Borusan Contemporary

Borusan Contemporary is a contemporary art museum, collection, and education initiative housed in Perili Köşk, the red-brick Yusuf Ziya Paşa Mansion on the Bosphorus in Rumelihisarı, Sarıyer, on Istanbul’s European shore. It matters because it is not a standard gallery: since 2011, Borusan has turned the holding company’s headquarters into a weekend “office museum,” where visitors move through a historic waterfront mansion filled with photography, video, installation, light-based work, and other digital-medium art. The collection now includes more than 800 works and is especially strong in new media, photography, and site-specific commissions. As of April 2026, Borusan Contemporary is open only on Saturdays and Sundays from 10:00 to 19:00, with last entry at 18:00, and its current temporary exhibition is Edward Burtynsky: Shifting Topography, on view through 16 August 2026.

What makes Borusan Contemporary distinctive in Istanbul is the way architecture and curatorial method are fused. Many museums speak about “dialogue” between space and art, but here the phrase is literal. Perili Köşk is not a neutral shell. It is the subject, the container, and part of the interpretation. The building began in the 1910s as the Yusuf Ziya Paşa Mansion, but construction stalled with the outbreak of World War I and the Ottoman Empire’s entry into the conflict in 1914. Because upper floors stood unfinished for so long, local residents began calling it Perili Köşk, the “Haunted Mansion,” a name that endured long after the interruption itself. Between 1995 and 2000, architect Hakan Kıran oversaw the building’s survey, construction, and restoration, completing the façade in line with the original design and using brick imported from England. Borusan Holding moved into the building in 2007, and Borusan Contemporary began operating there in 2011.

That history matters because the museum’s identity depends on it. A visitor does not walk through anonymous halls with controlled neutrality. Instead, one moves through a ten-story Bosphorus mansion whose exterior still carries the aura of a half-finished dream and whose interior was adapted for modern office use without losing its spatial eccentricity. This is why Borusan Contemporary often feels more atmospheric than larger institutions. The encounter with contemporary art unfolds through stairs, windows, corridors, framed views, and rooms that still suggest workplace life during the week. In practical terms, that makes the museum unusually memorable even for people who do not leave discussing every artwork by name. The building gives the visit narrative tension. It turns viewing into movement and movement into interpretation.

The collection itself is focused rather than encyclopedic, and that precision is one of its strengths. Borusan Contemporary Art Collection was founded in the 1990s and initially concentrated on modern and contemporary Turkish art, but in the 2000s it expanded toward international contemporary practice and eventually shifted decisively toward new media. Today the collection is rooted in video art, installation, new media, neon-LED work, and photography, with more than 800 works in total. Artists represented include international figures such as Brigitte Kowanz, François Morellet, Ola Kolehmainen, Edward Burtynsky, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Robert Mapplethorpe, Doug Aitken, Daniel Rozin, Daniel Canogar, Marina Zurkow, and Manfred Mohr, alongside Turkish artists including Ayşe Erkmen, Ali Kazma, Cevdet Erek, Gülsün Karamustafa, Esra Ersen, Burak Arıkan, Serkan Taycan, and Erdal İnci. That balance gives the museum real depth in both global and Turkish contemporary art.

For visitors, the effect is less about ticking off famous names than about entering a coherent visual language. Borusan Contemporary is especially strong for people interested in photography, media-based art, and technologically inflected contemporary practice. Works built around sound, light, digital transformation, reflection, and scale feel particularly at home here. The institution’s own description emphasizes artists who incorporate photography, video, sound, light, and software-based technologies into their practices, and that is an accurate summary of the museum’s character. This is not a place where painting is absent, but it is not led by painting. It is led by perception, interface, moving image, and the aesthetic consequences of contemporary technology.

Borusan Contemporary also matters because it has built a broader cultural ecosystem around the museum rather than treating exhibitions as isolated events. It organizes education programs, events, publications, commissioned works, and blog essays that extend the museum’s public role beyond a simple weekend display venue. Borusan describes it as a collection and education initiative of the Borusan Kocabıyık Foundation, and the education side is not incidental. The museum’s programs focus especially on children and youth, with formats that introduce contemporary art, visual thinking, and even maker-oriented activities to younger audiences. This matters in a city where contemporary art can still feel socially or institutionally distant to many families. Borusan Contemporary positions itself as a place where art can be encountered without ritualized intimidation.

The current public-visit model reinforces that impression. The museum is open only on weekends, from 10:00 to 19:00, with guided tours at 11:00, 13:00, 15:00, and 17:00. These tours are free, last about forty minutes, allow up to fifteen participants, and cannot be reserved in advance. Adult admission is currently 350 TL, discounted admission 100 TL, and group admission 300 TL per person for groups of ten or more, while several free-entry categories remain in place for children under 12, disabled visitors and one accompanying adult, ICOM card holders, members of the press, and veterans and their families. The museum also notes that there is no parking or valet service on site, a practical detail worth taking seriously on the Bosphorus.

As it stands now, Borusan Contemporary is one of the clearest examples in Istanbul of a museum whose importance comes from exact identity rather than from scale. It is not trying to compete with the city’s imperial monuments, archaeological museums, or large public art institutions on their own terms. Its authority comes from concentration: one powerful building, one strong curatorial direction, one unusually thoughtful relationship between corporate collecting and public access, and one location that turns the Bosphorus from backdrop into active participant. For travelers who care about contemporary art, architecture, and the quieter edges of Istanbul’s museum landscape, Borusan Contemporary is not a side stop. It is one of the city’s most intellectually and atmospherically satisfying visits.