National Museum of the Romanian Peasant
Rural textiles, icons and furnishings in a Neo-Romanian building on Soseaua Kiseleff.
The museum was founded in 1906 under Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcas to gather Romanian folk art, and moved into a purpose-built home on Soseaua Kiseleff designed by Nicolae Ghika-Budesti. Built in stages between 1912 and 1941, it is a landmark of the Neo-Romanian style, with brick walls, loggias and details drawn from Wallachian church architecture. From 1953 the building housed the museum of the Communist Party, and the peasant collections were dispersed until the institution was re-established in 1990 under the painter Horia Bernea.
Bernea's displays, which won the European Museum of the Year Award in 1996, group textiles, icons, ceramics, tools, carved gates and whole timber interiors by theme rather than by region. The collection numbers tens of thousands of objects, among them a wooden church brought from Transylvania and a working water mill. After about a decade of consolidation and restoration the building reopened in full on 28 June 2026, with the permanent route now visited in timed groups.
Highlights
- Neo-Romanian building by Nicolae Ghika-Budesti
- Thematic displays devised by the painter Horia Bernea
- Timber church and water mill inside the museum
- European Museum of the Year Award winner, 1996
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