The Building Information Center

The Virtual Museum of Architecture created on the internet by the Building Information Center constitutes the first step towards the creation of a real life Turkish Museum of Architecture, a project which has been on ...

The Virtual Museum of Architecture created on the internet by the Building Information Center constitutes the first step towards the creation of a real life Turkish Museum of Architecture, a project which has been on the agenda for many years but which has never come to fruition. This on-line Museum of Architecture consists of a comprehensive selection of the available documents and evidence illustrating the Turkish and global architectural heritage, making it possible to examine on the internet a great variety of documents once hidden away in the archives of various individuals and institutions and only now brought out into the light of day, thus creating a comprehensive inventory placing a valuable reference library at the service of students and researchers. All the documents and information in the museum are digitally recorded to form an invaluable archive of architectural history. The Museum of Architecture performs a great service in revealing the points of contact between Turkish and international architecture. After the completion of work on the thematic exhibitions in the Museum of Architecture "Gallery", to be updated every 2 months, the museum is gradually expanded by the inclusion of these items in the "Collection". All the objects, documents and information exhibited in the museum "Collection" are available to the user under general headings such as "Buildings", "Portraits" etc., while visitors who so desire are able to access past exhibitions in the Gallery archive. It has been adopted as a matter of principle that the architects, buildings and various works in the Museum of Architecture exhibitions are chosen from sources recognised as basic reference sources and written by experts of the subject. Thus the aim is to make the Museum of Architecture a museum to be "read" as well as a museum to be "visited".