Hungarian Museum of Architecture and Monuments Protection Documentation Center

The Hungarian Museum of Architecture and Monuments Protection Documentation Center is an institution operating in Budapest, maintained by the Hungarian Academy of Arts. It was created in 2017 by merging several predecessor institutions, and its collection includes documents of Hungarian architecture and monument protection. Its director is Dr. Kornél Tamás Almássy. Its exhibition space is the Walter Rózsi villa in Budapest.

History

As part of the Collection Department of the National Monuments Supervision, the Hungarian Museum of Architecture was established in 1968 on the proposal of Anna Zádor and Dezső Dercsényi. Its first staff members were art historians László Pusztai and György Kelényi, and its first exhibition opened in 1969 at the Dorottya Street gallery, on the architecture of the Council Republic. The museum received its independent museum operating licence and national collection‑type museum classification in 1975.

During the following decades the museum operated continuously in temporary locations without a permanent exhibition space, under the leadership of László Pusztai and, from 2000, under the direction of Károly Bugár‑Mészáros. Numerous proposals for a possible permanent venue were raised, but none materialised.

From 1 January 2012 the museum lost its independent status and became part of the scientific department’s collection of the Office of Cultural Heritage Protection. This also involved a significant staff reduction, leaving one full‑time collection manager and two part‑time employees. Afterwards it was transferred to the successor organisation of the Office of Cultural Heritage Protection, the Forster Centre. After the Forster Centre was dissolved, the Hungarian Academy of Arts assumed the sponsoring role from 1 December 2017. In 2017, the scientific collections that had been transferred to the Prime Minister’s Office upon the dissolution of the Forster Centre (Design Archive, Photo Archive, Scientific Document Archive, Library), the monument scientific researchers, and the photographers also joined.

The Hungarian Government, by Government Decree No. 1771/2017. (XI.7.), established the Hungarian Museum of Architecture and Monuments Protection Documentation Center within the Hungarian Academy of Arts. At that time the complex of the former Budapest Medical University hospital at 9-11 Városligeti Street in Budapest became the property of the Hungarian Academy of Arts, with the purpose of housing the permanent installation of the HMA HMD.

Departments, Collections

The HMA HMD operates with four departments: Digitalization Department, Documentation Department, Research Department and Museum Department.

In 2021 the Documentation Department held 200,000 archival and contemporary survey drawings, more than 70,000 documents, as well as nearly 250,000 negatives, 87,000 positives and 14,000 slides in the photo archive. Its library comprised 42,000 volumes. The Scientific Archive contains the documents produced by Hungarian monument protection between 1872 and 1992. The Planning Archive’s survey drawings include works by Imre Henszlmann, Viktor Myskovszky, Imre Steindl, Ferenc Schulek, István Möller and Ottó Sztehlo. Notable archival collections include the works of Flóris Rómer, István Möller, Jenő Rados, Anikó Gazda.

In 2018 the Museum Department’s collection managed 120,000 objects and 264 linear meters of archival material. The Museum Department’s collection includes, among others, the collections of Aladár Árkay, Bertalan Árkay, Lili Árkayné Sztehlo, Virgil Borbíró, Hugó Gregersen, Dénes Györgyi, Géza Györgyi, Gyula Kaesz, Máté Major, Gyula Tálos, Antal Thomas, Károly Weichinger, Lajos Kozma, parts of Miksa Róth’s collection, as well as works by Alajos Hauszmann, Sándor Aigner, and Imre Steindl.

Buildings, Exhibition Venues

Within the Károlyi Garden Budapest project, in cooperation with the Hungarian Chamber of Architects and the Hungarian Association of Builders, a concept was developed and in 2014 an architectural design competition was launched for the new building, together with the Hungarian Museum of Photography. The competition was won by the design of Zoltán Tima (KÖZTI). The building was not realized.

In 2021 the Hungarian Academy of Arts issued an architectural design competition titled “Architecture League” for the design of the new building complex of the MÉM MDK. In the competition two works received non‑ranked awards, four received distinguished purchases and another six received purchases, but the jury did not find any work that it would propose for implementation.

The institution opened its first permanent exhibition space in May 2022 in the renovated Walter Rózsi villa in Budapest. The building at Bajza Street 10 in the VII district, located on the plot cut out from the neighboring Grünwald sanatorium, was designed by architect József Fischer, a prominent figure of Hungarian modern architecture. The design was significantly influenced by Eszter Pécsi, the first Hungarian female structural engineer and Fischer’s wife, who was responsible for the building’s reinforced concrete structure. Built in 1936 on the commission of opera singer Walter Rózsi, the villa was erected in less than six months and is an outstanding work of Fischer’s architecture as well as a significant example of modern Hungarian residential architecture.