Museum sights in Istanbul
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Istanbul Archaeology Museums
It may not attract the number of visitors that flock to nearby Topkapı, but this stunning museum complex is already one of the city’s top attractions. It can be easily reached by walking down the slope from Topkapı’s First Court, or by walking up the hill from the main gate of Gülhane Park. The complex is divided into three buildings: the Archaeology Museum (Arkeoloji Müzesi), the Museum of the Ancient Orient (Eski Şark Eserler Müzesi) and the Tiled Pavilion (Çinili Köşk). These museums house the palace collections formed during the late 19th century by museum director, artist and archaeologist Osman Hamdi Bey and added to greatly since the republic. While not immediately…
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Dolmabahçe Palace
These days it’s fashionable for architects and critics influenced by the less-is-more aesthetic of the Bauhaus masters to sneer at buildings such as Dolmabahçe. The crowds that throng to this imperial pleasure palace with its neoclassical exterior and over-the-top interior fit-out clearly don’t share their disdain, though. More rather than less was certainly the philosophy of Sultan Abdül Mecit I, who, deciding that it was time to give the lie to talk of Ottoman military and financial decline, decided to move from Topkapı to a lavish new palace on the shores of the Bosphorus. For a site he chose the dolma bahçe (filled-in garden) where his predecessors Sultans Ahmet I …
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Florence Nightingale Museum
The experience of visiting the Selimiye Army Barracks, where this museum is housed, is actually better than the museum itself. The barracks, built by Mahmut II in 1828, is on the site of a barracks originally built by Selim III in 1799 and extended by Abdül Mecit I in 1842 and 1853. It is the headquarters of the Turkish First Army, the largest division in the country, and is an extremely handsome building, with 2.5km of corridors, 300 rooms and 300 windows. During the Crimean War (1853–56) the barracks became a military hospital where the famous lady with the lamp and 38 nursing students worked. It was here that Nightingale put in practice the innovative nursing methods t…
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Rahmi M Koç Industrial Museum
Hasköy, located on the Beyoğlu side of the Golden Horn, was for centuries a small, predominantly Jewish, village. In the Ottoman period it also became home to a naval shipyard and a sultan’s hunting ground. Today, its main claim to fame is this splendid museum dedicated to the history of transport, industry and communications in Turkey. Founded by the head of the Koç industrial group, one of Turkey’s most prominent conglomerates, it exhibits artefacts from İstanbul’s industrial past. The collection is highly eclectic, giving the impression of being a grab-bag of cool stuff collected over the decades or donated to the museum by individuals, organisations or companies who d…
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Museum of Turkish & Islamic Arts
This impressive museum is housed in the Palace of İbrahim Paşa, built in 1524 on the western side of the Hippodrome. İbrahim Paşa was Süleyman the Magnificent’s close friend and brother-in-law. Captured by Turks as a child in Greece, he was sold as a slave into the imperial household in İstanbul and worked as a page in Topkapı, where he became friendly with Süleyman, who was the same age. When his friend became sultan, İbrahim was made in turn chief falconer, chief of the royal bedchamber and grand vizier. This palace was bestowed on him by Süleyman the year before he was given the hand of Süleyman’s sister, Hadice, in marriage. Alas, the fairy tale was not to last for po…
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Galata Mevlevihanesi
If you thought the Hare Krishnas or the Harlem congregations were the only religious orders to celebrate their faith through music and movement, think again. Those sultans of spiritual spin known as the ‘whirling dervishes’ have been twirling their way to a higher plane ever since the 13th century and show no sign of slowing down soon. The Mevlevi tarika (order), founded in Konya during the 13th century, flourished throughout the Ottoman Empire. Like several other orders, the Mevlevis stressed the unity of humankind before God regardless of creed. Taking their name from the great Sufi mystic and poet, Celaleddin Rumi (1207–73), called Mevlana (Our Leader) by his disci…
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Military Museum
For a rousing museum experience, present yourself at this little-visited museum located 1km north of Taksim. Try to visit in the afternoon so that you can enjoy the concert given by the Mehter, which occurs most days between 3pm and 4pm. The large museum is spread over two floors. On the ground floor are displays of weapons and Turkish military uniforms through the ages, as well as glass cases holding battle standards, both Turkish and captured. These include Byzantine, Greek, British, Austro-Hungarian, Italian and Imperial Russian standards. Also on show are an old-fashioned diorama of the Conquest and a tapestry woven by Ottoman sailors (who must have had lots of time o…
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Pera Museum
The most beloved painting in the Turkish canon – Osman Hamdı Bey’s The Tortoise Trainer (1906) – sold at auction in late 2004 for a massive US$3.5 million. Turks were worried that the painting might be lost to the nation, so there was rejoicing when this new, privately funded museum announced that it had been the successful bidder and that the painting would be the focal point of its wonderful Orientalist painting collection. Acquired by Suna and İnan Kıraç over decades, this collection consists of more than 300 paintings with Turkish Orientalist themes. Its canvasses by Turkish and European artists provide fascinating glimpses into the Ottoman world from the 17th to…
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Naval Museum
Landlubbers and salty seadogs alike will enjoy a visit to this museum of Turkish naval history, which is located on the Bosphorus shore close to the Beşiktaş ferry terminal. Though the Ottoman Empire is most remembered for its conquests on land, its maritime power was equally impressive. During the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent (r 1520–66), the eastern Mediterranean was virtually an Ottoman recreational lake. The sultan’s navies cut a swathe in the Indian Ocean as well. Sea power was instrumental in the conquests of the Aegean coasts and islands, Egypt and North Africa. Discipline, logistics and good ship design contributed to Ottoman victories. Exhibits focus on two …
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Jewish Museum of Turkey
In the late 15th century, Isaac Sarfati, Chief Rabbi of Edirne, wrote the following to brethren in Germany: ‘Brothers and teachers, friends and acquaintances! I, Isaac Sarfati, proclaim to you that Turkey is a land wherein nothing is lacking, and where, if you will, all shall yet be well with you…Here, every man may dwell at peace under his own vine and fig tree.’ At around the same time, Sultan Beyazıt II proclaimed ‘…the Jews of Spain should not be refused, but rather be welcomed with warm feelings’. Alas, this enlightened state didn’t last through the centuries, and Jewish Turks were made to feel considerably less welcome when racially motivated ‘wealth taxes’ were int…
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Great Palace Mosaics Museum
When archaeologists from the University of Ankara and the University of St Andrews (Scotland) dug at the back of the Blue Mosque in the mid-1950s, they uncovered a stunning mosaic pavement dating from early Byzantine times. Restored from 1983 to 1997, it is now preserved in this museum. Thought to have been added by Justinian to the Great Palace, the pavement is estimated to have measured from 3500 to 4000 sq m in its original form. The 250 sq m that is preserved here is the largest discovered remnant – the rest has been destroyed or remains buried underneath the Blue Mosque and surrounding shops and hotels. The pavement is filled with bucolic imagery as well as intricate…
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Mevlevi Monastery
The Museum of Court Literature in the Mevlevi Monastery, is one of only a handful of functioning tekkes (dervish lodges) remaining in İstanbul. It's a slightly run-down compound and is really only worth visiting if you're here to see the sema (ceremony), and/or you feel like catching respite from the hubbub of Beyoğlu in the pleasant, shady gardens.
As you approach the tekke, notice the graveyard on the left and its stones with graceful Ottoman inscriptions. The shapes atop the stones reflect the headgear of the deceased, each hat denoting a different religious rank. The tomb of Galip Dede, the 17th century Sufi poet who gave his name to the street, lies here.
Inside th…
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Miniaturk
We can’t explain why this new museum has been such a hit with locals. Marketed as a miniature park that showcases ‘all times and locations of Anatolia at the same place at the same time’, it’s a bizarre tiny town stocked with models of Turkey’s great buildings – everything from the Celsus Library at Ephesus to Atatürk International Airport – set in manicured lawns dotted with fake rocks blasting a distorted recording of the national anthem. Children aren’t interested in the models but love the miniature train that traverses the paths and the playground equipment. It’s tacky and only really interesting as a demonstration of how greatly Turks revere their heritage, even whe…
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Istanbul Museum of the History of Science & Technology in Islam
Recent beautification works at Gülhane Park have seen improvements to walkways and amenities, and have included the opening of a new museum, the İstanbul Museum of the History of Science & Technology in Islam, which is housed in the former palace stables. Its didactic exhibition argues that Islamic advances in science and technology preceded and greatly influenced those in Europe. Most of the exhibits are reconstructions of historical instruments and tools. Rumour has it that the nearby barracks building is being considered as the new home of the Military Museum.
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Museum Of Turkish Calligraphic Art
Housed in a small building at the western side of Beyazıt Square, this museum contains wall hangings and manuscripts illustrating mainly cursive calligraphic styles, many dating from the 13th century. There are also some examples of calligraphy on stone, tile and glass. The building, once the medrese of Beyazıt Camii, is a series of rooms surrounding a leafy courtyard.
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Sadberk Hanım Museum
Named after the wife of the late Vehbi Koç, founder of Turkey’s foremost commercial empire in 1926, this museum is a showcase for her extraordinary private collection of antiquities and Ottoman heirlooms. Labels are in English and Turkish. To get here, alight from the ferry at Sariyer and walk south from the ferry dock for approximately 10 minutes.
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Sakıp Sabancı Museum
On the opposite shore is the wealthy suburb of Emirgan, home to the impressive Sakıp Sabancı Museum, which hosts international travelling art exhibitions. The museum is home to one of İstanbul’s most stylish eateries, Müzedechanga, which has an extensive terrace and magnificent Bosphorus views.
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Askeri Müze
For a rousing museum experience, present yourself at this little-visited museum located 1km north of Taksim. Try to visit in the afternoon so that you can enjoy the concert given by the Mehter, which occurs most days between 3pm and 4pm.
The large museum is spread over two floors. On the ground floor are displays of weapons and Turkish military uniforms through the ages, as well as glass cases holding battle standards, both Turkish and captured. These include Byzantine, Greek, British, Austro-Hungarian, Italian and Imperial Russian standards.
Also on show are an old-fashioned diorama of the Conquest and a tapestry woven by Ottoman sailors (who must have had lots of time o…
reviewed
