Bourgeoisie, Typography and Umbrella Manufacturing in Lendava
Glavna ulica 52, 9220 Lendava, Slovenia

OPENING HOURS:
For information about opening hours click here.

A permanent exhibition titled “Bourgeoisie, Typography and Umbrella Manufacturing of Lendava” has its home in the former residential home at 52 Glavna ulica. The house was built at the beginning of the 20th century. As with all houses at that time, it was intended for residence on the first floor and for shops on the ground floor. The frontage of one of the most imposing neo-baroque buildings in Pomurje is decorated with beautifully shaped stucco. The top of the house used to be decorated with two baroque towers but only one has been preserved.

The development of the Bourgeoisie is presented in the first room of the museum. The period between 1867 and 1914 was the golden era of the town’s development. The life of the Bourgeoisie is illustrated with a study and a parlour on the right side of the display room. The furniture is richly decorated, upholstered with red velvet, carved out of softwood and painted in black, thus giving the impression of ebony. It used to be the property of the Eppinger family.

Pharmaceutical equipment from the end of the 19th century, which is exhibited to the left of the display room, bears witness to the history of pharmacy in Lendava. The first pharmacy in Prekmurje, the “Pharmacy of the Holy Trinity” was established in Lendava by the pharmacist Béla Kiss in 1835. In 1885, he sold it to the pharmacist Frigyes Nándor Fuss, who was an important person in Lendava’s public life.

The town was also proud of the umbrella manufacturer which was probably the first one in the lands of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This was the “Hungária Hazai Ernyőgyár Rt.” umbrella manufacturer. It sprang up from Béla Wortman’s dressmaking factory, in 1904, and proved itself to be so successful that, in 1907, an imposing building was built in the western part of the town for the needs of the expanded umbrella manufacturer. Today, we can admire the renovated and restored building with elements of Secession architecture in all its beauty. The building was built by the construction company of Tamás Morandini, an Italian-born living in Zalaegerszeg. Despite many difficulties, the umbrella manufacturer stayed in operation, with shorter and longer periods of inactivity, until 2001.

The exhibition displays photographic documents about the founding of the factory, old machines taken from the former umbrella manufacturer, as well as modern procedures for umbrella manufacturing. Visitors are offered an insight into the history of the umbrella which, in the past, did not simply serve as protection from the rain but was also an important addition to a lady’s attire.

Typography in Lendava began in 1573 when the first book was printed in the territory of today’s Slovenia. The second golden age of the development of typography is connected to Gábor Kardos as, in 1889, his printing office started to print the first newspaper of the town, “Alsólendvai Hiradó” (Lower Lendava News). Later, at the end of 1900, the printing house of Ernő Balkányi and his family from Lendava became more and more important. The printing activity of the Balkányi family in Lendava, Murska Sobota and Čakovec, in Croatia, which can be seen in the exhibition, are of great significance.

The Balkányi family always printed excellent artistic editions at the local, as well as national, level, regardless of several difficult periods for printing.

---

180 YEARS OF PHARMACY IN LENDAVA (1835-2015)

From the immemorial, humankind always attempted to remedy their illnesses and health problems. Medicine and pharmaceutics became the most important professions in healing’s service. In the beginnings, doctors themselves made their own medicines, but later the two profession were separated.

The first pharmacy in the Mura-region was the Szentháromság Patika (Pharmacy of the Holy Trinity), which was established by Béla Kiss, a qualified chemist, in 1835. He sold the pharmacy to another chemist, Nándor Fúss Frigyes in 1885, who was an important public figure in Alsólendva (Dolnja Lendava / Unter Limbach). The pharmacy became the property of Stanko Sikic, after the World War I.; afterwards it was owned by Gyula Himmelsbach in 1940, who led the pharmacy until the nationalizations in 1945.

The furnitures of the pharmacy, as we can see now, dated back into the 19th c. and it is not only a pharmacy-historical exhibition, but also a a unique from historico-cultural and applied-arts viewpoints. The entrance of the pharmacy was decorated by the two exhibited reliefs; one of them is Hygia, the Greek godess of purity and healthiness; and the other is Esculapus, the Greek god of healing. Pharmacies ordinarily contain two premises. The first room is the so-called officina, which serves the customers. Long time ago, here we would find a cabinet with lots of drawers, shelves and pots, which was completed by cash register and a balance. We would see faience porcelain, wood and glass pots in the highest variability of form and function and those contained solutions, ointments and powders. The room in the backwards was the laboratroy, it was the scene of the medicine-making. Here we find the balance, themortars, pots and moulds for tablets and cones which made up medicines together. At one time, medicines were made by the commands of the doctors, however, sometimes the chemists themselves experimented with drugs to create appropriate chemicals, but they also made cosmetics, household chemicals and other chemical substances. Before the specialist books came into general use, chemists collected their prescriptions in handwritten books.

Dr. Zoltan Lendvai Kepe, museologist, Gallery-Museum Lendava (2015)

---

THE BUILDING (52 MAIN STREET)

---

EXHIBTION PHOTOS

---

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Bourgeoisie, Typography and Umbrella Manufacturing in Lendava

The exhibition text was written and the exhibition organized by:
Zoltán Lendvai Kepe Ethnologist, Museum Specialist

Co-authors:
Dr. Bánfi Szilvia
Kepéné Bihar Mária
Dr. Nagy Zoltán
Plesa István

Graphic design:
Baumgartner Dubravko

We thank the donors:
Galerija-Muzej Lendava – Galéria-Múzeum Lendva
Göcseji Múzeum Zalaegerszeg
Javni sklad za kulturne dejavnosti Lendava
Knjižnica Lendava – Lendvai Könyvtár
Komunala Lendava – Lendva
Madžarska samoupravna narodna skupnost občine Lendava/Lendva Községi Magyar Nemzeti Önkormányzati Közösség
Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum, Restaurátori Főosztály
Nemzeti Kulturális Alap
Nemzeti Kulturális Örökség Minisztériuma
Ministrstvo za kulturo Republike Slovenije
Občina Lendava – Lendva Község
Országos Széchenyi Könyvtár Budapest
Pomurska madžarska narodna samoupravna skupnost/Muravidéki Magyar Nemzeti Önigazgatási Közösség
Razvojni javni sklad Lendava/Fejlesztési Közalap Lendva
Zala Megye Múzeumok Igazgatósága

Franjo Bajs
Alenka Galič
Göncz Károly
Dr. Hajós Ferenc
Kepe Etelka
Renata Lešnjak
Mencs Jolán
Dr. Nagy Zoltán

In preparing the exhibition the following people participated:
Franjo Bajs
Dubravko Baumgartner
Császár Dezső
Milan Gal
Franc Gerič
Göncz Károly
Kepéné Bihar Mária
Kovács Ferencné
Renata Lešnjak
Tanja Šimonka
Sabina Šinko
Varga Erika
Vida Annamarija

Lendava – Lendva, 2007
Lendava – Lendva, 2015