Istanbul Guide

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Architecture Ottoman Architecture

Harem (p62), inside Topkapı Palace

and semidomes. There was usually one minaret, though imperial mosques had more. Each imperial mosque had a külliye (mosque complex) clustered around it. This was a philanthropic complex including a medrese (semi nary), hamam, darüşşifa (hospital), imaret (soup kitchen), kütüphane (library), tabhane (inn for travelling dervishes) or kervansaray (cara vanserai) and cemetery with türbes (tombs). Over time many of these külliyes were demolished; fortunately, a number of the buildings in the magnificent Süleymaniye and Atik Valide complexes remain intact. Later sultans continued Mehmet’s palace-building craze. No palace would rival Topkapı, but Sultan Abdül Mecit I tried his best with the grandiose Dolmabahçe Palace and Abdül Aziz I built the extravagant Çırağan Palace and Beylerbeyi Palace. These and other buildings of the era have been collectively dubbed ‘Turkish baroque’. These mosques and palaces dominate the landscape and skyline of the city, but there are other quintessentially Ottoman buildings: the hamam and the Ottoman timber house. Hamams were usually built as part of a külliye, and provided an important point of social contact as well as facilities for ablutions. Architecturally significant hamams include the Ayasofya Hürrem Sultan Hamamı, the Çemberlitaş Hamamı, the Cağaloğlu Hamamı and the Kılıç Ali Paşa Hamamı. All are still functioning. Wealthy Ottomans and foreign diplomats built many yalıs (water side, usually timber, mansions) along the shores of the Bosphorus; city equivalents were sometimes set in a garden but were usually part of a crowded, urban streetscape. Unfortunately, not too many of

Two family dynas ties have played major roles in İstanbul’s archi tectural scene: the Balyans, who worked in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the Tabanlıoğlus, in the 20th and 21st centuries.