The Museum of Innocence

The Museum of Innocence is both a novel written by Orhan Pamuk and a physical museum he created. Since the 1990s, Pamuk conceived the novel and the museum together, as parts of a unified project. Set between 1974 and the early 2000s, the novel is a love story that explores life in Istanbul from the 1950s to the 2000s through flashbacks and memories, told through the intertwined lives of two families—one wealthy, the other middle-class.

The museum presents a carefully curated collection of objects that the novel’s characters used, wore, listened to, saw, collected, or dreamed of. These items are displayed in detailed boxes and vitrines, reflecting the emotional and material world of the story.

It is not necessary to read the novel to enjoy the museum—just as reading the novel does not require visiting the museum. However, those who have read the novel will appreciate the museum’s many layers of meaning more deeply, and those who visit the museum may notice many details in the novel they might otherwise have overlooked.
The novel was published in 2008, and the museum opened in the spring of 2012.