveau more easily – he added. The new annex will primarily be the home of design and contemporary applied arts, but it will also host the modern building engineering. The annex’s outer facade will be based on the original plans of Lechner, but the inner facade will be built according to contemporary design – director-general said.

Following the one-year-long moving out, the construction will last three years. After that, the public can attend the museum after waiting another year from moving back. The main goal of the Museum of Applied Arts is to have 300 thousand people attending the museum a year after the renovation – Zoltán Cselovszki stated.

ce: ZsK

Source: pestbuda.hu