Guide
The Çanakkale City Museum and Archive occupies a historic building on Fetvane Street. The municipality bought it in 2004, and after restoration it opened on 6 March 2009.
The building was put up in the 1800s, like the others on Çarşı Avenue, with shops on the ground floor and a dwelling above, and it reflects the domestic architecture of its time. It changed hands many times and served both as business premises and as a home. Its third floor was added in 1936, and from that year it began serving as the Emek Hotel. It ran as a hotel of twenty rooms for forty-six years and then worked for a long while again as shops. As it lost its distinctive character and began to fall derelict, the municipality bought it in 2004 and restored it; preparations for the museum and archive began in June 2007.
The museum matters for the full account it gives of the historical events that took place at Çanakkale and for what it shows of the cultural past and make-up of the city.
On the first floor is the Eyüp Görgüler temporary exhibition hall, where shows on the history and culture of the city are held. The floor above holds the permanent displays, divided between two halls: the Book of History and The City in Memory. The first has panels telling the mythology and legends of Troy and the Çanakkale battles, along with a few finds from the ancient city of Abydos and from the fighting.
The second hall shows a great many cultural, traditional and antique objects given to the museum by the people of the city, each with its story, together with panels on migration, population, education, customs, handicrafts and the history of the place. More than three hundred pieces are displayed in the museum.
In the meeting hall on the third floor, weekly City Talks are held every Wednesday, with events, conferences and seminars tied to the subject of the temporary exhibitions, along with documentary screenings and musical performances.
