Foundry Museum, Foundry museum in Víziváros, Budapest, Hungary

The Foundry Museum is an industrial museum in the Víziváros district, housed in a red brick building with distinctive serrated roofline. Inside you find original furnaces, casting vessels, metalworking tools, and decorative cast iron pieces that were made at this factory.

Abraham Ganz founded this iron foundry in 1845, and it operated continuously until 1964 when it became Central Europe's first preserved industrial museum. This transformation saved the facility and turned it into a place where visitors could learn about metalworking history.

The foundry shaped how Budapest developed as an industrial center and reflects the skilled metalworking traditions that defined the city's growth. Walking through the space, you encounter the everyday tools and practices that craftspeople relied on to create their work.

The museum is in the Víziváros district at 20 Bem József Street, in the 2nd district of Budapest. Visits were suspended in 2019 because the wooden beams supporting the building had aged; the roof was temporarily stabilised in 2020 and budgets for a full renovation of the building and its gardens were released in 2021. Check current opening status before travelling.

The museum garden holds busts of major figures of the Hungarian foundry industry alongside several large industrial relics. The building itself, erected 1858–62, housed Central Europe's first and long only wheel-band foundry, which also cast railway crossing parts and grain-milling rollers.