Cseri Miklós, Füzes Endre (szerk.): Ház és ember, A Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum évkönyve 8. (Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 1992)
H. CSUKÁS GYÖRGYI: A nyírádi lakóház a Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeumban
A DWELLING HOUSE FROM NYIRÁD IN THE HUNGARIAN OPEN AIR MUSEUM The house originally standing at 65 Dózsa Gy . u . in the village of Nyirád was chosen as the last one to represent Central Transdanubia in the Hungarian Open Air Museum. The selection of the building, along with the archival research into the history of the structure and the family that had occupied it, also the dismantling process provide a good example of the work going on in the Open Air Museum before a house is re-erected and furnished. The main considerations in choosing this building were, with regard to the three previosly chosen, as follows: - the farmhouse and outbuidlings were to be typical of an economically middle class peasant's farm; - it should have been the abode of a typical Catholic family, and - the dwelling house was to contain all the elements of form and construction that had not been represented by the previous selections (timbered ceiling of crossed summer, and a porch of transverse arching). This building met the criteria. The date of construction (1754) and the name of those who had it built were found on one of the summer beams, consequently it was possible to reveal, by collecting data in the archives and on the spot, the history of the family that lived in it up to our days. We analysed several censuses, or as called at that time, the counting of living souls that took place in the second half of the 18th century for tithing purposes. This way we could follow the process by which shared courtyards were formed and became dominant in Nyirád in the last decades of the 18th century. The second dwelling house of the common courtyard was built, in continuation of the selected construction, in 1790 for one of the farmer's sons. The father lived in the first one. At the end of the courtyard twin barns stood crosswise. Collecting work and research in the archives before taking the house apart directed our attention to several problems and revealed the fact and time of more than one alteration. The structure is going to be rebuilt and furnishing chosen with attention to authenticity. Every detail was carefully recorded during the disassembly for duplication during restoring the building to its original state. We wish to present in the Open Air Museum the oldest farmhouse of the region in the state as it was at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The ground plan arrangement of the thatsched stone house was room-kitchen-pantrystable. The heating devices of the chimneyless, "smoky" kitchen can be reconstructed on basis of the inhabitants' recollections and analogous objects. As the house will not share its courtyard with another in the Museum, the twin barns have to be replaced by a single one transplanted from the same region. The dwelling house from Nyirád, as the oldest known and dated peasant house of stone, is the source of important conributions to the history of stone architecture in the Balaton-felvidék (Balaton Uplands).
