Fürdők – Fürdőhelyek, Magyarország fürdőépítészete (Budapest, 2008)

THE WHOLE WORLD IS A BATH PLACE It was a right decision that the year 2008 has been chosen the year of water. In the previous years significant bath place developments took place in Hungary as our bathhouses are being renovated and the little model of our well-known bath place, the Széchenyi bathhouse proudly pleads our country in Brussels. The environment and the culture of our famous mineral waters are also becoming more and more wanted among those, who want to take some days off and have a rest. Be honest and admit that we love bathing, so did our ancestors on any parts of the world. We have several evidences to support this fact, from the archeological artifacts till the objects and documents that usually the museums and private collections have. Fortunately, so many visual and literary works remained from that period that they allow the collectors and the museum directors to create multiple interpretations of the same exhibition, just the way we did here. We borrowed two famous exhibitions to show two different sides of the love that we, people have for the water. One side is the architecture, the wonderful and mystique world of the little models', made in Ulm, Germany, through which the visitor can see the typical European bath places. Another side is based on József Terleczky's private collection and its goal is to show the well-known bath places of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and also their interesting social life. As the advertisements say: "Two in one", we can get two for one price. We do here the same as we took two separate topics and built them together in the way that the rivers flow into each other. Then, as these exhibitions, they inseparably belong to each other. Enjoy! I M RE Kiss