Pera Museum

Free with Istanbul Tourist Pass

Regular Price: € 4

4.5 274 Reviews
#46 in Istanbul

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.

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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.


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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 visitor first should be reminded that the museum is closed on Mondays. The working hours of Pera Museum are 10.00-19.00 on Tuesday to Friday. On Sundays it is open at 12.00-18.00. In order to reach the museum, the visitor can take the M2 metro line and take off at Sishane stop. If they are coming from the Anatolian part of the city, they can take the ferry and come to Karakoy Pier or Besiktas Pier. The pier is where the ferries touring the Bosphorus take off so when you figure out how to reach the pier you can use this opportunity to tour Bosphorus as well by Bosporus cruises.
One of the permanent collections in the museum is Anatolian Weight and Measurement exhibition. Here the measurement devices and weights used in Anatolia from 2000 BC until today, approximately for 4000 years, are presented. These devices measured units from land to trade, architecture, exchange, marine, pharmacy and more. The collection aims to display the exciting development of Anatolian culture and history. The next of the collections is called “Intersecting Worlds”. This section of the collections introduces its audience with the interesting identities from the diplomatic history of Anatolia with the guiding of art.

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

It is not only about the paintings or tactile art in Pera but it is also about visual and auditory art combined in movies. Pera Museum Film and Video section opened for visitors on October 2008. Movies of cinema classics, experimental film-video examples, animation movies, short movies and award winning movies are shown. The aim of it is to emphasize the importance of cinema and provide a different experience to Pera Museum visitors and cinema enthusiasts. Pera Film brings together exceptional directors like Andrei Tarkovsky, Michelangelo Antonioni, Barbara Hammer and many more. Pera Film also works in accordance with international museums and film schools such as Centre Pompidou, Sweden Film Institute or Ars Electronica, in different projects. If you have time you should definitely watch one of the movies that is shown in Pera Film.

What’s Around Pera Museum

As we said the museum is located on a very central, animated and famous districts of Istanbul, Beyoglu. It is very easy to reach Galata Tower from the museum so when you are done visiting the museum you can go and see Galata Tower as well. You can take a Galata tour to walk around Galata and discover one of the marks of the landscape of Istanbul. From Galata you can continue your walk towards Istiklal Street and experience Istanbul to the fullest there because your Istanbul journey would not be complete if you don’t visit Istiklal Street. You can walk downwards from Galata Tower to reach Karakoy and have your meal there or have a drink or two. It is the meeting point of youth and always is animated because of its cosy little cafés and restaurants.  While you are there you might want to spare more than one day for your visit to Beyoglu and later experience Taksim also. For an extended view of the said attractions of Istanbul you should definitely try the Hop-On-Hop-Off Bus Tours.  Our final recommendation for you is to try staying at one of the beautiful hotels at Beyoglu and experience the prettiest district, the cores of Istanbul to the fullest such as Villa Pera Suite Hotel, Pera Palace Hotel or Occidental the Public.