“I am a believer in the object-centred museum”
Zoltán Székely, art historian, director of the Hanság Museum in Mosonmagyaróvár
MúzeumCafé 48.
The Hanság Museum in Mosonmagyaróvár, the former capital of Moson County, is one of Hungary’s oldest museums. Like all the others, it used to be part of a county museum structure, though it broke from that in 2011, before reorganisation of the structure, and the local town authority took over its funding. Zoltán Székely, previously deputy director of the county structure, has headed the Hanság Museum since 2012. He and his team have been working on the development of that for the past two and a half years. Zoltán Székely believes that one of the most important tasks involves the museum integrating itself into the town’s cultural life. Far from Budapest, near the western border, the small team is increasingly experiencing success. The legal predecessor of the Hanság Museum was the Moson County Historical and Archaeological Association. In the 20th century, the former county capital lost its earlier function and its institutes. All that remained was the museum, which was transformed into a local history research centre. The Hanság Museum has several affiliated institutes. Such are the local history exhibition, the Gyurkovich collection, the Gyurkovich Memorial Room, the lapidarium and the Habsburg Crypt. The local history exhibition presents the town’s history and culture from the stone age to 1956. The Cselley House, one of Óvár’s oldest edifices, was modernised in the 1970s for museum purposes. It houses an applied arts exhibition, focussing on 18th and 19th century home design. The museum’s main attraction is the Gyurkovich collection, comprising about 150 items formerly belonging to the art dealer Tibor Gyurkovich and his wife. It is one of the best and most significant provincial collections of 19th and 20th century Hungarian paintings.