Museum of Applied Arts Budapest: Closed Since 2017, Where to See It Now

The Museum of Applied Arts has been shut for nine years. Ödön Lechner’s palace of green and gold Zsolnay tiles on Üllői út, the building Budapest Art Nouveau grew out of, closed to visitors in 2017, its whole collection packed up and moved out for a renovation that has not yet started. If you came looking for opening hours and tickets, there are none for that address.

The good news is that the best of the collection is on show a short metro ride away. The museum’s Art Nouveau treasures, Zsolnay vases, Tiffany and Gallé glass, Lalique jewelry and whole period rooms, fill the Ráth György Villa on Városligeti fasor, the leafy avenue that runs up to City Park. It is small, it is open six days a week, and a full ticket costs 3,600 HUF (about $11).

📋 At a Glance

🚧 Main building	1091 Budapest, Üllői út 33-37: closed since 2017, no reopening date
🏛️ Go here instead	Ráth György Villa, 1068 Budapest, Városligeti fasor 12
🕙 Villa hours	Tue-Sun 10:00-18:00, closed Monday
🎟️ Villa ticket	3,600 HUF full, 1,800 HUF concession, 7,200 HUF family
🚎 Getting there	Trolleybus 70 or 78 to Reformáció park, or M1 to Bajza utca
♿ Access	Not wheelchair accessible, room for 30 visitors at a time
🏰 Nagytétény Castle	Closed for renovation, events only

Why the museum on Üllői út is closed

The Museum of Applied Arts (Iparművészeti Múzeum) belongs to the family of art and design museums modeled on London’s South Kensington Museum, today’s Victoria and Albert Museum. Its building, designed by Ödön Lechner and Gyula Pártos and inaugurated on 25 October 1896 in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, is the reason it matters to anyone who has never heard of the collection: a roof of glazed Zsolnay tiles, a facade covered in frost-proof pyrogranite ornament, and inside, a white, glass-roofed hall ringed with arcades of Eastern inspiration.

That ornament is also the problem. The building was badly damaged in the wars of the 20th century, especially in the fighting of 1956, and never had a full reconstruction. By the museum’s own account, roof and facade elements had worked loose and started to fall, utility pipes were breaking inside the building and the electrical network was overloaded. In 2011 the lantern on top of the dome, by then leaning toward Üllői út, was lifted off. The museum closed to visitors in 2017 and the entire collection was moved out so that work could begin.

It did not begin. A design by Vikár és Lukács Építész Stúdió, winner of an international competition, has existed since 2013, but a later government decision ordered a different scheme, a rear wing in Lechner’s style, and the project stalled through the permits and redesigns that followed. Meanwhile the empty building has had no heating for years.

Source: Museum of Applied Arts, condition of the building and main building notice; the museum’s article A magyaros örökség palotája for the lantern and the Zsolnay facade; hvg.hu, 12 October 2026 and Portfolio (MTI), 12 October 2026 for the 2017 closure, the plans and the heating. All read on 25 October 2026.

When will it reopen?

Nobody official has named a year, and you should distrust any page that does. Here is what has actually been said.

In May 2026, at his parliamentary hearing, the incoming culture minister, Zoltán Tarr, said the renovation of the Museum of Applied Arts would start. In October 2026 the museum’s acting director general, Zsombor Jékely, told the national news agency MTI that a government decision is still needed to launch it. That decision is expected to order a review of the plans and a return to a modern extension in place of the Lechner-style wing, followed by a public tender for the construction work. He expects most of 2027 to go on preparation, revising the plans and the restoration plans and running new surveys, and the renovation itself to take roughly four to five years after that.

Put those together and the planning answer is simple: the main building will not be open on any trip you are booking now.

Source: hvg.hu on the minister’s hearing, 12 May 2026; hvg.hu, 12 October 2026 and Portfolio (MTI), 12 October 2026, read on 25 October 2026.

Where to see the collection now: the Ráth György Villa

György Ráth was the museum’s first director general and one of the great private collectors of his day. He bought this villa on Városligeti fasor in 1901 and filled it with art; his widow gave the collection to the museum, and it opened as the Ráth György Museum in 1906. After decades as an East Asian art museum, the villa came back to the Museum of Applied Arts and reopened in autumn 2018 with Our Art Nouveau (A mi szecessziónk), shown, in the museum’s words, so that the collection stays visible for as long as the main building’s reconstruction lasts.

What is inside. Close to 600 objects from every branch of the applied arts, set out partly as furnished rooms and partly as dense open-storage cases. The interiors walk you through the British, Austrian and French strands of Art Nouveau, then into a Hungarian Art Nouveau dining room and reception room. Look for the Zsolnay ceramics, the Gallé and Tiffany glass, the Lalique jewelry and the Bugatti furniture, and for the rooms that show how Transylvanian folk art and Hungary’s national past fed into the style. Ráth’s own picture gallery and his historicist dining room have been reconstructed too, so you get a sense of the house as a collector’s home. The staircase railing is by the ironwork artist Gyula Jungfer, and the hall and stair furniture follow designs by Pál Horti.

Now showing as well. Patterns That Live On (Tovább élő mintázatok), a temporary exhibition made with the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (MOME), runs at the villa until 3 January 2027. Nine MOME teachers in textiles, ceramics, glass, jewelry and product design each chose one of their own masters and one of their students, so every display is a three-generation conversation about how a craft gets handed down.

Before you go. The villa’s narrow corridors limit it to 30 visitors at a time. On busy days you may have to wait in the garden, and entry is strictly in order of arrival, so a weekday morning is the safer bet. The building is a listed monument and is not wheelchair accessible. Photos without flash are free; filming needs a 1,000 HUF video ticket. Groups should email at least a week ahead. The museum publishes an online exhibition guide booklet on the villa’s visitor page, worth a look before you arrive.

Ticket	Price
Full price	3,600 HUF (about $11)
Concession, ages 6 to 26 and 62 to 70	1,800 HUF (about $5.50)
Family, one or two adults with one or more children under 18	7,200 HUF (about $22)
Video ticket	1,000 HUF (about $3)
Guided group tour in English, French, Italian or Russian, up to 15 people	20,000 HUF (about $61) per group
The same, 15 people or more	25,000 HUF (about $76) per group

Prices are in HUF, the currency the museum charges in. Converted at 1 USD = 328 HUF, the ECB rate on 23 October 2026. Rates move, so treat the dollar figures as indicative.

The Budapest Card gives 20% off. Hungarian and EEA citizens go in free if they are under 6 or over 70, or have a disability (with one companion), and on the national holidays of 15 March, 20 August and 23 October. On the third Saturday of each month the exhibitions are free for Hungarian and EEA visitors under 26, and for up to two close relatives accompanying an under-18.

Hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 18:00. Closed on Mondays.

Getting there: trolleybuses 70 and 78 stop at Reformáció park, about 100 meters from the gate. The M1, the little yellow metro under Andrássy út, stops at Bajza utca, about five minutes’ walk away. A single BKK ticket is 500 HUF (about $1.50), or 700 HUF bought on board.

Source: Ráth György Villa visitor page for prices (valid from January 2026), discounts, hours, capacity and group rules; villa history page for the history, the garden queue and access; Our Art Nouveau and Patterns That Live On exhibition pages; stops and distances from BKK’s timetable data (feed version of 25 October 2026) and fares from bkk.hu. All read on 25 October 2026.

Nagytétény Castle: also closed

The museum’s other branch is the Baroque Száraz-Rudnyánszky mansion at 1225 Budapest, Kastélypark utca 9-11, in District XXII, built between 1743 and 1751 on the foundations of a Roman villa. It is closed for renovation as well. The museum says the building and its park can be visited only occasionally, in connection with events it announces on its website, and at the time of writing no event was listed. Do not make the trip to the edge of the city unless the Nagytétény page shows something on.

Source: Museum of Applied Arts, Nagytétény Castle visitor page and about page, read on 25 October 2026.

Can you still see the building?

From the street, yes. Üllői út 33-37 is about 200 meters from the Corvin-negyed stop on the M3, where trams 4 and 6 on the Grand Boulevard also stop, and the tiled roof is still worth the detour if you love Art Nouveau. Just know what you will find. Scaffolding was put up around the building to avert immediate danger: the museum’s then director general described it in June 2026 as a structure that can catch facade pieces if they fall. Roughly 60 percent of the pyrogranite cladding has been worked on, with loose pieces taken down, catalogued and stored so they can go back once the walls behind them are restored. The lantern that once crowned the dome has been gone since 2011.

Getting inside is rarer. The museum opened the empty palace for a single afternoon in summer 2026, and marked the building’s 130th birthday on 25 October 2026 with a free self-guided walk on registration and a cellar-to-attic tour ending in a concert in the glass-roofed hall. Places for these openings go fast: the free walk was fully booked well before the day. The building is unheated, with no water, toilets or lifts available to visitors, and walks follow marked, structurally secured routes. If you want to be in the next one, keep an eye on the programs page and sign up the day registration opens.

You can also go in virtually. The museum’s collections database puts tens of thousands of objects online, and its armchair visit is a virtual tour of the Ráth Villa.

Source: Index, interview with the museum’s then director general, 29 June 2026 for the scaffolding and the cladding; the museum’s Museum Day program page and its article A magyaros örökség palotája for the openings; all read on 25 October 2026.

Make a morning of it

The villa sits near the City Park end of Andrássy út, so it slots easily into a day on that side of Pest. Our Andrássy Avenue walking guide covers the whole avenue, Bajza utca included. If the Zsolnay ceramics leave you wanting more, the Museum of Ethnography has a free hall of around 4,000 ceramic pieces lining its main staircase, and the Museum of Fine Arts stands on Heroes’ Square itself. For how the villa compares with the rest of the city’s collections, see our Budapest museums ranked by time cost.