The recently completed Hungarian ethnology museum adopts the form of two artificial hillsides with a huge roof garden space as an extension of Budapest City Park in Hungary The museum also has a glass outer wall, which is covered by an early and complex curtain, including nearly 500000 laser cut metal sheets.
The ethnology museum is designed by the local company napur architect. 60% of its buildings are located underground so as not to unduly affect the flat terrain of the park. Its landmark 7300 square meters (about 80000 square feet) roof garden is built with more than 3000 cubic meters (about 106000 square feet) of surface soil. There are 1500 perennial plants, 7 shrubs, nearly 100 evergreen plants and about 700 ornamental grasses.
Although most of the building is underground, the above ground part is impressive. It is defined by an aluminum shading net, which helps to prevent the interior from overheating due to the introduction of solar heat.
"The highest honor of the building is its glass exterior wall. The entire exterior wall is covered with a metal grid structure, in which nearly 500000 pixels are inserted, depicting ethnological patterns selected from the museum's Hungarian and international collections," explained the press release of the ethnological Museum. "Like a tapestry woven by Hungarian and world cultures, the structure surrounds the building and draws curtains."
With an internal area of 7000 square meters (about 75000 square feet), the museum is divided into five floors and has a collection of more than 200000 cultural relics, including photos, manuscripts, recordings and video materials of Hungarian folk music. Its exhibition space is designed very flexibly, which can be used for both temporary and permanent exhibitions.
Nearly 4000 ceramic products from all over the world are also exhibited here. Around the building, visitors will find a bookstore, a restaurant, a library, a document center, joint office facilities, a visitor center, an activity center and a children's interactive Museum.
The Museum of ethnology is part of the large-scale reconstruction of Budapest. It is a work jointly launched by Zaha Hadid and Sou Fujimoto, which is only a short distance from the museum.