Village Museum
(Muzeul Național al Satului „Dimitrie Gusti”)
The Village Museum, founded by
the sociologist Dimitrie Gusti in 1936, is one of the first and most valuble
ethnographic museums in the world. It is the second outdoors ethnographic
museum in the world, after the one in Stockholm.
Spreading on 30 hectares and
counting over 70 houses, 99 annexes and churches. Each building is a museum in
miniature, being endowed with traditional objects, from towels and cookers to
watermills and windmills ar oil presses.
The houses an churches
represents all the regions of the country in various periods of the Romanian
people culture, as the museum is trying to recompense, in a generous natural
frame, the intimate atmosphere of each dwelling.
Romanian Peasant Museum
(Muzeul Țăranului Român)
Fopunded quite recently, in
1990, the Romanian Peasant Museum shows its visitors more than 150.000
representative objects and documents for those who want to get acquainted with
the rural life.
The building sheltering it is a
historical momument, in the neo-Romanian style.
National Art Museum - Royal Palace
(Muzeul Național de Artă - Palatul Regal)
The history of the Royal Palace
starts in 1837 when the ruler Alexandru Ghica transformed the house built by
Dinicu Golescu into a ceremony palace, on the spot where now the southern wing
of the Palace is.
On the 10th of May
1866, prince Carol of Hohenzollern established here, who was going to modernize
and extend the original house. In 1882, the Royal Palace had the first electric
illumination installation in Bucharest.
In 1914, King Carol I died, but
he left clear orders in his will regarding the destination of the building:
„...the apartments of the Royal Palace of Bucharest, now occupied by the Queen,
shall remain at her disposal. [...]My gallery of paintings, as it is described
in the illustrated catalogue of my librarian Bachelin, shall remain forever and
entirely in the country, as property of the Romanian Crown.”
Then followed the reign of
Ferdinand, and then that Carol II. This latter, during the period of 1930-1937,
rebuild and extended the Palace, with the help of the architect Arthur Lorentz.
The old house of Dinicu Golescu was demolished and instead was buil the
southern wing of the Palace, called Kretzulescu due to its adjacency to the
church with the same name. This wing was achieved by the architect N.N
Nenciulescu. Later, this southern body included the first spaces destined to a
museum exhibition for the presentation of the art collection of the Romanian
Crown.
In 1942, the construction of a
new wing of the Palace was finished, oriented towards Stirbei Voda street, only
this part of the building was partly destroyed during tho bombing of 1944.
After the Second World War, the
siege of the Royal Palace sheltered the National Art Museum.
In 1950 was inaugurated the
first gallery of the museum - that of national art. The museum operated
uninterruptedly until 1989, but during the communist period it was no longer
called the Royal Palace.
During the period of the
communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu the building did not change its
destination, as here was the National Art Museum of the Socialist Republica of
Romania.
During the events of December
1989, the Royal Palace suffered significant damages. More than 1.000 works were
deteriorated or destroyed.
Followed ten years during which
the building was closed for ample reconstruction and rearrangement works.
The Museum was reopened in May
2000, when the European Art Gallery, the Romanian Modern Art Gallery and the
Romanian Ancient Art Gallery were successively inaugurated. Currently, it is
the National Art Museum and contains several Galleries, among which the
European Art Gallery, the National Gallery, the Universal Gallery with the
Feudal Art, Graphics and Rehabilitation Workshop sections. More than 1.000.000
exhibits of European art can be admired here. Also, in the Museum there are the
works of Gheorghe Tătărescu, Theodor Aman, Nicolae Grigorescu, Ștefan Luchian,
Theodor Pallady, Nicolae Tonitza, Constantin Brâncuși, Antonello de Messina,
Rembrandt, Rubens, Delacroix, Renoir, Monet.
Grigore Antipa Natural History Museum
(Muzeul de Istorie Naturală Grigore Antipa)
One of the first natural
history museums in the world, the „Grigore Antipa” Museum was officially open
in its current siege in 1908.
Originally, it was called the
„History and Antiquities Museum” and it was founded in 1834, upon the
proposition of the ban Mihalache Ghica. It had many sieges, among which the
current „Saint Sava” College of Bucharest.
The current siege of the Museum
began to be built in 1904, upon the insistency of Grigore Antipa, its manager
at that time, when the Museum witnessed a special development. This is also the
reason why the Museum was called by its manager’s name, in 1933.
Currently, the Museum shelters
around 1.300.000 exemplars, grouped in 130 collections belonging to most of the
groups of animals. One can admire here collections of minerals, rocks and
fossils.
The value of the exhibits is
all the greater as among them there are more than 5.000 unique exemplars in the
world.
The museum shelters periodic
sale exhibitions, the most appreciated being the aquarium fish exhibition and
the semiprecious stones exhibition.
Bucharest History and Art Museum - Șuțu Palace
(Muzeul de Istorie și Artă al Bucureștiului - Palatul Șuțu)
Those who want to know the
history og Bucharest can do it by visiting the Museum, where more than 150.000
objects, documents and photographs, drawing, engravings are exhibited that
describe the history of Bucharest from the oldest times (Neolithic) until the
present day. The archeology part and a numismatics collection are not missing.
A representative building for
Bucharest, built during the period of 1833-1834, in the neo-Ghotic style, with
elements of Romanic style, the Palace belonged to tthe great minister of
foreign affairs Costache Grigore Șuțu. The Palace was built according to the
plans of two Viennese architects, Johan Veit and Conrad Schwinck.
The onterior was decorated by
the sculptor Karl Storck, who used elements of the neoclassic style. Above the
monumental ladder on the inside there is a cupola with ornaments in the
Pompeian style.
The second half of the 19th
century represented a period of maximum brightness, the building became famous
in the era of luxurious social evenings organized by Grigore si Irina Șuțu.
Back then, the Palace was surrounded by vast gardens populated by pelicans,
peacocks, pheasants and other rare birds.
