Rezan Has Museum

The Rezan Has Museum in Istanbul's Cibali neighborhood layers over a thousand years of urban history into a single site: a 17th-century Ottoman structure built directly above an 11th-century Byzantine water cistern whose vaulted chambers form the atmospheric heart of the museum. Founded in May 2007 by Ahu Has, daughter-in-law of Turkish philanthropist Kadir Has, the museum is named after Rezan Has, his wife. In 2009 the collection was significantly deepened when documents and artifacts from the adjacent Cibali Tobacco Factory were incorporated, adding a chapter of Istanbul's industrial past to its archaeological and artistic holdings. Visitors move through galleries displaying Ottoman ceramics, Byzantine finds, and contemporary works — all anchored by the subterranean cistern, which lends the space an unusually dramatic, almost theatrical atmosphere.