Guide

Few buildings in Malatya have been asked to be so many things. This one was begun on 14 August 1926 in Battalgazi as a Türk Ocağı clubhouse, its foundation laid by the governor of the day, Nevzat Tandoğan, and built in the National Architecture manner: square in plan, in cut stone, with a monumental doorway opening into a hall and the rooms around it. When the Türk Ocakları were closed in April 1931 it became the provincial headquarters of the Republican People's Party and a Halkevi — Malatya's was among the first to open, in February 1932, and the Fırat sports club began in 1934 as its sports branch. The Halkevleri were closed in turn in 1951, and the building passed to the treasury, then to education: an annexe of the Malatya lycée after 1953, later a public education centre.

Atatürk came to it on 13 February 1931. After the welcome at the station he walked part of the newly opened road with the townspeople and came here, where he received party members and representatives of the public and asked about the state of the province and above all its economy. Two rooms in the house had been prepared for him.

It was registered as a protected cultural property in 1976 and restored by the DSİ for the centenary of Atatürk's birth, reopening in 1981 as the Atatürk House, which at that stage meant a single Atatürk room. A fuller restoration by the governorship, the special provincial administration and the municipality ran from late 2008 to March 2009 and turned every part of the building over to museum use. Since 2014 it has been in the care of the Malatya Museum Directorate on behalf of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

As a museum it now has the room in which Atatürk sat, a library, a room of swords and rifles, a room of photographs, and spaces hung with carpets on the themes of Atatürk and the War of Independence. The building was damaged in the earthquake of 6 February 2023; the repairs were finished and it opened again on 13 February 2025, the anniversary of Atatürk's arrival in the city.

Visit status for this record: open to visitors.