Guide
The Fine Arts Gallery of Mersin is on Sanat Sokak in the Akdeniz district, and the building it occupies is one of the first civil architectural works of the republican period in the city. Its foundations were laid in 1944 by the governor Tevfik Sırrı Gür, and it opened on 29 October 1946 as part of the events marking the twenty-third anniversary of the republic.
It served as a people's house between 1946 and 1951, holding cultural, artistic and sporting events. When the people's houses were closed in 1951 the building passed to the Ministry of Education and then, in 1977, to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Its restoration was completed in 1991 and it reopened as the Mersin Culture Centre, which today houses both the directorate of the Mersin Opera and Ballet, founded in 1990, and the Fine Arts Gallery. It is on Silifke Caddesi in the Kiremithane quarter.
