Beypazarı Living Museum

Living Museum; it is a public science museum established in 2007 in the district of Beypazarı, Ankara, through a civil initiative.

It operates in the Abbaszâde Mansion, built at the end of the 19th century. It was founded by cultural scholar Sema Demir; its opening took place on 23 April 2007.

The museum, founded with the purpose of experiencing and preserving Anatolian culture and transmitting it to future generations, exhibits historical objects and the region’s authentic costumes. It employs unconventional exhibition techniques that allow visitors to move beyond being mere spectators and to experience the displayed culture. It is Turkey’s first applied cultural museum.

History

The Beypazarı Living Museum project was developed by academic Zehra Sema Demir while she was still a student. After the Beypazarı Municipality accepted the project in 2006, Zehra Sema Demir rented the municipality‑owned registered building, Abbaszâde Mansion, and assumed the responsibility of founder and manager of the museum. The museum’s opening took place on 23 April 2007.

In 2012 the institution restored the abandoned Rüstem Paşa Bath in Beypazarı and converted it into a museum. The Turkish Bath Museum, a bath‑culture themed museum, emerged as a social responsibility project of the Living Museum and largely through the Living Museum’s financial resources, experience, and expertise.

Exhibition

To enable visitors to move beyond being spectators and to experience the displayed culture, the museum uses exhibition methods such as staging, reenactment, and drama. In the museum’s exhibition arrangement there are no displays such as vitrines or information boards; narrators accompany the visitors. The narrators establish direct communication with visitors and, during this interaction, provide oral cultural transmissions such as sayings, proverbs, and tales.

In each room of the museum building different activities are carried out. In the kitchen, utensils and tools belonging to Turkish food culture are presented and costumed museum guides tell visitors the stories of proverbs and sayings related to kitchen culture. In the linden‑press workshop visitors prepare items such as wallets, bookmarks and bags using linden‑press molds. In the section formerly used as a cellar visitors are given information about lead casting and lead is poured for protection against the evil eye.

On the first floor there is a bride’s room. Narrators in this room convey information and tell tales about dowry display, the yoke, the bed and the washing room. In the playroom a Hacivat and Karagöz performance is presented; in the performance room visitors wear traditional costumes.

In the museum’s attic called “guşgana” there is a traditional weaving loom. In this section Beypazarı weaving products, peshtemal and silk shawl samples are exhibited and sold.