Pera Museum
Private art museum in a converted 1893 hotel in Beyoğlu, known for Orientalist painting and Kütahya ceramics.
Pera Museum was opened in 2005 by the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation in the former Bristol Hotel, a neoclassical block built in 1893 to designs by the architect Achille Manoussos on Meşrutiyet Caddesi. The conversion by Sinan Genim kept the historic street façade while rebuilding the interior as five floors of modern gallery space. The museum sits in Tepebaşı, in the district long known as Pera, a short walk from İstiklal Caddesi and the Galata quarter.
Three permanent collections form the core of the museum: Orientalist painting, including Osman Hamdi Bey's The Tortoise Trainer; Anatolian weights and measures; and Kütahya tiles and ceramics. The upper floors house a changing programme of temporary exhibitions that has brought work by Goya, Rembrandt, Frida Kahlo, Josef Koudelka and many contemporary artists to Istanbul. The museum also runs a cinema, a learning programme and an auditorium used for talks and concerts.
Highlights
- Osman Hamdi Bey's The Tortoise Trainer in the Orientalist painting collection
- Kütahya tiles and ceramics from the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation
- Anatolian weights and measures collection
- 1893 hotel façade retained over purpose-built modern galleries
