Adana Atatürk Evi Müzesi

The Adana Atatürk House Museum is a two storey traditional Adana house standing on Seyhan Avenue, close to the western bank of the river. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his wife Latife Hanım were hosted in this house when they visited Adana on 15 March 1923. At that time the building belonged to Suphi Pasha, a member of the Ramazanoğulları family. The house opened to visitors in 1981, on the hundredth anniversary of Atatürk's birth, as a unit attached to the museum directorate. One of the strongest reasons to visit the museum is the building itself. The Adana Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism describes it as a structure showing the typical features of traditional Adana houses and as one of the civil architecture examples that best reflect its period. The house resembles the classic Adana houses built in the 19th century; it has two storeys, projecting bays and a hipped roof, and its walls are of solid stone masonry. The building is registered by the Ministry of Culture as an immovable cultural asset requiring protection. The vertical row of windows on the facade, the wooden shutters and the roof with its wide eaves reflect a way of life suited to the hot climate of old Adana. The building was expropriated and restored by the Atatürk Science and Culture Centre Museum Protection and Memorial Association with the help of the public. Every year on 15 March the anniversary of Atatürk's arrival in Adana is marked with an official ceremony held in this building. The museum displays information, documents and photographs from the War of Independence and the early years of the Republic. Alongside these, ethnographic pieces from the region have been placed in the rooms of the house. There are two rooms on the ground floor, a study and a library. The study displays local newspapers published in Adana during and after the War of Independence, such as Yeni Adana, Türk Sözü, Çukurova and Dirlik. The library holds about two thousand books in Ottoman Turkish and Turkish, collected through donations. On the upper floor, a statue of Atatürk by the sculptor Nevzat Duruak greets visitors in the central hall. The nine rooms opening onto the hall are arranged as the bedroom, study, press room, veterans room, sitting room, Hatay room, weapons room, aide de camp room and Kuva-yi Milliye room. The rooms bring together household objects and documents of the period. In the bedroom a bed with a brass frame and silver thread embroidery and armchairs in the Maraş style catch the eye. In the press room the bound Pozantı issues of the Yeni Adana newspaper are kept inside a display case. The walnut chair, metal brazier, local kilims and carpets in the sitting room bring the everyday texture of an old Adana house to life. The weapons room displays various rifles and pistols together with coins from different years and a model of the house where Mustafa Kemal was born. The veterans room holds photographs of Abdülgani Girici and other fighters of the period, along with a clock set to the hour of Atatürk's death. In the aide de camp room, objects such as a brass bed, a walnut veneered wardrobe, a metal ewer and basin show how a room of the period was furnished. The Kuva-yi Milliye room contains busts of people who served during the National Struggle. The most natural order is to begin with the newspapers on the ground floor, climb the stairs to the hall and then see the rooms by walking around it. The interior layout, with rooms lined up around a central hall, is also a good example for understanding the plan of traditional Adana houses. Look out of the windows to observe how the house relates to the street and how the projecting bays reach out over the pavement. The front garden of the museum is small but shaded by trees, and the best place to photograph the facade is in front of the garden railings. The museum can be reached from the city centre by bus, municipal bus or taxi, and it is also possible to walk from the area around Büyük Saat and Taşköprü. The Adana Cinema Museum is in the nearby Kayalıbağ neighbourhood off the same avenue, so the two museums can be combined in a single walk. Opening days and hours may change, so check the current information on the website of the Adana Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism before you go.