Nagytétény Castle

Budapest, Hungary

Nagytétény Castle is today the furniture museum of the Museum of Applied Arts in Budapest established in 1949. One of the finest monuments of Baroque architecture in Hungary, the former Száraz-Rudnyánszky Castle was designed by András Mayerhoffer and built by Baron József Rudnyánszky between 1743 and 1751 on the place of a Roman villa rustica and using an earlier castle that stood here. The Száraz-Rudnyánszky Castle was built in the so-called Grassalkovich Style. The original Gothic castle was built in the 13th century for the Tétény family that was related to the Árpád Dynasty.

During the one hundred fifty years of Ottoman Occupation (1541-1686), the Nagytétény Castle was the home of high-ranking Ottoman officers. In 1686 captain Ferenc Buchingen received the castle in honour of his merits in the war against the Turks. Later the mortgaged property was redeemed by György Száraz. Baron György Száraz moved in the castle in 1716 and started to reconstruct and expand the building.

After the death of Julianna Száraz-Rudnyánszky (1798), the castle was divided into three parts for the heirs. In 1904, the castle burnt down, nothing remained from its interior furniture. During World War II, the building was badly damaged. The Ministry of Agriculture transferred the castle for museum purposes in 1948. Its reconstruction started in 1951, and the first furniture exhibition opened in the same year. In 1989 - due to the deterioration of the building - the castle had to be closed down. After the restoration works started in 1997, the Castle Museum opened again for the public in 2000.

The applied arts exhibition presents artifacts of Hungarian and foreign furniture-making in a historical context with contemporary carpets, stoves and ceramics. About 300 items are presented in more than two dozen rooms.

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Address

Sziget köz, Budapest, Hungary
See all sites in Budapest

Details

Founded: 1743-1751
Category: Castles and fortifications in Hungary

More Information

en.wikipedia.org

Rating

4.4/5 (based on Google user reviews)

Interesting Sites Nearby


Memento Park (4,1 km)


Matthias Church (12,9 km)
Fisherman's Bastion (12,9 km)
St. Stephen's Basilica (13,2 km)
Hungarian Parliament Building (13,7 km)
Hungarian National Gallery (12,4 km)
Buda Castle (12,3 km)
Heroes' Square (15,4 km)
Citadella (11,6 km)
Dohány Street Synagogue (13 km)

User Reviews

Natasa Nacsa (3 years ago)
Interesting exhibition for Christmas
Gergely Okály (4 years ago)
Friendly staff, small museum we visited a small exhibition about rocking horses an hour children loved it (8 and 4 years old girls)
Attila Szilágyi (4 years ago)
It's an amazing experience to walk through dozens of rooms with the same functional furniture types, but each of them styled differently according to certain historical eras and areas. Like, in one room you can see a typical 18th century Holland home, in an other one a typical 19th century French room. In each room there are chairs, tables, cupboards, mirrors etc, all representatives. Like a historical furniture showroom.
Giulia Tiddens (4 years ago)
I loved this place cause I am an art historian. There are wonderful pieces of art. My favourite part was the Italian furnitures and paintings and the late neoclassicism part. Super interesting! The building is very beautiful and in each room there are explanation both in English and Hungarian. In the park in front of the building there is a cute playground.
Ádám Török (4 years ago)
The building itself could be renovated but the rooms inside are full of beautiful furniture art pieces grouped by place and time of origin and some other interesting and nice things. Definately worth a trip
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Glimmingehus is the best preserved medieval stronghold in Scandinavia. It was built 1499-1506, during an era when Scania formed a vital part of Denmark, and contains many defensive arrangements of the era, such as parapets, false doors and dead-end corridors, 'murder-holes' for pouring boiling pitch over the attackers, moats, drawbridges and various other forms of death traps to surprise trespassers and protect the nobles against peasant uprisings. The lower part of the castle's stone walls are 2.4 meters (94 inches) thick and the upper part 1.8 meters (71 inches).

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Ulfstand was a councillor, nobleman and admiral serving under John I of Denmark and many objects have been uncovered during archeological excavations that demonstrate the extravagant lifestyle of the knight's family at Glimmingehus up until Ulfstand's death in 1523. Some of the most expensive objects for sale in Europe during this period, such as Venetian glass, painted glass from the Rhine district and Spanish ceramics have been found here. Evidence of the family's wealth can also be seen inside the stone fortress, where everyday comforts for the knight's family included hot air channels in the walls and bench seats in the window recesses. Although considered comfortable for its period, it has also been argued that Glimmingehus was an expression of "Knighthood nostalgia" and not considered opulent or progressive enough even to the knight's contemporaries and especially not to later generations of the Scanian nobility. Glimmingehus is thought to have served as a residential castle for only a few generations before being transformed into a storage facility for grain.

An order from Charles XI to the administrators of the Swedish dominion of Scania in 1676 to demolish the castle, in order to ensure that it would not fall into the hands of the Danish king during the Scanian War, could not be executed. A first attempt, in which 20 Scanian farmers were ordered to assist, proved unsuccessful. An additional force of 130 men were sent to Glimmingehus to execute the order in a second attempt. However, before they could carry out the order, a Danish-Dutch naval division arrived in Ystad, and the Swedes had to abandon the demolition attempts. Throughout the 18th century the castle was used as deposit for agricultural produce and in 1924 it was donated to the Swedish state. Today it is administered by the Swedish National Heritage Board.

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