Collection Center

Museum of Ethnography Collections Centre

The National Museum Restoration and Storage Centre [Országos Múzeumi Restaurálási és Raktározási Központ or OMRRK] permits the storage of approximately 350 thousand artefacts at a security standard appropriate to the requirements of the 21^st century.  In 2020, the complex received the Budapest Architecture Award [Budapest Építészeti Nívódíj], while also earning its certification within BREEAM, the world’s most important international building rating system.  The complex’s artefact storage rooms and restoration workshops serve three different institutions:  the Budapest Museum of Ethnography and Collections Centre, the Museum of Fine Art, and the Hungarian National Gallery.  The result of a 37-thousand-square-metre ‘brown-field’ investment project, the complex on the property of the former Szabolcs Street Hospital consists of as many as four underground and two above-ground levels. 

Also part of the complex are the Central European Art History Research Centre, a facility constructed from the building of the former Adél Bródy Children’s Hospital housing over one million researchable documents, and a visitor centre and conference room located in the converted former Jewish prayer house.  Originally designed by Vilmos Freund, the latter pair of buildings—to which the 21^st-century OMMRK is joined in eclectic fashion—were renovated in deference to various heritage preservation considerations.

The Museum of Ethnography Collections Centre [Néprajzi Múzeum Gyűjteményi Központja or NMGYK] is a specialised auxiliary institution fulfilling a multi-polar range of functions.  One of these is to provide an ideal storage environment for museum artefacts, key aspects of which include its space-optimising storage system and separately configurable temperature and humidity controls.  A second and no less important function takes the form of a series of cutting-edge restoration workshops.  The Museum of Ethnography has equipped its Collections Centre with specialised studios that permit the handling of artefacts of various materials and properties.  These include wood, paper, ceramic, textile, leather, metal, and contemporary materials shops, whose daily operations are handled by a specially educated and trained professional staff.  Completing the facilities is a quarantine area where artefacts can be subjected to freezing or oxygen deprivation treatment.

Last but not least among the centre’s features is a digitisation and photographic studio.  As a result of the developments of the past few years, the Museum of Ethnography boasts one of the most advanced and best-equipped facilities of this kind in the sector.  The completed photographic studio and its skilled staff will permit the production of digital content in the areas of both artefact, and flatbed photography at an exceptionally high standard of quality.