Beyond stormy centuries, one of Budapest’s iconic buildings has survived
Ferenc József also took part in the handover of the collection of the Museum of Applied Arts, which was inaugurated 125 years ago. The Art Nouveau style building was designed by Ödön Lechner and Gyula Pártos. The world’s first museum of applied arts opens in London. As a result, preparations for the construction of a similar institution soon began.
The building of the Hungarian Museum of Applied Arts is located in the IX. district on Üllői út.
MTI Photo: Sándor H. Szabó
“125 years ago, on October 25, 1896, the building of the Üllői út palace, which houses the collection of the Museum of Applied Arts, was inaugurated as the closing act of the millennium celebration series.” – writes the Hungarian Research Institute.
The building is currently being renovated, but some of the treasures can be seen in Ráth Villa, below which the museum also has an online database.
The European craft industry was flooded with low-quality mass products in the 19th century. Large-scale international exhibitions have been organized to raise the standard of art.
“Beauty, functionality and quality – these three things can be summed up in the main aspiration of the applied arts, which is also facilitated by the creation of new types of museums in the country of the continent.”
The world’s first museum of applied arts was established in London in 1857. The organization soon started in Hungary as well. In 1872, Ágoston Trefort became the Minister of Religion and Public Education, who gave museums a prominent role in cultural transmission. The issue of applied arts came to the fore, and then a collection worth 50,000 forints was created, based on objects purchased at the Vienna World’s Fair, which was supplemented by domestic crafts from Flóris Rómer and János Xantus.
In addition to the final home of the collection, they also wanted to create a school and an intellectual workshop. The plot was bought by Count Albin Csáky for the museum of applied arts to be built, the work of Ödön Lechner and Gyula Pártos received the first prize in the public design competition. Work was completed by 1896, and on October 25 of that year the new palace arrived in a ceremonial setting. The inauguration ceremony of the Palace of Applied Arts was also attended by the ruler, Franz Joseph.
The first director of the museum was György Ráth (1828‒1905), who, in addition to his judicial profession, took an active part in cultural public life: he was a founding member of the Applied Arts Society. Under his leadership, the first Art Nouveau objects came into the possession of the museum, which formed the basis of the later Art Nouveau collection.
Contemporary portrait (drawing) of György Ráth, art collector, organizer and first director general of the Museum of Applied Arts.
MTI Photo / Reproduction
Photo: National Photo Gallery
Housed in an Art Nouveau-style building, Ráth’s wife, Gizella Melcsiczky, donated it to the state after her husband’s death and offered the villa for purchase, making the first director general’s collection and residence an additional part of the Museum of Applied Arts.
They wanted to keep the objects together, but during the decades of socialism, they were distributed among different museums, and a China Museum was established in the building. The Ráth villa regained its original function after the change of regime, but most of the equipment and objects have not yet returned to their old location.
Cover photo: The building of the Museum of Applied Arts in the IX. district Üllői road. (MTI Photo: Balázs Mohai)