The Museum of Innocence is a museum in a 19th-century house in Çukurcuma created by novelist Orhan Pamuk as a companion to his novel The Museum of Innocence. The museum and the novel were created in tandem, centred on the stories of two Istanbul families. On 17 May 2014, the museum was announced as the winner of the 2014 European Museum of the Year Award.
Situated in an area of Istanbul famous for the old antique shops that line its narrow streets, the museum reflects the character of everyday objects of 1970s upper-class Istanbul. It consists of a series of displays, each corresponding to one of the 83 chapters in the novel. According to the narrative, these objects were collected and arranged by Kemal, the novel’s protagonist, as they are linked to his memories of Füsun, his love interest throughout the novel. The displays include a large glass case containing 4,213 cigarette butts, each smoked by Füsun, a collection of salt shakers, and paintings and maps of the Istanbul streets where the narrative takes place. Everything in the museum’s four floors references the novel and the era in which the book is set. Despite the coupling of museum and novel, Pamuk maintains that they can be experienced independent of each other: “just as the novel is entirely comprehensible without a visit to the museum, so is the museum a place that can be visited and experienced on its own