Őriné Nagy Cecília (szerk.): A népművészet a 19-20. század fordulójának művészetében és a gödöllői művésztelepen (Gödöllői Múzeumi Füzetek 8. Gödöllői Városi Múzeum, 2006)

Folk Art as Reflected in the Art at the Turn of the 19,h and 20th Centuries and in the Art Colony of Gödöllő. Abstracts in English / Angol nyelvű összefoglalók

220 Abstracts in English 220 quality which record folk art objects, vestiges of folk architecture and their use. Less known is the fact, however that, two architects known to be closely related to the Gödöllő group, Ede Thoroczkai Wigand and István Medgyaszai have also prepared plans for the construction of several ethnographic museums, among others for the one in Budapest which never came to be built up. Their plans are kept in the archives of the actual Ethnographic Museum together with the other similar plans. This study deals with the plans of the two architects. Thoroczkai Wigand, like most of the other contemporary architects, have studied the rural architecture: they wrote books and articles on this subject. They called typically Hungarian expressing the national or Hungarian character the new architectural style relying on the traditions of rural architecture. Although Thoroczkai studied not only the Hungarian rural architecture, Medgyaszai, likewise has been fascinated not by the traditional construction materials but by the artistic shaping of the newest one, the ferro-concrete, and the exhibition material itself of the Museum of Ethnography has not been restricted exclusively to Hungary; their construction plans of museum (1923) show Hungarian features. In their plans, prepared for the call for competition with lengthy details setting as example the Museum of Ethnography in Hamburg, the portal edifice with eastern features, the quotation of gothic (Calvinist) churches and the atrium as exhibition area are emphatic. The Finnish museum architecture of the beginning of the century with its living open-air conception, the experience of the Hungarian village shown during the millennium exhibition in 1896 (celebrating the acquisition of the Hungarian home land) and the artists' own ideas born under the influence of their collecting activities are united in good taste. The atrium constituted by huge prism-like portal edifices and crowned with battlements might have been inspired by the Mesopotamian archaeological research permanently surprising the public at that time with sensational new discoveries and under the influence of the reconstruction drawings resulting therefrom, just to emphasize the eastern relations of Hungarian culture. The space appearing as the apse of a church was reserved for the folk art section, according to the new type church-like museum arrangement differing from the till then usual one, reminding us of the fact that Calvinist churches are often furnished and decorated with folk art creations. This means that the architects took into consideration the original milieu of the exhibits to be presented. Furthermore, gardens would have been built in front of the lengthwise extending building according to Thoroczkai's plans for which he consciously used the results of his collecting and research work he had made into the subject of Hungarian gardens. There are many other interesting details of the history of the plans (bearing no fruit in reality up to the present day) related to a building to house the Museum of Ethnography of Budapest, and the architects of Gödöllő have planned, for their part, other museums, too; but their plans referring to the Museum of Ethnography of Budapest are closely related to the art colony in Gödöllő, because of their features described above.