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Sabanci University's Sakip Sabanci
Museum is located in Emirgan, at one of Istanbul's oldest
settlements on the Bosphorus.
In 1927, Prince Mehmed Ali Hasan of the
Hidiv family of Egypt commissioned the Italian architect Edouard De
Nari to build the villa, now the museum's main building, and it was
used as a summer house for many years by various members of the
Hidiv family; for a short time it also served as the Montenegran
Embassy.
After the mansion was purchased in 1950
by industrialist Haci Omer Sabanci from Princess Iffet, a member of
the Hidiv family, as a summer residence, it came to be known as Atli
Kosk, "The Horse Mansion", because of the statue of a horse
(purchased in the same year) that was installed in the garden; the
statue is the 1864 work of the French sculptor Louis Doumas.
A second horse sculpture on the grounds
of Atli Kosk that gave the mansion its name is the cast of one of
the four horses taken from Sultanahmet square in Istanbul when it
was looted by Crusaders during the Fourth Crusade in 1204 and
removed to the Basilica of San Marco in Venice.
After the death of Haci Omer Sabanci in
1966, Atli Kosk began to be used permanently as a home by Sakip
Sabanci in 1974 as the eldest of the family, and for many years
housed Sakip Sabanci's rich collection of calligraphy and paintings.
In 1998, together with its collection and furnishings, the mansion
was allocated to Sabanci University to be transformed into a museum.
With the annex of a modern gallery, the
exhibition areas of the museum opened to visitors in 2002; with a
further extension of the layout in 2005, the technical level of the
museum reached international standards.
Today Sabanci University Sakip Sabanci
Museum presents a versatile museological environment with its rich
permanent collection, the comprehensive temporary exhibitions that
it hosts, its conservation units, model educational programs and the
various concerts, conferences and seminars held there.
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