Millennium Underground Museum

Deák Ferenc tér

Useful Information

Location:	Budapest, Deák Ferenc tér, metro station
Open:	All year Tue-Sun 10-17. [2007]
Fee:
Classification:	Underground Railway
Light:
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Guided tours:
Photography:
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Address:	Millennium Underground Museum, Deák tér, metro station, Budapest.
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

07-AUG-1894	construction work started.
02-MAY-1896	Millennium Subway Line opened.
1955	construction works for the second subway line started, section of the MillFAV tunnel.
1972-73	old surface section in Városliget closed, new vehicles built by Ganz-Mávag.
1975	museum opened.
1987	inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
1996	museum and several stations renovated by the BKV Ltd..

Description

The Millennium Underground Museum is a museum located underground, telling about the underground or subway of Budapest. It is located beneath the Deák Ferenc tér underground station, which once was the end of the first underground line. In the 1970s the public transport was strongly developed, to meet the needs of the 20th century, and the museum was created to host an exhibition about the metro construction, its achievements and future. A section of the tunnel, which was abandoned in 1955, was used for this new museum.

Ten years ago it was completely renovated by the underground operator BKV and a new exhibition created. The reason for this exhibition was the 100 years anniversary of the subway.

The Millenniumi Földalatti Vasút (MillFAV, Millennium Subway Line) was opened in 1896. It was named in reference to the 1000th anniversary of Hungarian tribes settling on Hungarian grounds. Opened about 40 years after the famous Subterranea London Underground it was the continent's first underground railway. Budapest flourished in the last quarter of the 19th century and was almost three times as large as today. It rivalled Vienna, the imperial seat of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the underground line from the city center to the site of the Milleneum Fair in Városliget was built to show the city's superior modernity. The total length of the first line below the new built Andrássy út was 3.68 km, of which 3.22 km were underground.

The museum shows models, documents, pictures, and original items of the underground history of Budapest. There are even several vintage cars of the original line. Located at the center of the city, and almost the begin of the first line, it is also the start of a series of real life museums. Each station from Vörösmarty tér to Városliget (City Park) is almost in the same state as it was built.

There is a new exhibition in those eleven underground stations, called Great works of architecture in Budapest. Almost 500 photographs and and architectural sketches from the Photography and Architecture collections of the Kiscell Museum of the History Museum of Budapest are on display on the stations. The depicted historic buildings were choosen for being close to the stations. So it is possible to travel with the underground, visit the exhibitions and the original buildings all by foot.