Museum of the City of Karlovac - Ethnological Collection

The Museum of the City of Karlovac occupies one of the oldest surviving residential buildings in Karlovac, a handsome Baroque palace on Strossmayer Square in the old centre of the city, and it houses the ethnological collection and other displays that tell the story of the town. Karlovac is a city of rivers and parks, set at the meeting point of four rivers, the Kupa, the Korana, the Mrežnica and the Dobra, about forty kilometres south-west of Zagreb, and its core is a star-shaped fortress that was laid out in the late sixteenth century as a defence against the Ottomans. The palace belongs to that early period and gives the museum a particular character.

The building was put up in the 1630s for General Vuk Krsto Frankopan, a member of the powerful Frankopan family, and it is often described as the oldest palace in the city and one of the oldest Baroque houses in Croatia. In the following centuries it served as a residence for noble and military families, and it is associated with several historical episodes. Tradition holds that the wedding of Katarina Frankopan and Petar Zrinski, two of the most famous names in Croatian history, was held here in 1641, an event that joined two great noble families, and the building later housed a general of the Habsburg army. Its thick walls, vaulted ceilings and symmetrical facade make it a good example of seventeenth-century residential architecture.

The museum itself has a long history. The town council supported the idea of a museum at the beginning of the twentieth century, but it was only in the early 1950s that systematic collecting began, under the first professional curator, and the museum moved into the palace in the early 1950s, later merging with the picture gallery. The collections cover archaeology, local history, crafts, art and ethnography. The ethnological collection presents the traditional way of life in the Karlovac area, with costumes, textiles, tools and household items, and shows how people lived in the villages along the rivers. Among the objects of local interest are paintings by Vjekoslav Karas, a painter born in Karlovac in the nineteenth century who became one of the pioneers of Croatian art, and an early wooden-wheeled bicycle that is said to have been the first in the city.

The museum is open on most weekdays and for part of the weekend, with hours that vary by day, so check before you go. Admission is modest, and some categories of visitors enter free. A visit takes about an hour.

Karlovac has other attractions that make a good day trip. The Karlovac art gallery and the city museum are listed in this guide, and the Mrežnica canyons, with their waterfalls and mills, are a short drive away. The parks along the rivers are pleasant for walking. The museum suits history lovers and families.