Pera Museum: A cultural centre in the heart of the city
The Pera Museum is one of the leading private art museums in Istanbul. Even the building itself is a work of art! The museum is located at the former Bristol Hotel, in the lively and historic neighborhood of Pera, in the district of Beyoğlu.
There are 3 permanent collections, namely Orientalist Paintings, Anatolian Weights and Measures and Kütahya Tiles and Ceramics. You can view these collections whenever you visit Istanbul.
The Pera Museum often collaborates with major national and international museums, collectors and foundations to support young artists, introduce major international artists to Turkey and educate visitors, so there is always a lot to see and learn. The Pera Museum provides a wide range of art services and is a leading cultural centre in Istanbul. Spend an enjoyable afternoon admiring the collections for yourself!
Pera Museum is free with Istanbul Tourist Pass
Regular Price € 4
Avoid paying the €4 admission fee at Pera Museum with Istanbul Tourist Pass.
Hours & Schedule
- Mondays: Closed
- Tuesdays to Saturdays: 11:00 - 18:00
- Sundays: 12:00 - 18:00
How To Get There?
You can get to the Pera Museum by metro. Get off at Şişhane station and walk up İstiklal Street (İstiklal Caddesi). Turn left at Balyoz Street, just before the "Koton" shop, then take the next right and walk up the street until you see the museum on the right.
Remember
- No reservation is required. Just go to the museum and present your digital Pass
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Learn More
Pera Museum contains many temporary exhibitions both contemporary and classical art in itself. It opened for visitors on 2005 June on a distinguished district of Istanbul. The museum’s building was built by Achille Manoussos in Istanbul’s now favourite neighbourhood Beyoglu, then restored by Architect M. Sinan Genim just for the museum. It has the identity of being the meeting point for culture and art in a modern equipped manner. Pera Museum brought together worldwide works of art by masters of artists with Istanbul’s art enthusiasts such as Rembrandt, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Goya, Pablo Picasso, Josef Koudelka, Akira Kurosawa and many more. Pera Film on the other hand, its popular with its periodical events and provides a wide range of movies from classical ones to independent movies, from animations to documentaries to its visitors and movie lovers. As said before, museum is located on the most animated venues of Istanbul. You can easily access the most beautiful and popular streets of Istanbul from the museum. You should definitely add Pera Museum on top of your list of places to visit in Istanbul.
What to
Expect from Pera Museum
The next is called the “Coffee Break”. Here the traditional glazed tile cups coming all the way from Kutahya, the homeland of the tile, and ceramics are displayed. Coffee seeds were found first in Ethiopia and travelled through Yemen to Ottoman Empire on 15th century forming the Turkish traditional coffee. The exhibit is significant for showing the routines that evolve around coffee tradition, rituals, relations and public sphere’s notions that are related to the modernism as well as coffee culture in its entirety.
Finally, the final collection which displays Osman Hamdi Bey’s, the famous painter and Ottoman enlightened, life and art. Osman Hamdi Bey contributed to archaeology, museum studies and arts throughout his life. It would be a great opportunity to take a look at his famous works displayed in this section of the orientalist collection of the museum on one’s visit to Istanbul. The most expensive painting of Turkey was painted by Osman Hamdi Bey, “The Tortoise Trainer” and it is exhibited here. The visitors can also attend a virtual reality experience called “A Journey Osman Hamdi Bey’s World” every day that the museum is open.
These were the permanent collections of the museum but as we said there are temporary, contemporary art galleries and exhibitions from around the world. To give an example we can talk about the past exhibitions there. “Time Needs Change” was one of them in 2019 and it hosted artists of different nationalities. It displayed different apprehensions on the notion of time by Chinese, Turkish and Indian artists through mixed media art as well as drawing, video and collage.
Pera Film
What’s
Around Pera Museum