HIDDEN TREASURE OF THE MUSEUM OF ARTS AND CRAFTS, ZAGREB
ISBN:
953-6084-80-0
Binding:
soft
Year of issue:
2005About the book HIDDEN TREASURE OF THE MUSEUM OF ARTS AND CRAFTS, ZAGREB
The Museum of Arts and Crafts is this year, in 2005, celebrating its 125th anniversary, but preparations for the foundation of such a museum began long before 1880, the date it was originally opened. The first time that ideas about such an institution were considered was as long ago as the period of the Illyrian Revival, when the need was discussed for systematically collecting folk handicrafts and for establishing a special "craft section" in the existing National Museum.1
In 1865 the first urban plan was produced for the "extension and beautification of the capital city of Zagreb".2 It proposed that on the west side of what was then Market Square (today Marshal Tito Square) there should be a building for "various kinds of intellectual presentations".3 On exactly this position twenty years later the Museum of Arts and Crafts was built. Awareness that it was essential for Zagreb and Croatia to have such a centre had been made apparent by the huge success of the Economic Exhibition which in 1864 was held on that very square. Not long after, in 1866, the idea of founding in Zagreb a "society to support art like those in other large cities"11 began to be seriously considered, one of whose aims would be the improvement of art crafts. A vital part in the organisation of such a society was played by Izidor Krsnjavi5 who in the calendar Dragoljub wrote an article entitled "Foundation of an Art Society in Zagreb" in which he said, "most recently the idea of founding such a society occurred at the same time in both Zagreb and Vienna".5
In August 1868 a number of meetings took place to consider the founding of such a society and regulations were adopted on the lines of those of the Vienna Kunstverein, which singled out one of the main intentions as being "support for art in general, and for domestic art particularly in view of art crafts"7 and placed as their first commitment the founding of a crafts museum....
