Istanbul Modern welcomes its architect

ISTANBUL

Istanbul’s museum of modern art, Istanbul Modern, moved on May 4 into a new building overlooking the Bosphorus Strait, designed by Renzo Piano, the Italian-born architect of London’s Shard skyscraper and the Pompidou Center in Paris.

Established in 2004, the Istanbul Modern in 2018 moved out of a rustic building that once served as a customs warehouse.

The city then launched a massive regeneration project that rebuilt a long stretch of the European side of the Bosphorus shoreline, making it more accessible to both Istanbulites and cruise ships that again clutter the busy strait.

The museum’s new three-story reflective steel building, featuring a transparent ground floor made of reinforced glass, is connected to the new Galata Port - a sleek amalgam of restaurants, bars and retail stores overlooking a waterfront boardwalk.

At a press conference held on June 20, Istanbul Modern CEO Oya Eczacıbaşı emphasized that the redesigned museum building has been planned with a visitor-oriented approach to allow all kinds of cultural, artistic and educational activities.

“Renzo Piano, as one of the most important names in museum architecture, shared our dreams of establishing a museum building in Istanbul that will attract the attention of international art circles and reflect the value of this unique city. We met with him for the first time in September 2014, at his office in Genoa. We were happy to see that he was as excited as we were when we talked about our dreams for the future of Istanbul Modern.”

Stating that a brand new era has begun for Istanbul Modern with the new museum building, Eczacıbaşı continued:

“As we begin our journey in our new museum building, our responsibility towards both the art world and our visitors increases even more. I can list our priorities for the future as to increase the production and visibility of women artists, to increase the content and spatiality of art education for children and youth, and to introduce Turkish art to visitors from all over the world in our new building.”

Glittering waters, light reflections

The museum building’s design was inspired by the glittering waters and light reflections of the Bosphorus, architect Piano said at the press conference.

“This museum building is like a creature of the sea that has jumped out from the waters of the Bosphorus,” said Piano, whose other works include the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

“Every time you have water, it is great to make a building because water makes things beautiful,” he said. “Istanbul is a place of water. We have water everywhere.”

Spanning 10,500 square meters, the museum offers a space for exhibitions, film screenings and a permanent collection of more than 280 works by Türkiye’s most important modern and contemporary artists.

Piano approached his latest creation knowing the pressures of erecting a building that could reshape both the city and its artistic direction for future generations.

“People must understand that it is a public art, making architecture, so it is different from many other sorts of art,” Piano said.

“It’s forever,” he added. “Especially when you make a building like a museum.”

The building stands on a grid of steel-braced concrete columns that are meant to be resistant to major earthquakes.

The city of 16 million people straddles an active fault line, suffering a catastrophic quake in 1999 that claimed more than 17,000 lives.

Piano said architecture was about making lasting structures.

“Look at the building, it’s solidly built, and the solidity is part of the semantic expression of the building: Solid and flying.”

The museum is currently featuring works by acclaimed director Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

The exhibition consists of 22 large portraits taken by Ceylan from his travels to places such as India, Georgia, China and Russia.