Technical Study Stores, Budapest

The Technical Study Stores is one of the most unique exhibition spaces in Hungary. It can be considered as a museum, yet it does not incorporate a permanent exhibiting place. It is a special type of hybrid space, since in its halls visitors meet exhibitions not in the traditional sense: when it opened in 2006, it made its internal stores available to the visitors. The exhibition fills a niche, since the fascinating objects of the Hungarian technical heritage used to be displayed only within the framework of temporary exhibitions for decades. However, they can be seen in the Technical Study Stores now. The artifacts are presented on metal shelves in three spacious halls – sixteen-thousand pieces altogether. The collection contains world patents, first copies and enormous power-machines. The museum offers a real visual binge for the fans of technical culture and design, while for those who are interested in the history of technology it is a perfect chance to learn and be entertained. Technical miracles, everyday achievements, household and electric devices of the last centuries can be seen in a huge amount and density. Telescopes, cameras, computing and electric devices, the outstanding inventions of optics, precision mechanics and geodesy are exhibited on the shelves. There is a wide range of exhibited objects from tiny cameras used by secret agents to enormous telescopes, or invaluable world clocks. Ányos Jedlik’s special dynamo (a dynamo powered by electricity) and József Petzvál’s objective system are preserved in the Technical Study Stores besides such unique objects as the Remington N 1 typewriter, which is the world’s first typewriter produced in a factory; the manually operated mechanical vacuum cleaner, which is made of wood; and the prototype of László Bíró’s ball point pen, which was a world patent as well.

The Technical Study Stores is available by a short walk from Csonka János tér station by trams No 41, 17, 48, 56 and 61, or from Hauszmann Alajos Street by tram No 1. The exhibition space is easily accessible from Budafoki út, too, by bus No 133E, from where it takes around 5 minutes to get to the Museum on foot.