Welcome to the Open-Air Museum
"Ensemble Gerersdorf"

Dear visitor, thirty years back there was nothing but fields around here. Fields that were worked by the legendary "Muik Mizzi-Mam," a small farmer by the name of Maria Muik, who relied on manual labor in the strenuous, traditional way. She lived in the old thatched timber farmhouse just across the fence. It was being in the immediate neighborhood of this old rural dwelling that prompted the choice of location for the open-air museum.

Fascinated by the beauty of Southern Burgenland's rural timber architecture with its thatched rooflines, but which was falling derelict all around, the Kisser family from Vienna purchased the estate in 1972. The idea was to transfer timber buildings of cultural interest to this site and thereby save them from final dilapidation. In 1973, the re-erection of a farmhouse from Tschanigraben was started and also of a "Kellerstöckl" (a storehouse for wine barrels and summer accommodation for vintners). Since then, every weekend, every holiday and thousands of working hours have been invested in this idea. Thanks to numerous volunteers and the help of expert thatchers from Heiligenbrunn, the first small unit of the six buildings was presented to the public as the "Ensemble Gerersdorf" in 1976.

By and by, the "Ensemble Gerersdorf" developed into a "village within the village," and into what is now the largest open-air museum in Burgenland. Timber, mud and straw are the local materials that most of the buildings are made of. The logs were hewn and trimmed by hand, then plastered with mud (loam) mixed with chopped straw, and finally covered with a layer of chalk.

The thatched roof, made of rye straw, has a life-span of up to twenty-five years. Such roofs regulate the inner temperature of the house just as the mud plastering does. The exhibit's buildings and tools come mainly from the southern part of Burgenland and the west part of Hungary, to which country all of Burgenland belonged until 1921.

The "Society of Friends of the Open-Air Museum Gerersdorf," to which Gerhard Kisser transferred the running of the museum in 1996, is dedicated to the upkeep and the further expansion of the museum as well as to the preservation of the Pannonian cultural heritage.

Brochures are available in several languages, English, French, Spanish... open March to November.

We hope you enjoyed being with us and cordially thank you for your visit.

Homepage in German: http://www.freilichtmuseum-gerersdorf.at

by Johannes Graf

2010.10.01