Who founded it, and when?

Croatian artists Olinka Vištica, a film producer, and Dražen Grubišić, a sculptor, opened it in October 2010 after their own relationship ended and they were left wondering what to do with the objects it left behind.

Has it won any recognition?

Yes – in May 2011 it received the Kenneth Hudson Award from the European Museum Forum, given to a museum, person or project that challenges conventional ideas about what a museum can be.

Is the Zagreb location the original?

Yes – the concept started here in 2010 before touring as temporary exhibitions in other cities and inspiring standalone spin-offs elsewhere, but Zagreb's is the founding museum, with a rotating collection donated from around the world.

How long does a visit take?

Most visitors spend under an hour reading through the exhibits, though the emotional weight of some of the stories tends to slow people down more than the museum's small physical size would suggest.

Is it open every day?

Yes, seven days a week – one of the reasons it became popular with visitors early on, since many of Zagreb's other museums keep more limited hours.

Do you need to book tickets in advance?

A skip-the-line ticket isn't strictly necessary given the museum's size, but it avoids any queue at the door and locks in a fixed, known price.

Museum of Broken Relationships, Zagreb

Most museums collect things because of who owned them or when they were made. Zagreb's Museum of Broken Relationships collects things because of why someone gave them up – and the result is stranger, funnier and sadder than that description makes it sound.

An art project that became a museum

Croatian artists Olinka Vištica and Dražen Grubišić opened the museum in October 2010, built from objects left over from their own relationship and the question of what to actually do with them once it ended. Rather than throw the objects away, they turned the idea outward: the public could donate their own breakup mementos, each with a short written story attached, and the collection would grow from there. It clearly touched a nerve – in May 2011, the European Museum Forum gave it the Kenneth Hudson Award, for a museum, person or project that challenges what people assume a museum is supposed to be.

What's actually inside

The exhibits are whatever people have sent in – a garden gnome, a wedding dress, a prosthetic leg, a toaster – paired with a caption explaining the relationship and its ending, submitted anonymously by donors from around the world. Some entries are funny, several are genuinely upsetting, and the collection rotates as new donations arrive and older ones go into storage or travel with the museum's touring exhibitions elsewhere. Zagreb's building, though, is the original: where the idea started, not a licensed copy of it.

Booking

A skip-the-line ticket covers self-paced entry, valid for the day and open seven days a week – useful given how many of Zagreb's other museums close on Mondays. It sits inside the Upper Town, close enough to St. Mark's Church and the rest of the Old Town walking route to fold into the same day.

Good to know

Frequently asked questions

A Zagreb museum made up entirely of real objects donated by the public, each paired with a short written story about the relationship it came from and why it ended – conceived as an art project, not a conventional history museum.

Image: Robert Nyman via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)