Glancing with glass eyes in the trophy collection
An origin myth of museum history in Hungary
MúzeumCafé 51.
The sight draws attention like a magnet: the sacred space, the animal heads and antlers on the walls, the Gothic stained-glass windows, the pillars, the painted vaulting and the four scenes with plants and stuffed animals – spring, summer, autumn and winter. It’s a dramatic sight, with – placed in the scene – glass-eyed taxidermal deer glancing at the wall and stag trophies fixed to stands in the Gothic mansion hall covered with red marble. The museum’s trophy collection and the original habitat of the animals meet in a composed museum landscape in the Hungarian Museum of Agriculture’s permanent exhibition. But does the row of slim animal heads with graceful antlers suit the pointed forms of medieval Gothic? Is it clear today that the Vajdahunyad Castle in the City Park, which has housed the Museum of Agriculture since its foundation, is now itself a museum-type relic, preserving the powerful, expressive museum concepts of the late 19th century? Do we consider that over the past one hundred years the relations humans have had with hunting, with the protection of forest wild life, with forestry management and with the museum display of killed game have all changed? Do we reflect on the relation between hunting and Hungarian agriculture? Today, when a great deal is said about the Liget Project, the museums newly planned for the City Park, the park layout of the 1896 Millennium exhibition, and the exhibition structure built for consuming experience, there is an ever growing professional lack of ideas defining a modern mission for the Museum of Agriculture. The Liget Project puts several time scales back into the park, with increasingly frequent reference to the ideals of the Millennium Exhibition and the leisure-time uses and experiences provided by the landscaped park of the time. Besides the Kunsthalle and the artificial ice rink, the Museum of Agriculture is the institute whose long-term existence following its temporary nature, can be thanked – beyond all the heat generated by the Millennium itself – to the success of the events. The Vajdahunyad Castle is a 19th-century space and concept that could be an authentic element of the Liget Project, not only from a professional but also an urban history and urbanistic point of view. But for this, besides the building designed by IgnácAlpár collecting and bringing together the (then) 1000-year-old architectural history of Hungary, critical analysis is needed of the museum’s collection and mode of display. Just as the building is a special, hybrid space, so do the permanent displays mix different eras and tropes, thus preserving to this day the conception of the museum at the time of its foundation.