June 19, 2006
Trains, planes, and automobiles. Certainly an unlikely combination for a 16th caravansary that sheltered wayfaring merchants plying the Silk Road, and the camels they rode in on. Now, newly restored, the majestic Çengelhan, provides shelter for the Rahmi Koç Industrial Museum, sitting atop Ankara like a jewel in the Ottoman crown. The inn was built in 1522 for the daughter of Süleyman the Magnificent, Mihrimah Sultan, by her husband Rüstem Pasha, who was also a close friend of the Sultan. Five hundred years later, the restoration, spearheaded by Rahmi Koç, head of the hugely successful Koç Holding, honors both Ankara and Koç the elder, Vehbi Koç, who humbly launched in 1917 the general store in a dilapidated space on the ground floor. The Koç family has both come a long way and full circle, having dedicated the better part of two years on a project that has rescued a cultural icon from decay and put it squarely back on the map.
The museum represents a collection of industrial artifacts, from an original 1893 Blickensderfer portable typewriter equipped with over a hundred keys, to a more recent sunburst-colored Macintosh laptop I-Book. Children will be mesmerized by the vintage tricycles, automobiles, and model locomotives both life-sized and model scale. But there's no doubt that these already engaging objets take on an added fascination as a result of their historically and culturally rich home.
Visitors are invited to sip local wine at the Divan Brasserie, while imagining the surrounding courtyard marketplace as it once was: bustling with traders dealing in cashmere, angora, and leathers from around the empire, with the outer rooms serving as overnight quarters, dining facilities and stables. The caravansaray's restoration has also given new life to an Ankara neighborhood that had long since begun to show considerable wear and tear. Long left in the shadow of the wall-enclosed Citadel and itself in need of a face lift, neighboring shops now benefit from pristine quarters while antique showrooms and cozy cafes are rejuvenating long forgotten workshops.
Closed Monday. Admission 3YTL. Sutepe Mah. Depo Sok. No:1, Altžndag / Ankara (opposite the entrance to the Citadel). 000 312 309 68 00
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