Guide
Panorama 1326, the Bursa Conquest Museum, lies in the Osmangazi district of Bursa and tells the story of the founding of the Ottoman empire in pictures. It is a full panorama: the taking of the Bursa citadel by the Ottomans on 6 April 1326, accomplished without bloodshed, is painted around a complete circle of 360 degrees. With a dome forty-two metres across, it is among the largest full panoramic museums in the world.
The museum stands on 4,300 square metres in the Kamberler quarter, which has been turned into a city park, at the eastern end of the district of old commercial inns that begins with the Pirinç Han.
The foundation was laid on 15 September 2015, with the historian Halil İnalcık as chief adviser. The building covers a ground area of sixty by eighty metres and was designed by a team led by Nilüfer Akıncıtürk and Özgür Ediz, built on a principle of energy efficiency. Besides the main hall holding the panorama there are exhibition halls, meeting rooms, a library, a cafeteria and administrative sections.
Marble, stone and tile were all obtained from Bursa. The roof covering of the forty-two-metre dome was made of a titanium-zinc alloy. More than ten thousand human and animal figures are painted in the pictures, which were made by the same painters who did the work for the Panorama 1453 History Museum in İstanbul.
The museum opened to visitors on 1 November 2018, with the official opening performed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on 15 February 2019. It drew attention from the start: seven hundred thousand people came in its first year, and in August 2023 it welcomed its two millionth visitor.
The building was conceived as a continuation of the green space of Kamberler Park immediately to its south. That carried-over green space forms the outer shell of the museum, designed as a green roof that keeps the building cool in summer and holds the heat in winter. Solar panels face south on the gently sloping roof, and the area doubles as a city terrace from which historic Bursa and Uludağ can be seen.
Unlike the usual panorama, the sphere here was designed to stand in the air rather than rest on the ground. The space created beneath it takes the form of a forum and allows for a range of activities.
At the entrance hang sixteen paintings showing the advance of the Kayı Turks towards Bursa from the thirteenth century onwards, the taking of the city, the six Ottoman sultans who ruled from Bursa and social life in their time. From there visitors climb into the sphere, where the main picture is.
