The Hungarian Water Museum was established in 1973 as a part of the Office for Documentation and Trainee of the National Water Authority. Since 1989 – under the maintenance of the Environmental Management Institute (KGI) established by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Water Management, which was founded in 1987 – it has been called the Hungarian Environmental and Water Museum and its scope of collection has also expanded. The museum with its national wide scoop of collection has been running by the General Directorate of Water Management since 1st January 2014.
The Museum - owning a unique collection - collects the objects related to the history of Hungarian water sector and water management. In addition to taking care of its own collection, from the beginnings it gives a professional help for registration, management and professional operation of the water memorial sites, technical monuments and collections maintained by the regional water management directorates.
The first permanent exhibition of the collection called “The history of the Danube and the Hungarian Water Management” was opened in 1980, in the downtown of Esztergom, in the former building of catholic leaders’ board. Due to the restauration of the building, the exhibition was demolished. From 2001, the innovative, new, permanent exhibition titled “Water time” was designed in the renewed interior spaces welcomed visitors.
In addition to the Museum of the Year (2001) and Family Friendly (2005) awards, the museum also won a special award from the “European Museum Forum” in 2003. The institute, which offers a various museum education programs for pre-school and school groups, set-up a new activity room in 2010, and in 2014 its new permanent exhibition unit, the Showcase room was opened.
The permanent exhibition, which was opened in 2001, welcomed the visitors for almost two decades, but it was demolished in 2018 to give its place to the permanent exhibition called the “Vízeum”, which can be still visited and which was awarded the title of Exhibition of the Year in 2020, then in May 2021, it received a special prize of the European Museum of the Year award. In the same year, the teaching and educational work of the museum’s experts was rewarded, the institute won the Museum Pedagogy Award.
Contact details:
Danube Museum – Hungarian Environment protection and Water Management Museum
Address: 2500 Esztergom, Kölcsey u. 2.
Phone: +36 33 500 250
E-mail: info@dunamuzeum.hu
Website: www.dunamuzeum.hu
Services: guided tours, museum pedagogy activities, research services, library
Opening hours
Monday: 9-17
Tuesday: CLOSED
Wednesday: 9-17
Thursday: 9-17
Friday: 9-17
Saturday: 9-17
Sunday: 9-17