After four years of absence, the museum returns to a seat that now gives a more modern look to the shores of Istanbul where imperial palaces and mosques are aligned.

Inaugurated in 2004, the Istanbul Modern Museum had to leave its premises, originally customs buildings, in 2018 in order to allow them to be renovated.

The city then launched a reconstruction project on the entire sector including Galataport, a cruise port intended to boost luxury tourism in Turkey.

The renovated building has three floors and a glass entrance connected to the cruise port including restaurants, bars and luxury shops.

Its design is inspired by the sparkling waters of the Bosphorus, architect Renzo Piano told reporters.

"The building of this museum is like a sea creature out of the waters of the Bosphorus," says the architect who built, among other things, the Whitney Museum in New York.

"Whenever you have a river, it's nice to build a building on it because water makes things more beautiful," he adds.

Italian architect Renzo Piano in Istanbul on June 20, 2023 © Yasin AKGUL / AFP

"Istanbul is a place of water. There is water everywhere."

Turkey's art scene exploded during the economic boom that accompanied President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's early years.

But Erdogan, who was just re-elected for five years in May, has been criticized for restricting freedom of expression and developing a tense relationship with artists.

The town halls led by his party regularly cancel or ban the performances of artists with attitudes deemed "immoral".

- 'It's forever' -

Spanning 10,500 square meters, the museum hosts exhibitions, film screenings and a permanent collection of more than 280 works by Turkey's most important modern and contemporary artists.

It currently presents works by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, photographer and director whose film "Winter Sleep" won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014.

The exhibition features twenty-two large portraits made by Mr. Ceylan during his travels to countries such as India, Georgia, China and Russia.

Piano says he is aware of the impact a building has on a city.

Visitors at Istanbul's Museum of Modern Art on June 20, 2023 © Yasin AKGUL / AFP

"People need to understand that this is public art. Architecture is different from other types of art," he says.

"It's forever. Especially when you're building a museum."

The building rests on concrete columns reinforced with steel that is supposed to withstand earthquakes.

The city of 16 million people straddles an active fault line that caused a deadly earthquake in 1999 that killed more than 17,000 people.

Piano believes architecture is about creating sustainable structures.

"Look at the building, it is solidly constructed and solidity is part of its semantic expression: solid and flying."

© 2023 AFP