The Yalova City Museum stands at the water's edge beside Yalova harbour, where Rıhtım, Cumhuriyet and Gazi Paşa streets meet, and the building that houses it is a reconstruction, not a survival. The original on the site was the Yalova Government House, pulled down in 1968; what stands there now was rebuilt from its plans so that the museum could occupy it, and it opened on 15 May 2013.
The first building went up because the town changed status. Yalova became a kaza, a district, in 1900, and an administrative seat was needed to match. Construction was put in hand and the Government House opened in 1908, though it came into full use only from 1913, and it was built by Hacı Artin Kalfa, one of the contractors of the day. It stood opposite the old Yalova pier and held the offices of a number of official bodies, the municipality among them, which ran the town's public business from there for many years; the municipal offices moved out after 1913 as the need for space grew. During the occupation of Yalova the building was taken over as a headquarters by a Captain Dimitri. It was regarded as one of the best-made structures of its period, which is part of why its demolition still counts in the town's memory.
Rebuilding it as a museum was a deliberate, slow process. The work was started under the coordination of the City Council with the provincial governorship and the municipality taking part, and the first consultative meeting was held on 9 January 2010, opening the shape of the museum to public institutions, civil society organisations and the private sector. The restitution and reconstruction projects were approved on 20 April 2010 by decision number 1417 of the Kocaeli Regional Board for the Conservation of Cultural and Natural Property.
What the museum sets out to hold is the memory of the town. It has two floors, a lower and an entrance floor, and the displays run from the traces of the first settlement, eight thousand years ago, through the Ottoman and republican periods to Yalova as it is today, told with information, documents and photographs and covering local government, twin towns, population, education, sport, industry, agriculture, geography, the districts, tourism and social life. There is a model of the city, and models of the Walking Mansion and of a mosque; ethnographic works and documents acquired by donation are also displayed on stands. The upper floor is used for official celebrations and as an exhibition space.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Yalova as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 6.6 °C in January to 23.6 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in December (113 mm) and lightest in July (25 mm). Long-term means for 1931-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
