Ataturk Cultural Center (AKM)

The story of the Istanbul Atatürk Cultural Center, which left its mark on the art memory of not only Istanbul but all of Turkey, was first introduced in 1936-1937 when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's French architect and city planner, Henri Prost, was invited to Turkey for the urban planning of Istanbul. It all starts with the Istanbul plan prepared by Henri Prost included the transformation of the Artillery Barracks and the cemeteries around the place into a park and the construction of an opera house in Taksim Square. French architect Auguste Perret, who came to Istanbul upon invitation to start the construction of two important cultural buildings (Istanbul Opera House and Şişhane Comedy Theatre) in 1939-1940, could not realize the project due to the outbreak of the Second World War.

When the calendars showed May 29, 1946, the governor and mayor of the time, under the leadership of Rükneddin Güney and Feridun Kip, commissioned by Lütfi Kırdar, the first groundbreaking ceremony of the Istanbul Opera House takes place. However, since the municipality's financial difficulties prevented the continuation of the construction, the project was transferred to the Ministry of Public Works and Settlement, and thus the construction was revived in 1956 with Hayati Tabanlıoğlu's project. The building, the construction of which was interrupted for 3 years due to the military coup in 1960, was turned into a cultural center, even though it was originally an opera house, and in 1969 the "Istanbul Culture Palace" was built to perform the works of the State Opera and Ballet and the State Theatre, is opened under a new name. In 1970, during the screening of Arthur Miller's The Witch's Cauldron, a great fire occurs and the building is devastated. After 8 years of repair, the name of the building was changed to "Atatürk Cultural Center" and it continues to serve again. Considered to be a typical example of the simple and functional architectural understanding of the 1950s, the building had a Great Hall with a capacity of 1307 people, a Concert Hall with a capacity of 502, a Chamber Theater with a capacity of 269 people, Aziz Nesin Stage with a capacity of 190 people, a Cinema Hall with a capacity of 206 and an Art Gallery of 1000 square meters. The building, which continued to serve until the 2000s, becomes unusable and improvement projects are started to be prepared.

Saying goodbye to art lovers for a while with the screening of the Danish production "Operation: Orfeo" staged as part of the International Istanbul Theater Festival in 2008, AKM's groundbreaking ceremony is held in 2019, following the approval of the project submitted to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 2017. AKM, which went down in history as the cultural center built in the shortest time in the world with its completion in about 32 months after its foundation was laid, opened its doors to art lovers of all ages with a magnificent opening ceremony on October 29, 2021. AKM, which has been the meeting point of Istanbulites for years, costs approximately 2 billion liras; The library has become flesh and bone in order to revive this identity by hosting many units such as the Opera Hall with a capacity of 2040, the Theater with a capacity of 802, a Gallery, Multi-Purpose Hall, Children's Art Center, Music Platform, Music Recording Studio, Yeşilçam Cinema and Design Shop.