Arter Contemporary Art Museum

Arter opened in 2010 as an institution attached to the Vehbi Koç Foundation. From 2010 to 2018 it worked from a building on İstiklal Avenue and put on 35 exhibitions there; in 2019, the year of the foundation's fiftieth anniversary, it moved into a new building in Dolapdere.

The British practice Grimshaw Architects won the competition launched in 2013 for the design of that building, which Thornton Tomasetti, Max Fordham and Neill Woodger Acoustics each helped to shape in their own field. Construction began in 2015 and ended in 2019; the building opened on 13 September 2019.

The building has 18,000 sq m of interior space, with its main areas gathered around a central atrium. A triple-height entrance gallery links the street to the park at the back: the practice describes it as an internal street and the building's main organising element, and it gives the museum two fronts. Large, carefully placed picture windows open the building onto the street.

The facade is made of planes of glass-fibre reinforced concrete, built from three-dimensional rhomboid panels, some convex and some concave, and finished in places with handmade glazed ceramic. Through the day, light and shadow move across each plane, and the ceramic mirrors the sky. The grounds include planted areas, raised pools and benches.

The exhibition spaces total about 5,000 sq m, in six galleries and a terrace. Karbon, a black box with 242 fully flexible seats, has a permanent ceiling grid of slender tensioned steel wires from which sound, lighting, scenery or artworks can be hung at any point. The Sevgi Gönül Auditorium seats 140 on telescopic stands, and its wall panels can turn into mirrors. The building also holds a learning studio in four parts, a library, a bookshop, a bistro and a back yard for outdoor events.

Arter shows a contemporary art collection assembled since 2007. Its works date from the 1960s to today and range from painting, drawing, sculpture, prints and photography to film, video, installation, sound, light and performance.

The programme alternates exhibitions drawn from the collection with exhibitions from outside it. It also includes events (stage performance, music from classical to electronic, cinema, performance art and digital art), a learning programme (talks, panels, workshops, seminars, guided exhibition visits), and publications in Turkish and English.

Opening days are Tuesday to Sunday, from 11:00 to 19:00 (to 20:00 on Thursdays); the museum shuts on Mondays and on 1 January. Entry to the building is free, as is entry to the library, bookshop, bistro and public events; on Thursdays the exhibitions are free for everyone.

Taksim and Osmanbey metro stations are 10 to 15 minutes away on foot. The galleries and all entrances are wheelchair accessible, and there are lifts throughout the building.