Why a City Museum?

Antalya on the south coast of Turkey, boasts of very rich cultural heritage. The city has been inhabited uninterruptedly since prehistoric times by numerous civilizations, all of which have left their marks on the city’s indigenous style, architecture and culture. This makes Antalya potentially an important destination for cultural tourism.  However, Antalya’s heritage is not the only attribute that attracts crowds in our day. Antalya draws approximately 8 million foreign visitors from all over the world, predominantly from Germany and Russia, to its sunny beaches, clear waters and warm climate.  Tourism has given rise to great economic development and at the same time caused massive migration into the city. This has led to rapid urban transformation, bringing with it noticeable socio-cultural tensions. A city museum is needed to put the present day Antalya into context. It is to hold a mirror to the multi-layered, complex, and rich history of the city that dates from antiquity.  The Antalya City Museum aims assist both foreign and Turkish tourists as well as the citizens of Antalya develop an understanding and appreciation for the city’s past, present and its role in the future. It will contribute to developing a sense of identity, an understanding of the city’s history, its cultural heritage, values and collective memory. The museum will also cultivate mutual understanding and harmony between communities that have come to settle in the city in various periods of history.  The museum will also serve as a hub for urban communication and civil activity. By compiling and displaying materials that reflect the natural and cultural heritage of Antalya, the Antalya City Museum will tell the story of the city.

The Role of City Museums Today

A city museum in the modern sense: Brings a city’s history closer to citizens and provides necessary reference points to help them understand and get to know the city better, -  contributes to further developing local citizens’ sense of identity and historical awareness. Serves as a research, information and documentation center that enables individuals to perceive the city’s local culture and lifestyle shaped by its social and economic history. Functions as a socio-cultural center aiming to establish  communication links between city residents and visitors, invites individuals to actively participate in museum activities through multi-channelled, multi-media interaction.

  
Our Mission Statement

 Antalya City Museum aims to serve the city, its residents and visitors as a center for social interaction, education, research, and culture.  It will help people of different ages, sexes, socio-cultural, ethnic, and religious origins to better understand the rapid transformation the city has been undergoing. The Museum aims to develop an awareness of these changes, thereby enabling individuals and groups to build multi-layer relationships and identities for themselves. 

Dedicated to promoting an understanding of the history, cultural heritage, values, and collective memory of the city, the Antalya City Museum will draw on both modern and traditional means of communication, interpretation and presentation. The aim is to serve as a dynamic, innovative, and inclusive cultural center that will help develop mutual understanding, as well as, promote active participation in city life and civil organisations in the process of shaping a better future.

Objectives

 As a cultural meeting point, the Antalya City Museum will contribute to improving quality of life in the City. The Museum will bring to light the transformation and flux that have been at work for centuries. It will help Antalya’s present inhabitants to overcome feelings of isolation or insecurity in the face of change. The Museum will assist the City in developing its  problem-solving capacities and mechanisms for the future by empowering local citizens with a better understanding of the underlying issues, contradictions, and adversities coped with throughout history.  

Administration
 

The Antalya City Museum is a project organized by the Greater Antalya Municipality. The History Foundation of Turkey acts as advisor and coordinator.  NGOs, universities, societies including the Antalya City Museum Initiators’ Society and Akdeniz University faculty members and city residents have been active in providing support. The project is led by an advisory committee of 21, the majority of whom are local experts in  cultural affairs and sciences. Once established, Antalya City Museum will have an independent administration. 

General Organization
 

In addition to the permanent and the temporary exhibition areas, the main departments of the Antalya City Museum will include a Center for Collective Memory, a Center for City Sight-seeing Tours, and a Center for Education, Communication, and Publications. 

The Center for Collective Memory will host a library, archive facilities and a research unit where oral history and bibliographical studies on Antalya will be realised.

The Center for City Sight-seeing Tours will provide a series of city excursions designed to encourage citizens, particularly children, teenagers, local and foreign visitors, to better understand and enjoy the City.  Systematic and efficiently run excursions will be diversified  and designed according to groups participating. 

The Center for Education, Communication and Publication will strive to promote the Museum. The goal is to provide visitors a learning experience. The Museum will be publishing in various specialised fields. The Center will also be responsible for establishing and systematically updating the Virtual Antalya City Museum.

 The Site

The Antalya City Museum is to open its doors at the premises of the present-day location of the Greater Municipality of Antalya, The site, located at the heart of the older city, next to the historic district of Kaleici, includes the historic Municipality building and a  sports center in the adjacent Karaalioglu Park. The building provides approximately 10,000 m2 of  closed space surrounded by 34,000 m2 of open space. The building will be restored and rearranged to meet the Museum’s needs.

 Project Development

What was originally a utopic dream of many years was finally launched in early 2006 as the Antalya City Museum project A protocol was signed between the Greater Municipality of Antalya and the History Foundation of Turkey. In the initial phase, the concept of the project was developed. Then came the first projects and feasibility studies .

In January 2006 a series of meetings were held to introduce the project and establish an Advisory Board. An International City Museums Symposium also took place in Antalya in April 2006. This provided an opportunity to exchange ideas and learn about city museums in general and city museum projects around the world and in Turkey. The symposium also stimulated, among a wider audience, intellectual debate on Antalya City Museum. In line with the Museum’s main objectives, civil organizations and universities were contacted.

Finally, the first department of the Museum, the Center for Collective Memory, was established in a restored traditional Antalya house dating back to 1898. This first home to the Museum is located very close to both the Kaleici and the project site. The Center was opened on the 25th of November 2006 to facilitate research during the process of founding of the Museum proper and provide public access to information and documents derived from this research.

2007 was a year of collecting data and documents, developing    content, planning and designing various exibitions, and projects, and carrying out feasibility studies. This was followed by project implementation, restoration, construction and display of the first exhibitions in 2008. The project, which is largely completed, aims to see the Museum operating before the end of  2009.