The former Georgi Dimitrov County Arts Centre now a ‘museum quarter’
The Veszprém House of Arts
MúzeumCafé 47.
quarter’ – The Veszprém House of Arts
Veszprém is a one of Hungary’s smallest county capitals, which has significant historical and ecclesiastical traditions. Its population increased dramatically in the second third of the last century and after World War II it became a university town. Its dual museum structure comprises a county (today town) museum (the Laczkó Dezső Museum) and a municipal Arts Centre. The museum handles the traditional local history, ethnographic and archaeological collections, while the Centre deals with the fine arts exhibitions. At the same time, establishing a ‘picture gallery’ continues to feature in the town’s cultural plans, since such a place still does not exist among Veszprém’s museums, related institutes and exhibition spaces – or rather only in name. After the 1989-90 political changes, the listless community centres housed in run-down, out-of-date buildings in large provincial towns were systematically replaced or complemented by ‘arts centres’, which in their function, like their predecessors, are multi-arts, albeit that the activities of the former community centres (providing homes for chess clubs, pensioners’ groups, etc.) have been entirely transformed culturally – as theatres, film clubs and places for literary events and exhibitions. Where possible, the buildings were modernised, as with the cinema in Miskolc or the synagogue in Szekszárd. By and large Veszprém has followed the same trajectory, since not only has the Arts Centre, founded in 1993, taken over part of the functions of the former Georgi Dimitrov County Community Centre, as well as its director and staff members, but at the same time a municipal Arts Centre was established. The former coordinates the arts life of the town and its region, while the latter sees to educational tasks. Veszprém’s Arts Centre is a cultural venue with many activities.