The Hungarian Network of Country Houses was born in the middle of the 20th century in order to preserve this complex heritage value in its full original form. The network now looks back on a history of several decades. Its concept was based on the idea that the best manner for the preservation of values is one which keeps and presents the buildings at their original location, accompanied with their complete original surroundings and all the accessories of the life they once saw. This objective is partly achieved in museum style: by the formation of interiors containing traditional furnishings in their original place and accompanied, of course, by the entire manor, i.e. the farm buildings and their accessories.
The country houses are open-air ethnographical collections which, accompanied with objects collected and preserved in situ, present the traditional material culture of a given settlement or region through home interiors (displayed in buildings that are themselves important from the perspective of folk architecture) and sometimes also workshops, farm buildings, or simpler industrial facilities. The interior of at least one characteristic room of each country house is furnished with original objects collected from the settlement concerned. In each region, the restored and furnished buildings are the most characteristic relics of local culture. In many cases this programme was needed for their successful preservation and renovation in an authentic form after thorough rehabilitation work.
The restored and furnished peasant houses become real country houses (and not only museums of local history) by being made the venues of community events, occasions joining different age groups, training and education events, and programmes for the presentation and transmission of traditional crafts. This effort for complexity dates back to be the renovation of the Schumacher House in Nagyvázsony in 1960. This was the first time when the method of full-value reconstruction of a historic site was applied to a folk site. As a result, the first in situ country house, furnished and preserved at its original location, was opened to the general public. The following period resulted in the birth of several country houses. The process was sped up in 1974, when a ten-year programme, encompassing the entire country, was launched, and caused the number of the country houses in Hungary to exceed two hundred by 1984. A country-wide network had been established to display the folk architecture of each region, including the buildings of the national minorities.
Source: UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List
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