Architecture and the Turkish City

An Urban History of Istanbul since the Ottomans

Murat Gül

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781786722300
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: History of Architecture

Architecture and urban planning have always been used by political regimes to stamp their ideologies upon cities, and this is especially the case in the modern Turkish Republic. By exploring Istanbul's modern architectural and urban history, Murat Gül highlights the dynamics of political and social change in Turkey from the late-Ottoman period until today. Looking beyond pure architectural styles or the physical manifestations of Istanbul's cultural landscape, he offers critical insight into how Turkish attempts to modernise have affected both the city and its population. Charting the diverse forces evident in Istanbul's urban fabric, the book examines late Ottoman reforms, the Turkish Republic's turn westward for inspiration, Cold War alliances and the AK Party's reaffirmation of cultural ties with the Middle East and the Balkans. Telltale signs of these moments – revivalist architecture drawing on Ottoman and Seljuk styles, 1930s Art Deco, post-war International Style buildings and the proliferation of shopping malls, luxurious gated residences and high-rise towers, for example – are analysed and illustrated in extensive detail. Connecting this rich history to present-day Istanbul, whose urban development is characterised anew by intense social stratification, the book will appeal to researchers of Turkey, its architecture and urban planning.

1

Late Ottoman Istanbul: early modernity, nationalism and the end of an empire

Istanbul encountered the nineteenth century under very specific and difficult circumstances. At the turn of the century it was a chaotic, overcrowded and poorly administered city. Istanbul was the capital of the ageing Ottoman Empire, and was the object of a succession of painful reforms as the Ottomans attempted to modernise the historic city. These initiatives to revitalise the old capital often followed overarching Ottoman reforms in politics, economics and the military – all with the aim of saving the empire from a total collapse in the highly challenging political conditions of the century.

The journey taken by Istanbul throughout the nineteenth century, however, was not unique to Turkey. Contrary to the accounts of mainstream Turkish historiography, which often portrays this last century of the Ottoman Empire through a dark lens, the problems faced by Istanbul were very much the same as the challenges confronted by other major European cities. For Istanbul, like many Western cities, the main goals were always to implement some basic hygienic standards, improve building quality and establish reliable public transport. In addition, regularising the crooked street pattern, preventing catastrophic fires and setting up an effective municipal structure based on European models were other significant initiatives required to deal with the tribulations faced exclusively by the Ottoman administration. In order to meet these targets, the Ottomans had been trying diligently to implement initiatives ranging from small-scale street enlargements to mega projects connecting Europe to Asia, both above and below the Bosphorus. Most of these large-scale attempts bore the signatures of European experts and none of them left the drafting board, simply remaining as fascinating examples that illustrated the passionate aspiration of the Ottoman Empire to change and modernise itself. In most cases, these projects were the proposals of young Ottoman bureaucrats and diplomats who had familiarised themselves with vibrant European urban life whilst stationed in Paris, London, Vienna or Berlin.¹

Belying general assumptions, Istanbul was not late in implementing technological improvements. In line with Ottoman integration with the Western capitalist economy, state-of-the-art advances appeared in Ottoman Istanbul not long after they first arrived in Western cities. For example, just 11 years after Samuel Morse sent his famous experimental cable message between Capitol in Washington, DC, and Mt. Clare Depot in Baltimore, Istanbul was connected to the major European capitals by telegraphic lines in 1855 during the Crimean War (1853–6).² In 1840, the very same year that the Uniform Penny Post was established in the United Kingdom, the Ministry of Post was inaugurated in the Ottoman capital. The postal services previously conducted by the military could now be systemised by a special office in a centralised manner.³ Steamships appeared in the Ottoman capital in the 1820s, not long after their first appearance in major European ports. The development of rail transport came to the Ottoman Empire a little later than some other Western countries but once the railway arrived it was embraced with a passion by the Ottoman administration. The first intercity railway was opened in 1866, 36 years after the construction of the Liverpool–Manchester line, when a British company laid the rails between İzmir and Aydın, two important cities in Western Anatolia. In 1871 the Istanbul–Edirne route was completed and a year later the railway was extended to Dedeağaç, and then Sofia in 1874. At times enthusiasm for the railway overrode all other concerns, most famously when plans for the line to Sarayburnu proposed that the track pass through the lower reaches of the gardens of Topkapı Palace. The controversy came to a close with Sultan Abdülaziz’s famous statement, ‘The railway must come to Istanbul, even if it has to pass through my own back’. Trains also began to operate on the Asian side of the city when the Haydarpaşa–İzmit line was completed in 1873. From the 1850s, the Ottoman capital saw emerging public transport with the introduction of steam ferries criss-crossing the Bosphorus and horse-drawn trams linking the major hubs of the city.⁴ Designed by the French engineer Eugène Henri Gavand, an underground railway tunnel between Karaköy and Galata was put in service in 1875. Although only 554 metres long, this state-of-the-art steam-engine funicular system was the second of its kind in the world.⁵ Even technological improvements in entertainment came quickly to Ottoman Istanbul. Cinema, for example, appeared in Istanbul in 1896, only one year after the first film was screened by the Lumière brothers in Paris.⁶

Changing architectural tastes and new building types

Changes of taste in architectural style and alterations to the urban morphology of Istanbul always followed and mirrored the reforms made in the political and social structure of the empire. A long and traumatic debate in the Ottoman administration instigated after humiliating defeats by European armies in the last quarter of the seventeenth century brought about the modernisation of the Ottoman army by the agency of imported Western military expertise in the mid-eighteenth century.⁷ The Westernisation of the army gradually spread across other aspects of the social and cultural life of Ottoman society, and architecture, by its very nature, was not an exception to this process. The classical flavours of the Ottoman architectural vocabulary began to fade away from the mid-eighteenth century, with glimpses of the impact of European Baroque architecture appearing in Istanbul.⁸ The Nuruosmaniye Mosque (1753–5) was the first major Ottoman structure where the impact of the European Baroque style could be vividly seen in S and C-shaped ornaments, scrolling cornices and the overall curvilinear character of the building.⁹ Subsequently, the impact of European architectural styles intensified, especially in the early decades of the nineteenth century when almost all public buildings constructed bore the impact of fashionable Western styles such as Baroque, Rococo and French Empire.

Image 2Nuruosmaniye Mosque, Aras Neftçi

Political reforms initiated by Selim III (r. 1789–1807) in the last phase of the eighteenth century signalled larger scale changes for the following decades, and paved the way for his cousin and successor, Mahmud II (r. 1808–39), to introduce a large number of material changes to the Ottoman Empire. During his reign rebellious Janissaries were crushed and replaced by a modern army, the bureaucracy was restructured completely, consultative councils were established, and an urban management system was redrafted. With the abolishment of the Janissaries – who under the kadı or the juridical authority also held significant responsibilities for civic duties in Istanbul, such as security, street cleaning and firefighting – a new department, İhtisab Nazırlığı (Ministry of Taxation and Urban Affairs), was established.¹⁰ Shortly after the death of Mahmud II, all these reforms were codified by the declaration of an imperial edict by his brother, Abdülmecid (r. 1839–61), in 1839. Known as Tanzimat (Reorganisation), the edict was prepared by a group of young Ottoman bureaucrats led by Mustafa Reşid Pasha, the Minister for Foreign Affairs.¹¹ The creators of the edict were familiar with European politics and culture and saw the adoption of Western norms as the only recipe to save the ageing empire from collapse. With the declaration of the edict a new era knownas the Tanzimat Period (1839–76) was opened in Turkish history. The reforms included the secularisation and formalisation of education and justice, differentiation of the administrative structure along functional lines, introduction of a new provincial administration, creation of a new elite bureaucratic system, abolition of the patrimonial taxation system, creation of a monetised system to levy taxes and, finally, the establishment of an Ottoman parliament and constitution.¹²

The change in the administrative structure of the empire was evident in the emerging modern bureaucracy. The total number of public servants, for example, increased eighteenfold and reached 35,000 in 1908.¹³ State affairs, as a consequence, were no longer run from within the thick walls of imperial palaces or the mansions of high-ranking Ottoman pashas or bureaucrats but instead were conducted inside purpose-built ministerial offices. As the Ottoman Empire changed as a result of its integration with world economics, the building types in its capital varied as well. The prevailing structures of classical Ottoman Istanbul were the large sultanic mosques that dominated the legendary silhouette of the Historic Peninsula¹⁴ with their lofty domes and pencil-thin minarets. Public buildings – often part of a large complex or külliye – such as medreses (schools), hamams (public baths), hospices and libraries were the other important buildings of Ottoman Istanbul in the classical era.

In the rapidly changing world of the nineteenth century, Ottoman cities, especially Istanbul, now called for other kinds of buildings to feed the demands of this new world. The changing civic services required modern public buildings such as schools, post offices, ferry wharves and train stations. Integration with the world capitalist economy brought with it modern office buildings, banks, hotels and entertainment venues for the emerging Ottoman bourgeoisie. Above all, the modernisation programme for the Ottoman army required large-scale barracks, hospitals and other buildings, which all necessitated construction in European style. For this reason, from the late eighteenth century the most sizable buildings in the Ottoman capital were no longer mosques but gigantic military barracks that hosted the Europeanised army. Without exception, all of these new barracks were constructed outside the walls encircling the historic city of Istanbul. The intense building activity also resulted in a sweeping shift in the urban geography of the city. Beyoğlu, across the Golden Horn became a rising star of nineteenth-century Istanbul, in particular.¹⁵ This was due not only to the colossal military barracks constructed there, but also because of the increasingly Western style of public life and activities that occurred in the streets of this most Europeanised quarter of the city. That is why, when the Ottoman administration decided to implement a municipal organisation based on European norms, Pera became the first quarter of the city in which this system was put into action as an exemplar model.¹⁶

In part, this transformation in society, politics and bureaucracy allowed the birth of architecture as a profession in the modern sense. A significant step in this penetrating reform process was the replacement of the Hassa Mimarlar Ocağı, the Corps of Royal Architects responsible for building activities in the empire, with the Ebniye-i Hassa Müdürlüğü (Directorate of Royal Buildings) in 1831.¹⁷ Şehreminliği, the office responsible for the construction and upkeep of royal buildings, was also amalgamated with the newly established directorate. This action was not mere Westernisation but rather an inevitable result of the changing conditions. In the classical Ottoman system, with its absence of private ownership and a modern economy, the only area where architecture could be expressed was limited to religious buildings, imperial palaces and mansions, and some other civic buildings such as public baths and religious schools. Working under sultanic patronage in the firmly established traditions of the classical period of the Ottoman Empire, the aged imperial architectural office was far from possessing the ability to satisfy the needs of the changing society. As a result, building activities in Istanbul in the nineteenth century passed swiftly to the hands of foreign, Levantine or non-Muslim groups that had benefited from the far-reaching Westernisation of the Ottoman Empire and had direct contact with European cultures and societies.

The Balyans: the apostles of architectural change

Unique in the creative history of Turkey, the Balyan family of architects served the Ottoman Empire over three generations and were the most important figures of this period. One of the well-known Armenian families of Ottoman Turkey (originally from Central Anatolia), the Balyans were active from the mid-eighteenth to the late nineteenth century, and the six members of the family who served a succession of seven sultans (from Selim III to Abdülhamid II) played a pivotal role in the introduction and popularisation of Western architectural styles in Istanbul.¹⁸

The influence of the Balyans, however, is a controversial topic in Turkish architectural history as various contrasting analyses offer very different accounts of the roles played by Balyan family members in nineteenth-century Ottoman architecture. Based primarily on interpretations by local Armenian writers, modern Turkish architectural historiography in general portrays the Balyans as designers of a wide array of important and prestigious buildings in the Ottoman capital, ranging from imperial palaces and mosques to small pavilions. The sources to which these accounts refer are mainly chronicles, family memoirs and other documents kept by the local Armenian community in Istanbul and, in many cases, these sources overemphasise the role played by the creativity of the Balyans and other Armenians in the modernisation of the Ottoman Empire. Alternatively, recently unearthed material from the Ottoman archives and a careful reading of Ottoman architectural books published in the late nineteenth century raise some serious questions about this general ...