Çankaya Mansion

The Çankaya Mansion (Çankaya Köşkü) is the official residence of the vice president of Turkey in the Çankaya district of Ankara, and was the official residence of the president of Turkey from 1923 to 2014. It sits within the Çankaya Campus of about 195 hectares, which also holds the older Atatürk Museum Mansion, the Glass Mansion, the Aide-de-Camp building and administrative and service buildings. The site began as a vineyard belonging to the Armenian jeweller and merchant Ohannes Kasabian, whose family lost it during the Armenian genocide. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk bought the vineyard house in 1921 and it later became his museum mansion. In 1930 he commissioned the Austrian architect Clemens Holzmeister to design a new mansion, which Holzmeister began building in 1931 and delivered in June 1932. It combines the traditional Turkish house with Western ease of living, with a working floor for receiving guests and a residential floor above. In 2014 the presidency moved to a new complex, and since 2017 the mansion has housed the vice president.