Istanbul Art, Architecture & Culture: the back story

About Istanbul Art, Architecture & Culture: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Istanbul Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Few cities hold as much art in as small a space as historic Istanbul. Byzantine mosaics, Ottoman tiles and the domes of Mimar Sinan crown the old peninsula; across the Golden Horn, Karaköy and Beyoğlu have become the home of the city's modern and contemporary art, from a Renzo Piano museum on the water to galleries in 19th-century banks and new buildings off Taksim. Here is the back story, and where to see it.

The city of domes

The skyline of the old city was shaped by two great builders a thousand years apart. Hagia Sophia, the Church of Holy Wisdom, was completed in 537 under Emperor Justinian, and its vast dome was a wonder of the medieval world. After 1453 it became an imperial mosque, gaining minarets, a mihrab and the great calligraphic roundels you see today; it is a working mosque, and foreign visitors follow a route with an entry fee.

Justinian also built the Basilica Cistern, whose 336 columns rise from shallow water, and the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, now the Little Hagia Sophia Mosque, a few years before Hagia Sophia itself. Near the land walls, the Chora, now the Kariye Mosque, keeps 14th-century mosaics and frescoes that are among the masterpieces of Byzantine art; they remain visible to visitors outside prayer times.

Cross the Galata Bridge and you cross fifteen centuries of art in a few minutes' walk.

The second builder was Mimar Sinan, architect to Süleyman the Magnificent. His Süleymaniye Mosque, completed in 1557, crowns the third hill above the Golden Horn with a serene prayer hall and a complex of schools, a hospital, kitchens and a hammam; Sinan himself lies in a simple tomb just outside its walls. For the full story of Sinan, İznik tiles and the Ottoman arts, read our companion piece on the Ottoman arts.

Palaces and collections

Mehmed II began Topkapı Palace in the 1460s on the hill above the meeting of the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn, and it was the home and seat of government of the sultans until the mid-19th century. Its four courtyards lead to the kitchens, the Imperial Council chamber, the Treasury and the pavilions of the fourth courtyard. In 1856 the court moved to Dolmabahçe Palace on the Bosphorus, with European-style halls of crystal, gold leaf and chandeliers.

Just below Topkapı, the Istanbul Archaeology Museums bring together the Archaeological Museum, the Museum of the Ancient Orient and the Tiled Kiosk of 1472. On the side of the Hippodrome, the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts fills the palace of İbrahim Pasha, grand vizier to Süleyman, with one of the world's finest collections of carpets, and behind the Blue Mosque the Great Palace Mosaic Museum protects floor mosaics from the palace of the Byzantine emperors.

The Karaköy waterfront

For modern art, cross to Karaköy. Istanbul Modern began in 2004 in an 8,000-square-metre former port warehouse on the waterfront, converted by Tabanlıoğlu Architects, and spent fourteen years there as the country's first museum of modern and contemporary art. On 4 May 2023 it opened its new building, designed by the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, on the same Bosphorus site where the warehouse Antrepo No. 4 once stood. Its collection traces Turkish art from the late Ottoman painters to today.

The museum is part of Galataport, which has opened more than a kilometre of the Karaköy and Tophane waterfront to the public, with a promenade, shops, restaurants and an underground cruise terminal. A few minutes along it, the Istanbul Museum of Painting and Sculpture, run by Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, reopened in 2021 in a restored building, with Turkish painting and sculpture from the late Ottoman era onwards.

Up the hill on Bankalar Caddesi, the old street of banks, SALT Galata occupies the former headquarters of the Ottoman Bank, designed by Alexandre Vallaury in the 1890s. It hosts exhibitions and an open research library and archives on the city's history and architecture, and its reading rooms are one of the calmest places in Karaköy.

Beyoğlu and beyond

Beyoğlu, the old Pera, is the city's gallery district. On Meşrutiyet Caddesi, the Pera Museum shows a celebrated collection of Orientalist paintings, including Osman Hamdi Bey's The Tortoise Trainer, one of the best-loved paintings in Turkey, alongside Kütahya tiles and ceramics. In Çukurcuma, the novelist Orhan Pamuk, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, opened the Museum of Innocence in 2012 in a red house, with cabinets of everyday objects drawn from his novel of the same name.

In Dolapdere, below Taksim, Arter, the contemporary art institution of the Vehbi Koç Foundation, opened its building in 2019, with galleries over several floors, exhibitions from its collection and international artists, and performance spaces. Nearby, the Galata Mevlevi Lodge, founded in 1491 as the first Mevlevi lodge in Istanbul, is now a museum of the dervishes of the order of Rumi.

Further afield, the Sakıp Sabancı Museum occupies the Atlı Köşk mansion and a modern wing at Emirgan on the upper Bosphorus, with Ottoman calligraphy and paintings and major international exhibitions, and the Rahmi M. Koç Museum fills a former Ottoman anchor foundry and shipyard at Hasköy on the Golden Horn with vintage cars, locomotives, aircraft and boats.

Opera, music and the stage

On Taksim Square, the Atatürk Cultural Center, the AKM, was rebuilt and reopened in 2021 with a large opera house under a red dome, theatres, a library and cafés; it is the main stage of the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet. On the Asian side, the Süreyya Opera House opened in 1927 on Bahariye Caddesi in Kadıköy as the first musical theatre on that shore, with an Art Deco interior, and still stages opera, ballet and concerts.

In Harbiye, the Cemal Reşit Rey Concert Hall, named after the composer, hosts orchestras, chamber music, jazz and world music through the season. To see the Mevlevi sema ceremony, inscribed by UNESCO, the Hodjapasha Culture Center stages performances for visitors in a restored 15th-century hammam near Sirkeci station.

Cultural calendar

Istanbul Biennial: the 19th edition runs from 18 September to 14 November 2027, curated by Liu Ding and Carol Yinghua Lu, organised by İKSV (bienal.iksv.org).

Istanbul Film Festival: the 45th edition took place from 9 to 19 April 2026 (film.iksv.org).

Istanbul Music Festival: the 2026 edition ran from 11 to 25 June (muzik.iksv.org).

Istanbul Jazz Festival: the 33rd edition has ended; next year's dates will be on caz.iksv.org.

Filmekimi: the 2026 autumn film week ran in Istanbul from 9 to 18 October (filmekimi.iksv.org).

What's new

The 19th Istanbul Biennial has announced its curators, Liu Ding and Carol Yinghua Lu, and its 2027 dates, with an open call and a main venue announced on its website. Checked October 2026 on bienal.iksv.org.

Istanbul Modern's Renzo Piano building has been open since May 2023, after four years in a temporary space in Beyoğlu while it was built. Checked October 2026 on istanbulmodern.org.

Our advice: give Sultanahmet your mornings before the crowds, take the tram across the Galata Bridge for an afternoon at Istanbul Modern and SALT Galata, and end the day at the AKM or across the water in Kadıköy at the Süreyya.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Istanbul Art, Architecture & Culture: the back story before you go.