Bief history

Muzeul de etnografie

The Ethnographical Museum of Transylvania is the first ethnographical museum in Romania that unfolded its activity continuously since it was founded. This institution gathered with patience and scientific competence, in the 8th decades of its activity, tens of thousands of proofs of the traditional civilization in the Romanian space.

The initiative of founding it belonged to the Ministry of Arts that, taking into account the proposals made in 1920 by Coriolan Petranu who was the museums general inspector in the Romanian Dirigent Council, gave 600,000 lei for founding an ethnographical museum in Cluj.

On the 4th of May 1922 “Prince Carol” Cultural Foundation names a commission formed by George Vaslan, Sextil Puscariu, Alexandru Lapedatu, Romulus Vuia and George Oprescu that had the mission to elaborate proposals for founding the museum.

Thus in June 1922 the Commission decided the immediately setting up of the ethnographical museum in Cluj. The settings of the scientific program were established at the meeting on the 22nd of June 1922. These provided that the new founded Museum would represent all the ethnographical domains, not only the folk art; it would do research, gather, keep and turn into account the objects and folk phenomena of the Romanian and national minorities cultures; it would have a vast documentary fund which would be turn into account by the pavilion exhibition, by the open-air section and especially by the specialized studies.

The founding of the Ethnographical Museum of Ardeal set out an important moment in the history of the Romanian museology and ethnography, being the first museum that is based on a scientific program, as a result of several research campaigns that ended with the acquisition of an impressive number of ethnographical materials (1230 objects and 160 ethnographical photos) which, thematically organized, stood for the first ethnographical exhibition. The scientific program of the museum was established by the most famous specialists of the time, with good knowledge in the research of the folk culture and in the ethnographical field.

On the 1st of January 1923, appreciating the results of these research campaigns, the Cultural Foundation “Prince Carol” appoints professor Romulus Vuia as a manager of the new founded museum, whose fundamental ideas, drawn up in his book The Ethnographical Museum of Ardeal , constitutes even nowadays the essential functions of this museum. Since over 8 decades, the researcher's passion and curiosity to discover new signs of the ethnographical culture constitute the essential functions of the existence of this museum.

Visit program

Main Building's Section

Tuesday-Sunday:

9 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday closed.

Ethnographic Park "Romulus Vuia": 1st of May - 31st of October: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. (last entry 4 p.m.), Monday closed. The Park is closed between 1st of November and 30th of April.

Acces: buses - lines 26, 27, 28, 30, 41, "Piata 14 iulie" station

Details