Technikatörténeti szemle 24. (1999-2000)

Szabadváry Ferenc: Országos Műszaki Múzeum: előzmények, elődök, jelen és jövő

models, photographs taken and drawings made of them) that are important relics from the aspect of development, history of technology or technical training..." Technical monuments could, moreover were to be taken under protection, where they were in use, but it could not be required that, e.g., factories or plants provide for safe-keeping of the protected objects. The number of protected objects went increasing, owing to the work of the Group for Registering and Collecting Technical Monuments, under the leadership of István Szilágyi. For their safe-keeping collocation, the Ministry of Culture and Education decided to have a store-house built. This was ready by 1964. The Collecting Group itself was placed in some offices in the building. On the occasion of the inauguration of the building an exhibition was organised in the same, which presented the most interesting objects of the collec-tion, collected till that date. This short-lived exhibition was the only one till today that could be held in the own premises of the Hungarian Museum for Science and Technology! By January 1, 1973, the Government dissolved the Group for Registering and Collecting Technical Monuments, i.e. it transformed it in a national museum, under the name of Hungarian Museum for Science and Technology. The tasks of the museum were defined by the resolution as follows: The task of the Hungarian Museum for Science and Technology is "Research into the general development and society-forming role of sciences and technology and the relationships between scientific cognition and production, collection, scientific processing and propagation of the related relics. In the course of its activities the museum should pay special attention to the Hungarian relations of the history of technology and sciences." As regards form and law, the Hungarian Museum for Science and Technology was thus brought into being, as fourth attempt during the past 150 years. As a first step, a new storage building had to be granted to it. The collection grew rapidly. A preserving placement of the objects had to be granted. A modern three-story storage-building was erected next to the first one in Kaposvár street, in the 11th district. However, the problem of a true museum building that can be visited has not been solved till today. During the past thirty years many suggestions were made as to its placement, many ideas and conceptions were put forward by official authorities and by sympathizers. Sometimes one or the other plan got quite near the beginning of realization. Buildings and factories to be discontinued came up, then the cause of the placement of the Hungarian Museum for Science and Technology got stuck somewhere. Every country in Europe has a working technical museum, also our neighbours. Also on the rest of the continents ever more have been built and opened! In many instances a museum was established from, and grew out of, an occasional exhibition! In our country, too, the Transport Museum in the City Pak remained from the 1896 millenary exhibition and was further developed. However, the Hungarian Museum for Science and Technology did not leave its objects getting covered with dust at the back of it storage buildings either. If the visitors could not come into the museum for having a look at them, the objects