Troy Museum

Omer Selcuk Baz and his team in Yalin Architectural Design has won first prize in the National Architectural Design Competition for the Museum of Troy, located in one of the most famous archeological sites in the world and listed as UNESCO World heritage site.

With a history of 5000 years and a significance for the development of European Civilization, Troy represents a profound cultural influence artistically and historically from the time of Homer to the World War I.

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Turkey, the organizer of the competition expropriated 10 hectares for the purpose. The museum, planned to be constructed close to the archeological site, adjacent to the village of Tevfikiye in Canakkale will conserve and exhibit the artifacts unearthed at the site. The museum contains conservation and restoration labs, 2000 sqms of storage, permanent and temporary exhibition spaces, activity areas, café, restaurants and retail facilities as well as access to natural environment.

The design concept must engage in a situation beyond the physical context of the environment.  It must look back at a civilization that lived a while in history, and it must generate a feeling beyond the physical structure

At this point, the preferred approach to design is to segregate the visitors gradually at certain thresholds and to integrate them again. To disconnect the visitors partly or totally from the physical context and then reconnect them…

The design gathers all supportive functions underground on one floor. This floor is not recognized from the ground level and is concealed under a landscape. This landscape is continuation of plantation areas which are continuous in the surrounded countryside and will probably be there for a long time.

The exhibition structure, is perceived as a robust object on a 32 x 32 meter square plan rising through a split from underground.

The visitors descend in the structure along a 12 meter wide ramp. While descending, they come near to the structure in the horizon. Landscape and earth disappear gradually, leaving solely the sky and the structure behind…

Once underground, the visitors find themselves on a circulation band. Rust red, earth colored exhibition structure rises through the transparent roof.

Rusty metal (corten) coated structure, is timeworn and, just like the broken ceramics unearthed from the excavation site nearby it reminisces of a lived history. The history of the material and the architectural design evokes a connection between past and present.

Ascending through the ramps towards the top, one gets a view of the landscape, the fields and the ruins of Troy through the slits on the façades. The rooftop enjoys a generous terrace with a splendid view where one imagines Troy’s distant and near history, the memories of the land and its future ahead…