Horváth László szerk.: Mátrai Tanulmányok (Gyöngyös, 2005)
Fűköh Levente: Tisztelt Olvasó!
Dear Reader, In 1846 Imre Vahot wrote the following lines: "Among the manor-houses that prettify Gyöngyös Baron Lőrinc Orczy's mansion is the most outstanding one, having built in the finest style, and surrounded with a beautiful English garden." Since Vahot expressed his thoughts, lots of people have had similar feelings about this area, despite the fact that time has left its mark both on the mansion and the garden. Perhaps the most important change took place in the second part of the 1930's when the family sold the building to the town of Gyöngyös. After that the building and the one-time English garden were formed on the basis of various conceptions. The Mátra Museum (The Society of Museums of Heves County) took the total ownership of the building in 1984. After the political changes of 1990, the ownership of the mansion and the garden has been shared by two local authorities: the former belongs to the General Assembly of Heves County, while the latter belongs to the Local Government of Gyöngyös. As there has not been a significant renovation that involved every part of the area since the classicist reconstruction of 1826, the condition of the building and the garden has been getting worse and worse. By 2000 it became obvious that the renovation could not be put off any longer. After realising it, in 2002 the Local Government of Gyöngyös approved the programme in which the local authorities, the owners, agreed on the total revitalisation of the building and the onetime English garden. After having managed to provide financial basis, it was possible to start to excavate what the original state of the estate was like. At the same time, owing to a successful tender, Grafit 37, an architectural company in Gyöngyös, was able to begin to make a feasibility study of the renovation with the help of museologists and monument-experts. The excavation and the survey were made even more difficult since the museum was still active, so the work should have been organised in such a way that it did not bother the more than 100,000 visitors a year, who attended the exhibitions. Some results of the research confirmed the previous ideas, while some results turned out to be absolutely new. Besides the excavation of the past, the planning of the future also began. In agreement with the authority of monuments, the viewpoint was accepted that an up-to-date building should be created which fills the requirements of a 21 sl century museum, is adequate for museological, educational and tourist-industrial purposes and considers the architectural values of the original building. That is why the feasibility study concentrated on three areas: the mansion, the garden and the new projects in the garden. According to the plans, the mansion will function as a visitor-centre. Moreover, a scientific pavilion will be built in the garden; it will make a home for the exhibition of natural science, which is the main profile of the museum. The recreational tasks will be carried out in the revitalised English garden, which will also function as a museum. The details of this plan were published in another publication in 2003 with the title: "Edit B.Gál, Mariann Földessy & Zsolt Kurta: The renovation-programme of the Orczy Mansion and Garden - Gyöngyös". The publication contains the short history of the site, the dendrological survey of the garden, which is a nature conservation area and the architectural designs with pictures. Meanwhile the tender, which was based on the study of the experts, and submitted by the two local authorities, proved to be successful in 2005; therefore, the obtained 800 million HUF made it possible to carry out the first part of the renovation. As a result of this, by the
