Erdős Renée Ház

The Erdős Renée House is a museum and exhibition space operating since 1990 in Rákosmente. The villa building that houses the exhibition was erected in 1895. In 1927 it was purchased by Erdős Renée, the renowned writer of the era, who lived there until 1944. The building enjoys protection by the capital city.

History

One predecessor of the Erdős Renée House Museum Collection and Exhibition Space was the Folk Heritage House, opened in 1970 in a peasant house on Ferihegyi Road, which presented the folk heritage and traditions of the district’s former settlements, but in 1978 it fell victim to the expanding housing estate. However, the material processed in the museum inventory remained in various storages. The other predecessor was the Rákosmente Local History Collection, formed from the Local History Club operating since the late 1960s, which, functioning as a district data archive, collected written and photographic documentation of local history, but did not have its own exhibition space.

When the Erdős Renée House was established in 1990, a permanent local‑history exhibition consisting largely of document copies was set up in the ground‑floor exhibition rooms; a folk‑culture display built on fragments of the Folk Heritage House material; and an “Epress collection room exhibition,” whose varied objects came from a district collector, Rezső Epress. At that time the memorial room of the institution’s namesake, Erdős Renée, was arranged, as well as a diorama exhibition presenting the wildlife of the Merzse marsh, a nature‑protected area on the district border.

The institution previously operated by the district municipality's cultural office received independent professional management in 2001. After the discovery, revision, partial restoration of the sealed material of the former Folk Heritage Memorial House, the creation of appropriate storage conditions; after the organizational and professional merger of the Rákosmenti Local History Collection (i.e., the archive) and the Erdős Renée House (i.e., the keeper of the material), a new local history and ethnographic exhibition opened in 2005.

In addition to the permanent exhibitions, from the beginning the institution hosts monthly applied and applied arts, and occasionally historical period exhibitions. Exhibitions have been organized here of such outstanding 20th‑century figures of Hungarian artistic life as Gyula Czimra, Károly Kotász, Zsigmond Kisfaludi Strobl, Árpád Csekovszky, Károly Reich, Ferenc Laborcz, as well as many notable contemporary artists who have exhibited and are exhibiting here. The 17th district and national art organizations regularly organize group exhibitions.

Since December 2009, a Stone Archive has been erected in the park of the villa, which contains numerous exotic plants, and at the rear wall of the building, commemorating the old Rákosmenti cemeteries and other public memorials.

The museum café named Renée Cafée operates in its cellar.

A memorial plaque was placed on the house wall on 9 July 2006, the 50th anniversary of the writer’s death.

Publications

The Erdős Renée House publishes the book series titled Rákosmenti Local History Booklets.