It was opened in July 2005 by the Suna-Inan Kirac Foundation, another project of Koc family, in this case by Suna, a daughter of Vehbi Koc and her husband, Inan Kirac.
The museum is in an old building, made in 1893 by the architect Achille Manousos and restored recently to locate the modern museum. It host as permanent exhibitions: “Kütahya Tiles and Ceramics”, “Anatolian Weights and Measures”, a selection of eastern portraits between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries and a sample of six works of the famous intellectual, archaeologist and Turkish painter Osman Hamdi Bey, like his famous “The Turtle Trainer” (Turkish:Kaplumbaga Terbiyecisi).
Although with lots of antiques and precious works, the most famous purchase of the museum is been precisely that painting, played with Istanbul Modern and eventually won by the Pera Museum by the staggering price of 3,8 million dollars, the highest price paid so far for a Turkish piece of art. “The Turtle Trainer”, created in 1906, reached such a media effect that has been visited by thousands and thousands of curious onlookers.
The Pera Museum has introduced to the Turkish public a big number of internationally renowned artists such as Goya, Jean Dubuffet, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Rembrandt, Pablo Picasso, Niko Pirosmani, Josef Koudelka, Joan Miró, Akira Kurosawa, Fernando Botero, Marc Chagall, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Since its opening, the museum collaborates with art institutions, national and international to show and promote the work of young artists.
The museum also has three art galleries, a theater, a cinema, and other sections of a large-scale project, which also includes a research center and a cultural association.
Opens daily from 12:00 to 18:00, except for Mondays. The entrance fee is 10 TL, 5 TL for children, students and seniors and 7 TL for group visits.