Guide
Uşak's Atatürk and Ethnography Museum is a large two-storey house on Uluyol at Hisarkapi, with projecting bays on three sides and a street front more elaborate than the others.
Who built it and when is not recorded. What is known is that Ahmet Vefik Pasha, governor of Bursa, was a guest here in 1879, and that Atatürk stayed in the house on 2 September 1922, during the War of Independence. From the 1879 visit the ministry concludes that the house was built in the second half of the 19th century and before that date.
Construction is rubble stone up to the plinth and timber-framed above. The walls were originally half-timbered and lathed, rendered outside with mud and lime with fibre, and inside levelled with mud, plastered and limewashed. That is no longer what you see: the second restoration used modern exterior filler and silicone-based paint, and the building now looks modern from outside. The first restoration was in 1978, when it opened as the Atatürk and Ethnography Museum; the second is dated 1998.
Inside, the main entrance opens into the hall known as the hayat, with rooms around it; a staircase leads to the upper hall, which the rooms above open onto in the same way. The upper floor has a lot of windows, and the result is a notably light and airy set of rooms.
