Town Museum of Gödöllő

In the present-day downtown of Gödöllő, in the historic manor built by Ferenc Hamvay in 1662, the City Museum and City Cinema opened in 1978, housing the Local History Collection, temporary exhibitions, and the local film theater.

History

The Gödöllő City Museum operates in the town centre, in the noble manor built in the 1760s. The basis of the collection was created by the local history study group launched by Miklós Heltai (1909-1989) in 1952, because earlier collections established in the settlement were destroyed during World War II. The school exhibition became a Local History Collection in 1978, and ten years later it received museum status. The institution currently has a regional museum classification and, in the case of the Gödöllő Secessionist artists' colony, a national collector’s network.

The museum’s maintainer, the Gödöllő City Council, renovated the building in 1999, which enlarged the museum’s exhibition spaces and improved the conditions for operation. After the turn of the millennium, the reopened institution won the highest professional award in 2001, the title “Museum of the Year”.

Four permanent exhibitions are located in the museum’s exhibition halls, and one or two temporary exhibitions are held each year in the temporary exhibition room.

The museum cares for several independent private collections: the material of the Hungarian Capuchin Delegation’s Mária Museum of Máriabesnyő, the collection of the Hungarian Scout Association, as well as the legacy of Zoltán Mihály Csupor (1919-1995), parish priest of Tordas, and the new‑Guinean collection of Pope Ignácz Ferenc.

Gödöllő, Our City

Local history exhibition.

Gödöllő is a settlement with a very rich and exciting past. We intend to present the city's long and eventful history to visitors through a permanent local history exhibition. Thanks to the favorable natural conditions of the landscape, the settlement was already inhabited several thousand years ago, therefore our visitors can follow and experience, from the Stone Age up to the regime change, the significant events and periods that have left their mark on the life of the settlement.

The exhibition, with its unique solutions, strives to bring history closer to our guests: with everyday objects of former inhabitants of our town, settlement reconstructions, maps, and contemporary documents that contain such important information as the names of Gödöllő families, we aim to provide a personal experience for visitors, who can also learn about their own past. The exhibition is very rich – we have placed approximately 3000 objects, of which 1000 works of art can be seen for the first time by interested people – and we have made this even more spectacular with modern technical equipment.

In keeping with the needs of the times, we have placed films, animations and further interesting information on tablets and touch‑screen computers for visitors, and with the help of projectors we have also been able to bring paintings to life.

The Gödöllő Artists' Colony (1901‑1920)

Fine and applied arts exhibition.

The Gödöllő Artists' Colony exhibition, awarded the Hungarian Heritage Prize (2005), presents a selection from the museum collection, the Nagy Sándor House, and the artworks of the Remsey family.

The Gödöllő artist colony was established in 1901, when Aladár Körösfői-Kriesch settled in Gödöllő. In 1904 the weaving workshop began its operation at the artist colony, later becoming the centre of the colony and its main organizing force. From 1907 the weaving workshop became the workshop of the School of Applied Arts.

At that time Sándor Nagy lived in Gödöllő with his wife Laura Kriesch, as well as Ede Thoroczkai Wigand, Leo Belmonte and Árpád Juhász. We meet István Zichy, Endre Frecskay, Rezső Mihály, Ödön Moiret, Mariska Undi and her sisters, as well as the Frey brothers of Bácska. Since the artists worked in the spirit of total art, the exhibition also shows paintings, graphics, sculpture, stained glass, mosaic and fresco designs, furniture, carpet and other works.

Zsivajgó nature

Natural history and hunting history exhibition.

A large part of the Gödöllő hilly area is still covered by forest today. The exhibition guides the visitor through the fauna of the Gödöllő Landscape Protection Area, established in 1990. On the display the fauna of the beech‑oak forests typical of the hills, together with the mammal and bird species, the open swampy forest alternating with clearings, and the fauna of the reed‑lake that forms in the valley hollows can be seen.

The forests were a favourite hunting ground for the landowner of the time. In addition to antler heads, hunting weapons, documents and other equipment evoke a chapter of Gödöllő's past.

A revived community – The history of the Hungarian scouting movement

Historical exhibition.

The Gödöllő City Museum's renovated scouting exhibition of 2018 primarily aims to present the golden age of the domestic scouting movement, the period between the two world wars, to visitors, highlighting the world meeting held in Gödöllő in 1933, the 4th Jamboree and the 1939 Pax‑Ting, the world meeting of Girl Scouts.

The unique permanent scouting history exhibition in the country was built from a combination of the artifacts of the Hungarian Scout Association and the Gödöllő City Museum. Scouting was founded by Robert Baden-Powell (Bi-Pi) in England at the beginning of the 20th century, and today it is the world's most widespread youth education movement. In our country teams were formed from 1910, and the Hungarian Scout Association was established in 1912. After the dissolution in the 1940s, scouting was reestablished in Hungary in 1988, so memories of the recent past also appear in the exhibition.

The new exhibition has been enriched with many artifacts that were previously not viewable, including Pál Teleki's camp bed, the flag of the Csaba scout team, a 5th–6th century Korean royal crown with gilded, jade‑stone‑decorated scale model, and various ornate souvenir items from world gatherings, which can be seen in the richly furnished scout home and the camp interior.