Prékopa Ágnes (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 30. (Budapest, 2016)

Ildikó PANDUR: A Wrought-Iron Exhibition Hall Gateway from 1883: A Contribution to the Architectural History of the Old Exhibition Hall and the Old Music Academy in Budapest

9. An exhibition hall of the Museum of Applied Arts at the Old Exhibition Hall, 1885 (detail from the Indian exhibition)

Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest, Archives, FLT 4927

suming temporary exhibitions, such as the “great exhibition of goldsmiths’ works” of 1884, an enormous show presenting around 7500 objects, a feat still unparalleled in the history of Hungarian fine metalwork.7

When the exhibition of objects opened in the atrium of the National Museum in 1874,8 the “emergency accommodation” meant that there was no overarching scientific concept.9 The first systematic arrangement of the items in the collection of the Museum of Applied Arts, founded on scholarly criteria10 - the first permanent exhibition - did not take place until the institution moved into premises on today’s Andrássy Avenue.

The Exhibition Hall (Műcsarnok), commissioned by the National Hungarian Association of Fine Arts and designed by Adolf Lang, was opened on the Radial Avenue (Sugárút, now Andrássy Avenue) in November 1877.11 (Fig. 7) This building became the new (temporary) home for exhibitions by the Museum of Applied Arts. The circumstances here were also far from ideal, as can be inferred from the words of Jenő Radisics: “The early years [of the museum] were spent in the not exactly splendid surroundings of the cellar in the Old Exhibition Hall.”12 With regard to the premises rented to display the ever-growing collection, the written resources we have are few and contradictory,13 - even the number of places rented differs from text to text - and there are even fewer pictures.14

103