Prékopa Ágnes (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 29. (Budapest, 2013)
Imre TAKÁCS: The Upgrade Programme for the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts
IMRE TAKÁCS THE UPGRADE PROGRAMME FOR THE BUDAPEST MUSEUM OF APPLIED ARTS I. Link to the past and message to the future I do not want art for a few, any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few. W. Morris The Museum of Applied Arts stands out among Hungary’s academically based arts and cultural institutions in having both conservative and progressive features. Its collections and accumulated experience firmly link it to the past, above all to the period of the 19th century when great European thinkers were promoting the démocratisation of culture. The museum also builds direct and invigorating connections with people today who have a hunger for culture and place high expectations on themselves and their environment. Throughout its history, the museum has progressed along the path marked out by its predecessors and founders, with the general objective of providing the public with every possible assistance and encouragement to “learn about and value art in the broadest and deepest sense.” The museum thus contributes to improving the quality of life for all who are capable of seeing through the eyes of others, and of correctly evaluating and re-creating themselves and the world.1 The demand for social usefulness in connection with museums began to assume coherent expression in mid-19th century Britain. Until then, museums had been elite institutions concerned largely with accumulation and preservation. Many thinkers began to realise the need for public collections which would be open to - and exert an influence on - a wide section of society. The cause gained influential and potent allies among high society, notably Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Consort of Queen Victoria. Driven by a vision of how civilisation should develop, these people also had the means to make it a reality.2 The location was London. At the initiative of Prince Albert, plans were laid for a cultural centre for the general public, using the profits from the enormously successful Great Exhibition of 1851, and on the same site. The South Kensington Museum, later renamed the Victoria and Albert Museum, opened on Exhibition Road in 1857. Prince Albert not unreasonably considered it to be the flagship of British culture, and saw its potential usefulness in international political affairs: “these institutions must be open and common to all nations, and would soon spread their ramifications into all countries” so that “the different nations would remain in that immediate relation of mutual assistance [...] and their good will towards each other permanently fortified.”3 As the idea developed, Prince Albert’s associates 7
