A new set of detailed visual plans were recently revealed to show ample greenery atop Budapest’s new Museum of Ethnography, being built at the edge of City Park. The city’s current Museum of Ethnography, located at Kossuth Square within the former Palace of Justice, will be open to visitors until the end of November, after which point the museum will close down for three years, while the state-of-the-art new facility is constructed to serve both museum visitors and the general public.

The first visual plans of the curvaceous modern Museum of Ethnography building caused a sensation, especially because of its “green roof” covered with grass and trees. Now it seems that the greenery will stretch even further than previously expected, all the way to the 1956 Memorial at Ötvenhatosok Square. The Hungarian architecture firm responsible for the plans, Napur Architect, is in the process of finalizing plans for the facade: the metal structure will be assembled according to the results of a competition for contemporary artists, and will display modern reinterpretations of treasures from the museum’s collection.

The firm designed the two-story museum’s internal layout together with the museum. The exhibition halls will be underground, while the building’s upward-curled “wings” will accommodate a children’s museum with a terrace, a café, a panoramic library with glass walls, and a conference room, as well as the offices of museum employees. On the ground floor, an ethnically authentic restaurant will serve the cuisines of at least five nations to hungry visitors.

The ground floor’s visitor center will function as an urban space where anyone can pass through and view works of art exhibited on the side of the stairs leading underground, complete with digital info boards, even without a ticket to the museum.

The National Museum Restoration and Storage Center (abbr. OMRRK) on Szabolcs Street, which will safeguard the artworks of the Museum of Ethnography, is being built at the same time.

Some important dates for the upcoming three years:

  • 2017 autumn:

    the construction of the museum building begins at Ötvenhatosok Square
  • 2017 November 31st: the Museum of Ethnography at Kossuth Square closes its doors to visitors, but its library and archive remain open to professionals
  • 2018 December: the library also closes at the Kossuth Square site
  • 2018 late spring: the museum’s collection is moved from the external warehouses in Törökbálint to the completed National Museum Restoration and Storage Center
  • 2020, end of the year: the new museum opens its doors to visitors