In 1968, the Göcsej Open-Air Museum (Village Museum) in Zalaegerszeg became the first open-air ethnographic museum in Hungary to open its gates. Following successful examples abroad, the establishment of an open-air museum in Hungary was considered a major milestone.
Located not far from the city centre, on the former riverbed of the Zala River, the exhibition presents the vernacular architecture, rural lifestyle and traditional farming practices of the Göcsej region in Zala County at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Until the middle of the 20th century, Göcsej remained a remarkably isolated area. This isolation preserved the traditional village layout, vernacular building techniques, the design and arrangement of farmsteads, as well as the agricultural practices and way of life of its inhabitants. Even in the 1950s, rows of thatched-roof houses were still common in the villages, and some highly archaic chimneyless houses with smoke kitchens – preserving architectural traditions from earlier centuries – were still standing.
The Idea Behind the Göcsej Open-Air Museum
During the 1950s and 1960s, villages entered a period of rapid modernisation. Within just one or two decades, many traditional log houses were replaced by new brick houses with tiled roofs. Thatched cottages disappeared from the streets, and the appearance of villages in one of Hungary’s most traditional regions changed dramatically. Witnessing this rapid transformation, Imre Szentmihályi, the founder of the Village Museum, began documenting and collecting examples of this disappearing rural world in order to preserve it for future generations. He was joined in this work by architect János Tóth and ethnographer Jenő Barabás, whose dedication played a vital role in creating the museum.
The Göcsej Village Museum
The buildings selected for the museum village were reconstructed in their earliest documented form, allowing visitors to experience them as they originally appeared. While most of the original thatched log houses had later been fitted with chimneys at their original locations, the museum presents them in their earlier form, without chimneys and featuring traditional smoke kitchens.
With the exception of the oldest house, relocated from Felsőszenterzsébet, each dwelling includes a living room alongside the kitchen and pantry. The farmyards also feature stables, livestock sheds, wells and various agricultural outbuildings. The exhibition would not be complete without the hillside wine cellars, as wine production was once of great importance in Zala County until the phylloxera epidemic of the late 19th century devastated most of the vineyards.
In addition to residential and farm buildings, the museum village also displays characteristic sacred structures of Zala’s rural communities, including wooden bell towers, a wooden church and roadside crosses.
Göcsej
Located in one of Hungary’s wettest regions and surrounded by vast forests, the people of Göcsej cultivated small clearings and developed a rural economy based primarily on animal husbandry. The region’s poor-quality soils supported only traditional forms of arable farming, which were supplemented by livestock breeding. The surrounding forests played an essential role in everyday life by providing timber for houses, farm buildings and tools, while also offering opportunities for gathering wild resources such as mushrooms, berries and birds, as well as for beekeeping.
