27 April 2017

THE MUSEUM OF APPLIED ARTS, BUDAPEST


Every time we go to Budapest we visit the Museum of Applied Arts (above), which always has one or two good temporary exhibitions. This April we went to see the collection of work by Marcel Breuer and his Hungarian colleagues. Breuer was of Hungarian origin – those who knew him well addressed him as Lajko, after his Hungarian birth name Lajos. Breuer is famous for his tubular steel chair, various versions of which (below) were produced (licenced and otherwise) in their millions.

Photo: Budapest Museum of Applied Arts

The museum building is interesting in itself. It was designed by Ödön Lechner in Art Nouveau style and completed in 1896. Its sources are eclectic, with Hindu, Mogul and Islamic influences. The glazed roof tiles (below) were made by the Zsolnay pottery company, who were responsible for  other Budapest monuments, including the roof tiles of the Matthias Church. In another blog post I wrote about the Schmidl family mausoleum in the Kozma Street Cemetery designed by Lechner and constructed by Zsolnay.

Photo: Wikipedia






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