The construction of Hôtel Bristol, designed in unison with the general architectural character of the time by architect Achille Manoussos, was completed in 1893. The building was owned by the Armenian Catholic Patriarchate.

Hôtel Bristol was among the city’s most important hotels, and it frequently hosted high-ranking international guests. It remained in service until the early 1980s.

Constructed with brick masonry, Hôtel Bristol displayed features of neoclassical architecture: It had a large lobby, marble stairs, a lift, comfortable suites, halls, and a spacious dining hall with separate table seating.

Over the years, Hôtel Bristol had famous managers, such as Logothetti, Adampoulos, Djiras and Hadjira. Reflecting the changes in the region’s demographic composition in the early 1930s, Ömer Lütfi Bengü bought the hotel and continued to manage it until the 1980s.

In the 1980s, Hotel Bristol could no longer compete with newer hotels. Following the passing of the final owner of the hotel, Ömer Lütfi Bengü, in 1983, his heirs put it up for sale. The building was first purchased by Yıldız Lastikçilik, a rubber manufacturer, and then by Esbank, a national bank.

The building was redesigned by architect Doğan Hasol in order for it to function as the headquarters of Esbank. The hotel and the adjacent five-storey residential building underwent comprehensive renovation; their lots were combined but their façades facing Meşrutiyet Street were retained.

The building served as the headquarters of Esbank until 2002. It was redesigned as a modern and fully equipped museum by architect Sinan Genim, who retained Manoussos’ original façade as well as the lots combined by Hasol.

Suna Kıraç, İnan Kıraç and İpek Kıraç established the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation on 27th October 2003; the principle aspiration being to provide a lasting legacy for the Turkish population by promoting the domains of education, healthcare, culture and art. To achieve its goals in the educational sphere, the Foundation supports talented students requiring assistance, as well as educational institutions, by providing individual scholarships and grants for education and research. Since inauguration the Foundation has provided scholarships for more than three hundred disadvantaged students, ranging from primary school level to post-graduate degrees.

Focusing on neurodegenerative diseases in its endeavours in healthcare, the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation aims to provide excellent training foundations for scientists through collaborations with outstanding international universities and institutions. By further honing the skills of the next generation of medical practitioners, the Foundation seeks to promote Turkey as one of the leading countries in the field of healthcare. To achieve the full extent of these ambitions the Foundation embarked upon a mutually beneficial collaboration with Harvard University Medical School and Boğaziçi University in addition to launching Boğaziçi University Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation Neurodegeneration Research Laboratory (NDRL) in 2005. Another closely intertwined objective is to closely monitor worldwide healthcare developments and to facilitate the exchange of quality information on an international platform. As a key component of this objective the Foundation has initiated a series of biannual conferences, entitled Suna Kıraç Neurodegeneration Conferences. The first conference, “New Horizons in the Diagnosis and Treatment of ALS,” was held in April 2007 and received attention and acclaim from international circles of science and medicine.

Inspired by the vision of its co-founders’ to protect and preserve the outstanding cultural assets of Turkey that are starting to perish, the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation undertook another project spanning from 2005 to 2007. The task of transferring the collection of the Millet Manuscript Library, established by renowned Ottoman intellectual Ali Emîrî Efendi, into a digital format was an impressive challenge. With funding generously provided by the Getty Foundation, one of the leading foundations in the world, the completion of the necessary infrastructure to transfer the collection of approximately 20,000 manuscripts was successfully realised. A further extension of the project is now being executed with the facilitation of a system to catalogue and conserve the inventory of manuscripts held at the Millet Library as its new target.

The culture and arts initiatives of Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation continues are also continued through the illustrious mediums of the Pera Museum and İstanbul Research Institute respectively.

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