1/5
Festival of Folk Arts
Every August, the panoramic promenade of the Buda Castle becomes a prime destination for finding heaps of Hungarian handicrafts – including unique fashion accessories, wooden toys, ornate pottery, fine fabrics, and handmade furniture – all available for purchase during a four-day fiesta celebrating folk art, happening this year during August 17-20th. Visitors to this boisterous bazaar can see how local products are made as many artisans create varied handcrafted treasures on the spot, including embroidery and woodcarving techniques, and while we navigate this cobblestoned site, we can easily find ourselves in a middle of a folk-music show, where traditionally garbed dancers whirl and twirl onstage to the rhythm of stomping boots. The old-fashioned crafts available here are not limited to Hungarian products – the special guest at this year’ss event is Mongolia.
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2/5
Museum of Ethnography
Towering above Kossuth Square, just opposite from the neo-Gothic Parliament, the stately design of the building that houses the Museum of Ethnography is immediately inviting, but the gigantic folk-arts presentation in the exhibition halls is well worth taking a long tour inside. Whether visitors want to learn about the Magyar peasantry’s life of centuries ago or explore traditional wedding customs in Hungarian villages, the museum’s permanent collection walks us through centuries of customary crafts, while a current temporary exhibition showcases hundreds of traditional footwear pieces from around the world. After November, the museum will close down to reopen in a new location a few years later, so hurry up if you want to indulge in fascinating folk arts here.
3/5
Urban Betyár
Found on a downtown Budapest side street near St. Stephen’s Basilica, Urban Betyár’s main quest is to bring the Hungarian countryside to the heart of Budapest by providing insight into the bucolic lifestyle in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Primarily functioning as a restaurant offering traditional Magyar meals with a twist, the eatery’s cellar is an interactive museum displaying regional relics that are treasures of Hungarian folklore. Ornately embroidered outfits, hand-painted furniture, and many other ordinary objects from households of the past fill this collection to evoke a bygone era, while state-of-the art holographic projections enhance the exhibit to bring old-time artistry even closer to our modern times.
4/5
Museum of Applied Hungarian Folk Art
Located near the Buda side of Chain Bridge, this easily accessible exhibition space provides glimpses into Magyar culture through regularly changing folk-art exhibitions spread across two levels. A newly opened display on the museum’s top floor highlights works of “Young Masters of Folk Art” by showcasing elaborately embroidered garments, colorful ceramics, handwoven baskets, and delicately decorated Easter eggs, all award-winning works of a national tender for talents aged 15-35. The regional relics are exhibited alongside cool creations of seasoned folk artists, all on view through September 16th. On the ground level, the current Reformation-themed display will be replaced by a new exhibit on August 23rd that highlights masterful Hungarian embroidery. Though descriptions across the space are in Hungarian, guided English-language tours are available with preliminary registration, but anyone who is in the neighborhood can pop in here anytime to enjoy a brief introduction into local folk art.
Address: Budapest 1011, Fő utca 6.
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