Tokat is a city located in the Yeşilırmak basin in the Central Black Sea Region. Due to its location, it has been a densely populated settlement center throughout history. For this reason, the city has been home to many civilizations. Consequently, Tokat, with its deep-rooted history, houses many archaeological and ethnographic artifacts. In the early Republican period, Halis Turgut Cinlioğlu initiated museum studies in 1926 as part of modern museum work. In 1925, the Gök Medrese building underwent renovation. Many artifacts obtained by Cinlioğlu from Tokat and its surroundings began to be collected in the Gök Medrese, which was built during the Anatolian Seljuk period. The building was used as a storage museum for a long time. In this respect, the museum became an exemplary structure for museum activities in Anatolia. In 1974, some of the museum's rooms were arranged as exhibition areas to expand its usage. In 1982, the building acquired the characteristics of a contemporary museum. After being used as a museum building for a long time, the Tokat Gök Medrese Museum was later moved to the Tokat Bedesteni. The museum has an extensive collection. The main reason for this is the large number of artifacts obtained through excavations in Tokat and its surroundings. Especially as a result of excavations conducted in Maşathöyük and Niksar, numerous archaeological artifacts have been added to the museum. As a result, the museum displays many artifacts from the Hittite, Hellenistic, Roman, Anatolian Seljuk, and Ottoman periods.

This study introduces the museum building that first housed the Tokat Museum and attempts to reveal the place and importance of the structure in social and cultural memory. At the same time, the structure in question has been evaluated as a qualified foundation work that has been functionalized as an important cultural heritage site and brought into contemporary life. The main objective of this study is to reveal the historical and artistic value of the Gök Medrese, the first museum building in the context of the institutionalization process of the Tokat Museum, by examining its floor plan, architectural design, and decorative features in detail.