Turkey Opens Its First Museum of Modern Art: Istanbul Modern

Turkey Opens Its First Museum of Modern Art Istanbul Modern
Bulent Eczacibasi, Turkey's sixth- richest man according to Forbes magazine, was at a dinner party in October at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined his group.

Eczacibasi, chairman of Eczacibasi Holding AS, said he asked Erdogan, who seemed awed by the museum he was seeing for the first time, why Turkey shouldn't have "one-tenth" of the French museum. Two days later, he got a call from the prime minister, inquiring about an Eczacibasi-funded museum project.

That's how the opening of Turkey's first museum of modern art -- whose seeds were first sown by Eczacibasi in 1987 yet had gotten nowhere due to a lack of official support -- took place Oct. 11, five months ahead of the originally scheduled date.

Erdogan, who's lobbying the European Union to start membership negotiations with Turkey, came to visit the museum site in October, brought Istanbul's mayor along and gave orders to facilitate the opening before Dec. 17, when the EU is set to make its decision. Erdogan attended the opening ceremony and was presented with a plaque for his support.

"The prime minister immediately saw the symbolic significance of the museum," said Eczacibasi, 55, in an interview. "While we're trying to show the EU that we're western as well as eastern culturally, this is a great example."