Museum of Innocence nominated for designs ‘Oscar’

ISTANBUL– Hürriyet Daily News

Hürriyet photo

Istanbul’s Museum of Innocence, named after Turkish Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk’s 2008 novel of the same name, has been nominated for the premier design award of the year.

The London Design Museum’s Designs of the Year awards are considered to be the “Oscars” of the design world in terms of prestige. Showcasing the most innovative and imaginative designs from around the world, the awards span the categories of architecture, fashion, furniture, graphics, transport, product and digital design. The Museum of Innocence is in the running under the architecture category.

Category winners and the overall winner will be decided by a jury and announced to the public on April 17.

Exhibitions of the nominations will be on display in the Designs of the Year showcase at the museum starting March 20.

From the very beginning of the project in the 1990s, Pamuk had conceived of his novel and museum together. The novel, which is about lost and unrequited love, describes life in Istanbul between 1950 and 2000 through memories and flashbacks centered around two families. The museum presents what the novel’s characters used, wore, heard, saw, collected and dreamed of, all meticulously arranged in boxes and display cabinets.

The novel was published in 2008 and the museum opened the spring of 2012.