More than forty archaeological and ethnographic museums were built throughout Turkey between early 1960s and 1980s, a period which began with and was ended by a military coup. Given the idea of a ‘national development’ and the notion of ‘planning’ were influential during this time period, the systematic construction of these museums was linked to the state’s ambitions for the representation of a developed and unified national identity. On the other hand, the process of the construction of museums was not very smooth and the end result was very different from what was planned. While the uneven state of these museums have mostly been considered simply the failure of the state in preserving its cultural heritage, this paper shows that, beyond inadequacy, the provincial museums in Turkey reflect a fragmented memory project as indicator of the diversity of memories in the region, which were left out of modernist historiographies. The paper problematizes the irreconciliation of the notion of regional planning with the idea of a national development in the 1960s and 70s Turkey. While rational planning methods with an emphasis on ‘independent development’ proposed by the Western powers were adopted, regional planning as part of the process was conceived as a threat to the unity of the nation. As a result, the museum project of the 1960s, which envisioned regional museums, turned out to be a contested and ambiguous one resulting in erratic structures that contain archaeological and ethnographic collections. Through the examination of the maps showing the regional distribution of the museums and analysis of museum improvement plans, tourism plans and a prototype museum project, this paper presents the ways a regionally structured museum project ended up being fragmented into provincial museums. It argues that the inadequate spaces of archaeological and ethnographic museums reflect fragmented memories and the impossibility of linear and homogeneous histories.