Despite its central location, the Museum of Bucharest is strangely one of the most overlooked and forgotten in the Romanian capital. Millions of people pass it in their cars every year without ever going inside. Thousands more attend the various craft, book and art fairs that are regularly held in its courtyard without ever peeking at the exhibits in the actual museum.
From the website of the Museum of Bucharest: Click for original
Until this morning, we were no less guilty of ignoring the museum: it must have been ten years – at the very least – since we last visited. So, this week being the school holidays, we today took the opportunity to visit the museum, not least because it currently hosts a temporary exhibition of medieval instruments of torture: perfect for reminding the kids to think themselves lucky next time they get told to do something.
In six words: the museum is a qualified winner. Far from being the last museum you should visit in Bucharest, it should be right up at the top of the list. Yes, it does need a bit of (Antipa-style) love and care (as suggested by Ioana in this comment from an infamous post of last year), but even ‘as is’ it knocks the far more famous History Museum down the road on Calea Victoriei into next week – certainly in terms of displaying fascinating exhibits you actually want to look at and read about. What’s more, nobody said a word when we started taking photos (although you are meant to pay a fee to do so).
The museum’s exhibition is displayed in five rooms: The Red Room (Salonul Rosu): some antique furniture and ornaments, most of which were the property of the Sutu family, who built the palace; Archaeology: a collection of antiques – some from 150,000 years ago – dug up in and around Bucharest; The Middle Ages: weaponry and armour from the time Bucharest was founded by Vlad Tepes, and earlier; The Sala Unirii: artefacts from the 19th century, when Bucharest became the capital of the United Principalities and began to resemble the metropolis we know and both love and hate today; Administration: A collection of maps, plans, documents and photographs of how Bucharest has changed over the decades.
We were probably impressed most by the maps, the documents written when Romanian was rendered in the Cyrillic script, as well as the street signs:
We were also fascinated by the fact that until the 1920s or so, Bucuresti was written almost always as Bucuresci.
(The temporary exhibition of medieval instruments of torture was a bit of a let down. In fact, we baulked at the 15 lei entry fee and thought better of it).
The museum’s fabulous website is in Romanian only, but most captions at the museum itself are in Romanian and English. The museum has a little kiosk selling Bucharest souvenirs, and a few rather good books about the palace, the Sutu family and about the history of Bucharest.
Our only complaint would be that there is clearly a great museum waiting to happen here. The current exhibition – which occupies one small part of the palace – is probably just a small fraction of the museum’s full collection: you leave feeling as though you want to see more, wondering what treasures are behind all the closed doors.
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The Museum of Bucharest (Muzeul Municipiului Bucuresti) is open Wednesday to Sunday, 10am-6pm. More details – including a map of the exact location – at Bucharest In Your Pocket.
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