Discover the amazing Kékfestő Museum in Pápa! – PHOTOS

Photo: Daily News Hungary

The Kékfestő Museum in Pápa (the second largest town in Veszprém County) was opened for the public in August 1962 and exhibits the workshop and equipment of the former Kluge company, thus giving insight into the world of the craft of ‘kékfestés’, a UNESCO World Heritage Hungarian tradition. The Museum guides back into the past, revealing the beauties and difficulties of this wonderful and old craft. All the steps of the work processes and the still operating equipment of ‘kékfestés’ are exhibited in the old manufacturing building, which is more than 200 years old.

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The Kékfestő Museum and the former centre of kékfestés was – and still is – the largest manufacturing building in Europe and the only place that commemorates this amazing old folk tradition to such level of detail. During the first part of the exhibition, visitors enter the old building thus finding themselves stepping back in time and seeing old pieces of items of clothing, little figures, wrapping materials, all of them in the shades of blue. The predecessor of ‘kékfestés’ was textile dyeing and textile printing in the 16th century. The so-called festőcsüllenger (Isatis tinctoria), the indigenous dyeing plants being grown in vast areas of Thuringia and France, were used to get the colour of blue.

Photo: Daily News Hungary

While getting deeper inside the building, visitors can observe a special chamber where all the materials are dyed in blue, all of the equipment remained in excellent condition after many years of dreadful history.

Photo: Daily News Hungary

Besides this special chamber, all the huge and smaller equipment once used in the building are exhibited and can be observed up close. The museum established two escape rooms for both adults and children. Visitors are also offered the opportunity to dress up in traditional, of course, blue coloured Hungarian dresses and to try out kékfestés on a white sheet with different kinds of motives and even to take their masterpieces home.

Photo: Daily News Hungary

The place is an excellent one-trip-location for both Hungarians and foreign people wishing to explore Hungarian culture and learn about kékfestés, and to travel back in time into the period when mankind created incredible things with their own hands.