Salt Research
Salt Research comprises a specialized library, comprehensive archives, and online content, providing access to print publications and digitized archival materials.
Archival Collections
Salt Research archives focus on Turkey, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Eastern Europe. The collections encompass sources on visual practices, the built environment, social life, and economic history from the last century of the Ottoman Empire to present-day Turkey.
archives.saltresearch.org provides online access to more than 2,000,000 documents digitized by Salt Research.
The website brings together archival collections under “Art,” “Architecture,” “Design,” “City,” “Society,” “Economy,” “Education,” and “Cinema.” With its user-centered interactive structure, it offers advanced search and viewing capabilities, enabling research across disciplines and collections by highlighting relationships between documents.
Built on the open-source DSpace platform, archives.saltresearch.org was launched in January 2019 with a redesigned interface. The entire project—including its conceptual framework, software development, design, and data migration—was carried out by the Salt team, with customizations tailored to the institution’s needs.
Publication Collection
At Salt Research, users and researchers can access over 100,000 print resources on art, architecture, design, city, society, and economy. saltresearch.org enables online catalog search for publications freely accessible at Salt Research.
The publication collection, expanding through auctions, second-hand bookstores, acquisitions, and institutional donations, encompasses a wide range of materials, from manuscripts, travelogues, encyclopedias, yearbooks, and albums to contemporary books and journals.
The art collection includes books and catalogs on art theory, history, education, and curatorial practices, along with works in fields such as photography and film. Publications on art in post-1950 Turkey are accompanied by resources focused on Eastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean.
The built environment collection brings together publications on architectural history and theory, landscape architecture, urban studies, conservation, restoration, and cultural heritage. The selection centered on the development of architecture and design in 20th-century Turkey aims to support research in these fields.
Publications on social life and economic history from the 19th century to the present provide a basis for comparative analysis. This multilingual collection—comprising Turkish, English, Ottoman Turkish, French, Italian, Armenian, Greek, and Karamanlidika (Greco-Turkish)—sheds light on the transformations of the past two centuries.
The collection also includes donations from private libraries, featuring the book collections of artist Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin (1957–2007) and art historian, writer, and critic Prof. Dr. Kaya Özsezgin (1938–2016). Books from the library of Ali Saim Ülgen (1913–1963)—one of Turkey’s earliest architects and restoration specialists—offer insights into architecture, cultural heritage, and restoration practices from the late Ottoman period to the Republic, while the collection of artist and writer Nazif Topçuoğlu serves as a key resource for research on the history of photography.
Salt Research Spaces
Featuring a collection of over 100,000 publications, the Salt Research spaces on the ground floor and floor -1 of Salt Galata host around 50,000 users annually.
Located on the ground floor, the 90-seat Salt Research Gregory Michael Kiez Hall serves as a research space open to all. Those conducting in-depth research may use the 40-seat Salt Research Ferit F. Şahenk Hall on floor -1 upon free registration.