“A simply magical night,” the guests gushed throughout the course of OMM – Odunpazarı Modern Museum’s opening event on September 7. The museum’s much-awaited opening ceremony started out over the hammam domes of Tasigo Hotel in Eskişehir. Friends of OMM, an inspired crowd from the worlds of art, business and architecture caught up at the end of a busy summer and exchanged pleasantries. Soon enough, Erol Tabanca, the OMM founder, invited the architects of OMM’s timber-stacked building, Kengo Kuma and Yuki Ikeguchi to join him on the stage.
The cocktails—Second Harvest, Gold is Gold and Monte Rosso to name a few—foreshadowed some of the works in The Union, the museum’s inaugral exhibition curated by Haldun Dostoğlu, awaiting the guests.
As the sun went down, Lin Pesto, a mysterious Turkish songstress and her band broke into romantic ballads—in pink and white ski masks, nothing less.
As Pesto wrapped up her nine-song set, guests started to leave for the museum in OMM-branded vehicles.
To enter the museum, the guests had to walk on water—well, sort of. Digital artist Gökhan Doğan’s work, “Cometa” a machine-learning based mapping installation echoed the footsteps of the guests on the way into the museum, creating ethereal tides as each guest walked toward the building.
Inside, renowned jazz pianist Aydın Esen played the piano in the atrium, accompanying the guests in their journey to “The Union”.
Artists posed in front of their works and guests mingled in all three floors of the museum.
As guests arrived at the third floor, New Zealand-based band Jonathan Bree took over the stage and performed to an enchanted audience. Also clad in masks, Bree’s bandmates played and swayed to the frontman’s velvet voice.
As the clock got closer to 12, the guests seemed unwilling to leave the museum, yet there was an afterparty to be attended to at OMM INN, the museum’s boutique hotel extension across the street. Nightcaps came in the form of Johnnie Walker cocktails, and DJ Luca Bertea spinned tunes to a young and somehow still energetic crowd.
The following morning, the guests—some suffering from a mysterious, throbbing headache—left Eskişehir as the museum opened its doors to its first ever public visitors, still carrying the most popular accessory of the weekend: A wide smile that comes from witnessing the birth of a new cultural institution.