The Ara Güler Museum, built by PAB Architecture, based on Ara Güler's motto "There is no human without love, and there is no photography without humans", is a project designed as a people-oriented museum. The project is not only a photography museum, but also a museum that has been brought to life with the aim of transferring Ara Güler's view of photography, his identity, his life, and thus the recorded social memory of the cultural and urban history he witnessed, to future generations.
The Ara Güler Museum was initiated by the Doğuş Group, which included the transformation of the spaces reserved as museum space in Bomontiada, by opening the invitational competition process. This process was achieved by PAB Architecture, in order to get to know Ara Güler better and to understand the characteristics and past of the historical place where the museum is located, and by working on different museum setups. After the competition was won, work on the application began.
Ara Güler Museum is located in the Bomonti Brewery campus, in four rectangular vaulted spaces and in the interconnecting spines of these spaces. Being one of the actors who make up the memory of Istanbul as a city, the Ara Güler museum is located in the historical Bomonti Brewery, which is also a place in the city's memory and its historical texture has been preserved, adding even more value to the project.
The project was designed to be more than just an “exhibition house”, a dynamic and visitor-oriented museum in line with contemporary museology approaches. Orhan Pamuk's view that “museums exist to feel and live, not to visit” became the main element of the museum and its exhibition system.
Click on the link below for details of the project.
