Cseri Miklós, Füzes Endre (szerk.): Ház és ember, A Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum évkönyve 20. (Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 2007)

VASS ERIKA-BUZÁS MIKLÓS: Az Erdélyi épületegyüttes a Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeumban (Telepítési koncepció, 2006 november)

CONCEPT OF THE PLANNED BUILDING COMPLEX OF TRANSYLVANIA IN THE HUNGARIAN OPEN AIR MUSEUM NOVEMBER 2006 The study presents the concept of the building complex to be set up in the Hungarian Open Air Museum in order to represent Hungarian architecture in Transylvania. In the concept we intended to give an overall picture of this immense territory and to outline a complex where besides the most important characteristics of the house (material, heating system and number of rooms) the different denominations and social layers are highlighted too. We implement this comprehensive approach in the way of presentation: further to the traditional interiors of open-air museums, we want to enrich this picture with functioning workshops (oven tiles, carpenter-painter of furniture, straw hatter), with interactive exhibitions in rooms (Transylvania's history in farm buildings, the history of the migration of the Seklers, changing of the national costumes in the region of Kalotaszeg) and with active elements (activities for children, research possibilities). Besides the world of objects, we wish to recall folk customs (pilgrimage, folk medicine, dance house). We consider as our main task the presentation of historic Transylvania. Common knowledge nowadays considers that the regions of the Partium and the Banat belong to Transylvania. We, however count them as parts of the Great Hungarian Plain and the Upper Tisza Region. We included in our research only the region of Szilágyság from Partium's territory, since this region's architecture represents a transition between the Great Plain and Transylvania. Moldova is considered as a geographical and historical unit separate from Transylvania but we would like to select a house here too because this is the easternmost Hungarian speaking area and its architecture preserved several archaic elements of the folk architecture of the Seklers. The regional unit is to represent the way of life of the Hungarian population in Transylvania but we had the impression in several areas that the selection on ethnic basis is artificial since there is plenty of relation and mutual influence between Transylvania's different nationalities in the field of architecture as well as of other fields of everyday life. We are at the same time aware of the fact that our possibilities are limited; we cannot take over the comprehensive presentation of Transylvania's ethnic conditions. The influence of the Saxons will be demonstrated with the Csángó group from Hétfalu and the region of Homoród mente, and the co-habitation with the Romanians together with the Hungarian diaspora in Southern Transylvania and with the regions of Mezőség and Moldova. Based on our present plans we think that a part of the farmsteads can form a street around the church and the other farms can be arranged in clusters with a relatively bigger distance between them. Concrete plans will be made once we know the exact place of the building complex. We selected a farm from each of the following regions: Szilágyság, Mezőség, Kalotaszeg, Torockó, Küküllő area, Hungarian diaspora in Hunyad county, Sóvidék, Homoród mente, Csík, Háromszék, Gyimes, Hétfalu, Moldova. Communal life around the church should be illustrated by a Unitarian church from the neighbourhood of Székelyudvarhely with the school and the teacher's quarters. We decided on the Unitarian group because this faith was borne in Transylvania, furthermore, we have already a Roman Catholic, a GreekCatholic and a Reformed church in the Hungarian Open Air Museum. We want to illustrate the multiple use of water with the presentation of machines coming from the Gyergyó area. We consider it as important to show the detached farms in the high mountains where we can highlight the survival of traditional architectural structures till today in the simple mountain farms and in the independent detached country estates.