Benefitting of the natural environment of the oak forest in the north-eastern outskirts of Timisoara, the Banat Village Museum continually redefines its mission through the exercise of its functions that makes it a cultural institution in the service of society and which collects, conserves, researches restores, communicates and exhibits, with the purpose of knowledge, education and recreation, the material and spiritual testimony of the existence and evolution of human communities in the villages belonging to the historical Banat, multicultural and multiethnic, where the Romanians were the majority population. The museum’s cultural offer aims to attract an audience of all ages in order to raise awareness to the importance of knowledge, promoting and preserving the values ​​of the traditional Banat village, embodied in the museum’s heritage. The cultural images offered by the museum intend to educate and train aesthetically various audiences and inform tourists about the values ​​and traditions of multiethnic communities in the Banat.

The permanent exhibition, a reserve of outdoor banatian folk architecture, follows an initial thematic plan in which each ethnographic region of Banat would be, in time, represented by at least one household.

The museum units are open for visitors, museum facilities, the majority having a national heritage value: the Căpâlnaş household, the Birchiş potter house, the Slovak abode in Nădlac, Arad county, the potter's household from Jupâneşti, the agro-pastoral household in Jebel , the Hungarian household in Babşa, the agro-pastoral household from Zolt, the Topla Church, the Bârna School, the Bârna inn, the German House in Biled, Timiş county, the agro-pastoral household from Căvăran, Caraş Severin county, the Ukrainian House in Repedea, Maramureş county.

Adult visitors can choose between an open visit of the museum and one with professional guide, and children from kindergartens and schools with which the museum has educational partnerships can opt for a scheduled theme visit chosen from the museum educational pedagogy offer. Visitors can use catalogs in Romanian, but also in several foreign languages ​​and leaflets which can be purchased for a fee, from the folk art shop on site.

Currently the Timisoara Banatian Village Museum attracts its different audiences also by organizing recurrent events, such as crafts fairs, folk music concerts, folk art summer schools, etc.

History: 

Banat Village Museum was purposely built since its establishment in 1971 to preserve, to restore and to show to the public the rural civilization and culture from Banat area and also to form a research centre of ethnographic and ethnological studies centred too, on Banat rural area. At the beginning the Banat Village Museum was part of the larger museum complex called Banat Museum and was actually an architectural reservation of that named museum. A large area (more than 17 ha) was granted to this reservation and initially houses and households from Făget-Lipova area (Timiș and Arad county) were brought here. A large research team of curators and architects were established and from 1971 to 1983 ten houses and more than twice household annexes displayed today were purchased from all over Banat area, dismantled and rebuilt in the reservation. In parallel an Art and Ethnographic Section was established, also under Banat Museum control, aimed to preserve, restore and to show to the public art objects and collections both of mainstream and popular art. Under this section a large collection of popular costumes, icons, carpets and wood carved objects was established and from early seventies Ethnographic Section was independent from Art Section both under Banat Museum as well, due to their large size collections. Until the year 1999 the so called Banat Village Museum was subordinated to Banat Museum and from 1 January 2000 became a separate institution, subordinated to the Timiș County Council. From 2006 the Ethnographic Section of Banat Museum was merged with Banat Village Museum and plans were made to start building an administrative and expositional pavilion (the actual construction started in 2008 and continues today). Due to this merge the Banat Village Museum is the most representative cultural institution with ethnographic and ethnologic profile from Banat region. With its cultural patrimony the Banat Village Museum is an open page in Banat rural history, an evidence of the traditional Romanian folk civilisation and other nationalities of this region and a proof of harmonious interethnic dialogue in this space. Without travelling in Banat villages you can see in a couple of hours everything that is characteristic of the traditional civilisation and culture of Banat, the visitors can see ”into the past” by looking at the authentic timber, stone, clay and tile buildings rebuilted here in the museum respecting the local techniques and representing different, authentic ways of life. So, visitors can see two potter maker houses, a blacksmith shop, agro-pastoral households, several oil making installations, some grape presses etc. The museum include a civic centre of a village (formed by Town hall, Church, School, Pub and (specific for our area) a National House – a meeting place for all villagers. Next to the National House a scene in the open air was set up, where during summer time, on every Sunday Romanian folk dances and songs are played. To this ensemble of Romanian monuments we can add houses and households belonging to the nationalities and illustrating the cultural identities of each one. At present visitors can see the Hungarian Household, the Slovak Household, the German House, the Ukrainian House and Serbian House. To the near future a Czech house will be added. Every year some cultural activities took place becoming a tradition in cultural life of Timisoara. This is the case of Ethnic Festival (every year, first weekend in June), Hearts Festival (every year, first weekend in July), Plai Festival (every year, the second weekend in September) and Craftsman Festival (every year, different dates from three years in September, last weekend). All this cultural activities attract every year thousands of visitors and become almost a tradition. In present the museum has 39 employees structured in two compartments, a section and an office. The museum is headed by a manager, employed by the Timiș County Council every four years after an open contest. First compartment is the Financial Compartment headed by a chief-accountant and beside him holds another three employees; the second one is the Juridical Compartment with just one employee (the juridical consultant). The largest compartment, actually a section, is the Expositional Section headed by a Section Chief and manned by twenty two employees, from which eight are curators/domain specialists (architecture, pottery etc.) three general restaurateurs, two custodians and the rest caretakers. The final compartment is Technical and Administrative Office with twelve employees headed by an Administrator. Regarding national projects starting the year 2000 at least fifteen projects by year were submitted at county and national level, most of them being successfully and now becoming a yearly tradition (as mentioned above festivals, for example). Our goal is to furthermore develop the collections of the museum by broadening our architectural collection with representative buildings from our area and also enlarge the movable item collection with rare priceless folk objects. Also, our aim is to further broaden the selection of the public by addressing to new categories of interested visitors by embarking on projects like this proposed one who will undoubtedly will attract new categories of visitors and also can establish a new way of addressing to the interested public.