Museum of Istanbul

HISTORY AND LOCATION

The site is adjacent to the Gate of St. Romanus in the 5th-Century Theodosian City Walls, one of the key landmarks of the city’s multi-layered history. The walls evolved together with the name of the city Byzantion, Konstantinopolis, Konstantiniyye, Istanbul. We can read how different societies used the wall collectively by restoring, repairing and extending the masonry work. These vital traces guided the elaboration of the architectural project.
As the urban settlement expanded, the walls became part of the center rather than the borders of the city. The Theodosian Walls have also been one of the city’s must-see routes for travelers since the 17th Century. In this context, we proposed the museum as a node that integrates this route together with present-day modern transportation hubs, which also played an important role in the transfiguration of the building.

Monolith

As an architectural archetype, the museum is a contradictory type of structure. Maybe this is where it derives its charm. The museum is, first and foremost, a public building that must be open and welcoming to everyone. On the other hand, it is a type of structure that should help visitors concentrate. In other words, it is a typology that must be introverted to focus on the content or activity exhibited within, and at the same time it possesses a powerful presence due to its scale.
The building gives the impression of being carved out of a solid mass, and its low profile communicates with the historic city walls nearby. Mainly formed by rotation to relate to the route that follows the land walls and the transportation hub, the structure is pierced by a pedestrian bridge connecting to the topographical status of the site.
The museum’s first floor, where the permanent exhibition halls are located, hovers above the ground floor on broad cantilevered canopies, allowing the main mass to elevate from the ground. The transparent ground floor is laid out according to all the public functions, including a city library, a temporary exhibition zone, a lecture hall, cafes, restaurants and a children’s workshop, all of which open to the park through the Museum Square. Three underground floor slabs house laboratories, service zones, storage, workshops and parking.

Living Museum

The courtyard in the middle of the structure plays a key role as one of the main circulatory elements for the open-air exhibitions and for a vibrant museum environment. The museum interprets Istanbul’s history as a spiral tale, and embraces the circulation around the courtyard, taking visitors on a long journey, starting with a permanent exhibition. The courtyard, a key spatial element in shaping the morphology of the building, is planned as a resting and meeting place, where visitors can meet culture and history enthusiasts and digest the museum experience.
The 38,000m2 Istanbul City Museum is planned not only as an inventory museum, but also as a living building contributing to urban life, with its permanent exhibition spaces, library, children’s workshop, showroom, activity areas, restaurants, cafes and temporary exhibition hall. These functions, which are located on the ground floor, where daylight penetrates the interior spaces thanks to the courtyard, support the permanent exhibition halls, and turn the museum building into a complex where visitors can spend the whole day. Amongst these functions, a comprehensive conservation and restoration laboratory, museum offices and similar museology infrastructure are incorporated into the Istanbul City Museum building.
In addition to the supporting functions on the ground and basement floors, major permanent exhibition halls located on the first floor of the monolithic mass will depict the phases of Istanbul throughout history, with particular focus on the everyday life of citizens.

STRUCTURAL MODULATION

Reinforced concrete is used for areas below ground level and in the cores, whereas a steel floor slab and concrete core hybrid system was elected for the floors above ground level, to create wide spaces with fewer columns. Thanks to this hybrid system, it was possible to limit the height of the structure, the skeleton was kept delicate, and the exhibition spaces could be extended. Interior spaces and exhibition spaces were planned in coordination by modulating the structural system and glass facade, ensuring the integrity of the structure and the spatial arrangement. Ventilation, heating and lighting systems were established around the interior spaces with the same modulation. The structural steel system was planned in accordance with the interior partitions, which were left without cladding or coating in most of the spaces.

REFLECTING THE HERITAGE

The monolith that houses the museum floor is developed from the alignment of the entrance axis and the visitor route inside the exhibition. The modulation of the façade panels reinforces this mass formation. The panel details correlate with the traces of different eras on the masonry work of the ancient Land Walls.
The façade is composed of anodized metal and glass. This huge building, around one hundred meters long, is covered in metal to create an effect of continuous transformation in different weather conditions at different times of the day, reflecting the surrounding landscape and the sky.
The ground floor façade, beneath the massive metal structure, is composed entirely of glass. The elevated cantilevered block serves as eaves to protect visitors from the rain, and as shade. Thus, it became possible to detach the main volume from the ground, while maintaining the transparency and connectivity of the ground floor to the City Park and the Museum Square.

SCENOGRAPHY

As Orhan Pamuk asserts, the museum is almost time itself, and time is not just linear or directional. The curation of the inventory in thematic and chronological sections played a decisive role in the layout of the museum floor. The museum’s narration is composed of seven thematic sections that generate a chronological path through the different eras. Each section proposes a different scenario, with changing characteristics in the type of exhibition and display design. The visitor is guided on a cyclical path, moving through the building until the main ramp that connects to the enclosed courtyard; a corner to rest, to remember and to gather.