Attila József Museum – Makó
Attila József Museum – Makó
In 1924 Dr. Antal Herrmann, honorary chief archivist of Csanád County, proposed the establishment of a county museum, but also requested a cultural house for Makó. In January 1938, nearly 32 thousand pengős were raised for the László Kelemen memorial fund; there was a heated debate in the city about whether to use it for the purpose of constructing a statue, theater, cultural house or museum. Finally, it was decided to spend the entire amount, with the exception of 50 pengős, on setting up a museum. With the reannexation of the Felvidék, the boarding house of the Hungarian Association for Cultural Education in South Hungary became vacant as the institution was moved to Kassa, so the city bought it for the purpose of a museum. The new facility was supported by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the National Inspectorate of Public Collections and the Hungarian Society of Natural Sciences, and in 1943 the Institute of Antiquities sent Mako their collection because of lack of space. The organization of the ethnographic department started with the furnishing of an Apátfalva room. In December of that year, nearly 2800 museum objects were exhibited, but the presentation of the documents and the coin collection was postponed after World War II. In September 1944, when the city was evacuated, the most valuable parts of the archaeological collection were packed in crates and transported by rail, but the train was hit by American carpet bombing and the Soviets took the coin collection. The National Center of Museums declared the collection of fragments of archeological vessels that survived the war a museum in 1950, to be named after Attila József. In 1951 it moved into a romantic-style noble mansion in 4 Megyeház Street, converted into a museum in 1952. In 1970, a multi-storey expansion was planned for the building, but when the base walls were exposed, it was discovered that the inner main walls were embedded in mud. The construction halted for a long time, and finally the mansion was destroyed in 1981 and the new museum building, designed by Mihály Vincze, was erected. Since the 1960s, the collection has grown steadily, the local history collection; the ethnographic and fine art collection, the portrait hall and the literary collection were created, the most valuable pieces of which are the manuscripts of Attila József. In 1979, the museum’s literary exhibition site, the Espersit House, was completed; and at the same time the new building was built, the buildings of the future skanzen were built in the inner courtyard. Later, the material exhibited at the Attila József Museum expanded with a collection of science, photography, archives and historical documentation. The ground floor hall of the building was home to periodic exhibitions, and on the first floor a permanent exhibition called “700 years of Makó” was created, which tells the story of the city to the public. In 2008, the building was modernized again, and the museum became accessible to disabled people. In addition to the Makó subcontractors, students of the József Galamb Vocational School supported the construction works. The new city history exhibition was also created and a new gallery was created.
Facebook 
Twitter 
