Yet no one is more committed to Turkish art than the Koç clan, heirs to its greatest industrial fortune. The Sabanci banking dynasty was the first to prove that Turkey had a gallery-going public with blockbuster Picasso and Dalí shows at its museum above the Bosphorus, setting the trend for huge spending by the Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art, the Borusan Foundation – which also has a symphony orchestra – and Garanti Bank, which is building a complex five times the size of the vast Tate Modern's Turbine Hall in London. Such has been the competition since the Eczacibasi family opened its chequebook for Istanbul Modern that the city now has two- and three-museum families. It is as if an undeclared war is going on among Turkey's richest families, each intent on assembling the best and most expensive collections of art. ![]() This year it is European Capital of Culture and witness to an explosion of private museum building not seen since the days of Andrew Carnegie. When Istanbul Modern opened on the Karaköy docks five years ago, Europe's biggest city – 17 million and counting – was a cultural desert. But the change has been most felt in visual arts. ![]() Years of stagnation and censorship have given way to Orhan Pamuk's Nobel prize for literature and a new wave of highly distinctive film-makers led by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Fatih Akin and Semih Kaplanoglu winning at Cannes, Berlin and Venice. Turkey has changed radically in the past decade, and nowhere has that change been more marked that in the arts. Turks vote this month on changes to the constitution that will make it difficult for the generals to interfere in politics. Everyone outside Arter on Istiklal Caddesi gets the joke. The tank is inflatable – and plops down like a balloon as quickly as it reared itself up in the window of the city's newest art gallery. This is no Turkish Tiananmen, though this street has witnessed a coup, or an attempt at one, every decade since the 1960s. Two women in Kurdish headscarves stand before it, drawing their grandchildren to them as a crowd pushes up behind. Lord provided a detailed Functional Program and Architect’s Brief for the new building, and partnered with the foundation’s senior staff to develop a comprehensive business plan.A tank revs up, its cannon jolting from side to side on Istanbul's equivalent of Oxford Street or Fifth Avenue. In 2012 we returned to Istanbul to plan the new museum, helping the Foundation exhibit more of its growing contemporary art collection. ![]() When the foundation extended its activities to contemporary art in 2007, Lord assisted them in planning and readapting Meymenet Han, a privately owned historic stone building into the original Arter contemporary art exhibition space. Lord Cultural Resources has a long history with the Koç Foundation, including earlier analysis and planning for the long-range development of the museum of traditional Turkish fine and decorative art and archaeology. “ We need more places like the Arter, where people can enjoy creativity and artistic innovation in a spirit of complete freedom of expression.” “I greatly admire Ömer Koç for creating this institution that has such significance for Turkey, and the world,” says Gail Lord, president of Lord Cultural Resources. Arter is championed by art collector and philanthropist Ömer Koç, and receives funding from the Koç family’s charitable foundation. ![]() Opened to the public in September 2019, the museum houses a collection of 1,300 works, about half by Turkish artists. The new 18,000-square-meter Arter Museum building features exhibition galleries, a sculpture terrace, performance halls, learning areas a library, bookstore and café. What began in 2010 as a modest, non-profit art space in Istanbul has grown to become Turkey’s first major contemporary art museum. SeptemA contemporary art museum in the heart of Istanbul
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