Hungarian Open Air Museum
The Hungarian Open Air Museum in Szentendre is the country’s largest open-air museum. Visitors can explore authentic rural architecture, crafts, traditions, and experience living heritage through interactive programmes and community engagement.
The Hungarian Open Air Museum, located in Szentendre just north of Budapest, is Hungary’s largest open-air museum and a leading centre for the preservation and presentation of rural life and folk heritage. Since its founding in 1967, the museum has grown into an immersive village-like setting where visitors can explore traditional architecture, crafts, customs and everyday life from different regions of Hungary.
Spread over more than 60 hectares, the museum is organised into regional areas that faithfully recreate rural settlements as they would have looked between the 18th and 20th centuries. Authentic houses, barns, churches, mills and workshops have been carefully relocated and rebuilt, offering visitors a chance to walk through living history and experience how communities once lived and worked.
Beyond its historic buildings, the museum is alive with activities that keep traditions vibrant. Throughout the year, visitors can watch craftspeople at work, taste regional foods, see folk performances and take part in seasonal celebrations and fairs. Workshops, family programmes and educational tours give people of all ages a chance to try traditional crafts and learn about old ways of life in a hands-on way.
The Hungarian Open Air Museum is also known for its innovative approach to community engagement and heritage education. Recent projects have explored themes such as migration, sustainability and the links between cultural heritage and contemporary life. The museum works closely with local communities, researchers and craftspeople to ensure that knowledge and skills are passed on to new generations.
As a candidate for the European Museum Academy’s Luigi Micheletti Award, the Hungarian Open Air Museum stands out for its dedication to preserving cultural memory while staying relevant to modern audiences. It shows how an open-air museum can be much more than a place to look at the past, becoming instead a place where people gather to celebrate, learn and share living traditions.
Town: Szentendre
Country: Hungary