TURKISH NAVAL MUSEUM HISTORY

The Istanbul Naval Museum is the most comprehensive museum of its kind in Turkey. With its extraordinarily rich and varied collection, numbering some 20,000 pieces, it is among the major museums of the world. The Naval Museum operates under the Commander of the Navy and was the first military museum founded in Turkey.

With orders of the Naval Commander-in-Chief Bozcaadalı Hasan Hüsnü Pasha and the support of the Commander of the Imperial Naval Arsenal Admiral Arif Hikmet Pasha, the Naval Museum was founded in 1897 by Commander Süleyman NUTKİ in the Imperial Naval Arsenal (now Taşkızak Shipyard in Hasköy, İstanbul), as the Museum and Library Administration Office.

At first the museum opened its doors mainly as a repository of unclassified objects. However, in 1914 the Minister of the Navy Cemal Pasha, as he had realized with all other aspects of the Navy, renovated both the museum and its administration when he appointed Lieutenant Ali Sami BOYAR Director. A maritime artist, BOYAR subsequently reorganized the museum collections scientifically, established a ship-model workshop for building models and half-models of Turkish ships, and a workshop to manufacture human figures for museum displays, all integral steps in the development of the museum to its present status.

At the beginning of World War II, the collections were moved to Anatolia for safekeeping. After the war, the museum collections were returned to İstanbul in 1946, this time to a more suitable building complex of the Dolmabahçe Mosque. Following two years of preparation by the Museum Director Haluk ŞEHSUVAROĞLU, the new museum was opened to the public on 27 September 1948.

With the widening of Dolmabahçe Avenue, it was necessary to relocate the museum once again. It was moved a short distance in 1961 to its current location in Beşiktaş, next to the tomb and monument of Barbaros Hayrettin Pasha (Barbarossa).