{"id":52282,"date":"2012-03-18T12:33:54","date_gmt":"2012-03-18T10:33:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/?p=52282"},"modified":"2014-01-07T01:07:57","modified_gmt":"2014-01-06T23:07:57","slug":"sultan-abdulhamit-iis-architectural-legacy-stands-strong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2012\/03\/18\/sultan-abdulhamit-iis-architectural-legacy-stands-strong\/","title":{"rendered":"Sultan Abd\u00fclhamit II\u2019s architectural legacy stands strong"},"content":{"rendered":"
18 March 2012, Sunday \/ MEHMET SOLMAZ, \u0130STANBUL SUNDAY\u2019S ZAMAN<\/div>\n
Late Ottoman \u0130stanbul was renowned for its public buildings that were constructed during the reign of Sultan Abd\u00fclhamit II — the last sultan to exert effective control over the Ottoman Empire.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u0130stanbul\u2019s century-old Haydarpa\u015fa Railway Station was built during the reign of Sultan Abd\u00fclhamit II, in 1908. (PHOTO SUNDAY\u2019S ZAMAN, M. FETHULLAH AKPINAR)<\/em><\/p>\n

Many of these are still in use in Turkey today and their stories have recently been compiled into a fascinating book by a university lecturer. A thick, hardcover volume written by Y\u0131ld\u0131z Technical University lecturer Fatmag\u00fcl Demirel, \u201cSultan II Abd\u00fclhamid\u2019in Miras\u0131 — \u0130stanbul\u2019da Kamu Binalar\u0131\u201d (Sultan Abd\u00fclhamit II\u2019s Heritage — Public Buildings in \u0130stanbul) illuminates the construction history and present condition of 13 public buildings built in the time of Sultan Abd\u00fclhamit II.<\/p>\n

The book, which was printed and financed by the \u0130stanbul Chamber of Commerce (\u0130TO), has high quality gilded pages. It includes the following buildings: the School of Fine Arts (Sanayi-i Nefise), Sirkeci Train Station, the Royal Museum (M\u00fcze-i H\u00fcmayun), the Halkal\u0131 School of Agriculture, the Ziraat Bank building, the Almshouse (Dar\u00fclaceze), the Ottoman Public Debt Administration Building (D\u00fcyun-\u0131 Umumiye Binas\u0131), the Abd\u00fclhamit Children\u2019s Hospital (Hamidiye Etfal Hastanesi), the Ministry of Forestry, the Mining and Agriculture Building, (Orman Ma\u2019adin ve Ziraat Nezareti), the first Ottoman school of medicine (Mekteb-I T\u0131bbiye-i \u015eahane), the Ministry of Property Records (Defter-i Hakani Nezareti), the Telegraph and Post Ministry and Haydarpa\u015fa Train Station.<\/p>\n

The book, as visually rich as it is informative, was published to showcase an era when Ottomans showed great interest in establishing new institutions and building strong and magnificent buildings for these institutions.<\/p>\n

Demirel explains in the book\u2019s introduction, \u201cIn the changing face of 19th century \u0130stanbul, instead of seeing huge monumental mosques, \u0130stanbul lent itself to new buildings like military barracks, new palaces near the Bosporus, new school buildings, clock towers and new administrative buildings. Thus we can say that, after the reforms, the winds of change also affected the buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dar\u00fclaceze — which derives from the Arabic words \u201cdar,\u201d meaning home, and \u201caceze,\u201d meaning weak or incapable — is a homeless shelter for those without families, built by Sultan Abd\u00fclhamit II when the number of beggars in \u0130stanbul increased enormously, most of whom were not disabled or orphaned, but simply preferred not to work.<\/p>\n

The historic Dar\u00fclaceze comprised 18 smaller buildings, including rooms for the staff, four buildings for Muslims and four buildings for Christians. Under the dormitories, the buildings had dining halls and workshops where various goods were produced. The Muslim and Christian buildings both had public baths and two-story hospitals. Muslims were given a mosque and Christians were given two churches: one for Armenians and another for Greeks. Official records show that, after opening in 1896, Dar\u00fclaceze hosted 9,394 people until 1909. In 1909 a total of 1,002 people were living in Dar\u00fclaceze, including one Bulgarian, 50 Jews, four Armenian Catholics, 63 Armenians, 122 Greek Orthodox and 762 Muslims.<\/p>\n

Hamidiye Etfal Hastanesi was the first children\u2019s hospital in Ottoman history and it now serves as a public hospital, called the \u015ei\u015fli Etfal Hospital. Sultan Abd\u00fclhamit II\u2019s daughter, Ay\u015fe Osmano\u011flu, stated that her father decided to build a children\u2019s hospital after his other daughter, Ulviye Sultan, died in a fire. Demirel quotes Osmano\u011flu\u2019s words in the book, in which Osmano\u011flu reads her father\u2019s words about the fire incident, \u201cMy daughter could not survive. I wonder how poor people\u2019s children are growing up in hardship. I shall at least build a hospital to prevent other fathers from grieving in pain like me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Furthermore, Demirel states that many of the Ottoman buildings that are now in use were built in the Sultan Abd\u00fclhamit II era. She adds that world-renowned architects built most of these buildings, including French-Ottoman architect Levanten Alexandre Vallaury, who taught architecture for 25 years in the School of Fine Arts; and Italian Raimonda D\u2019Anarco, who built the Ottoman Bank building, the Pera Palace Hotel, the Tokatl\u0131yan Hotel and the Ottoman Public Debt Administration Building.<\/p>\n

German architects also built many historic buildings in \u0130stanbul, including A. Jashmund, Otto Ritter, Helmuth Cuno and Otto Kapp.<\/p>\n

Jashmund built the well-known Sirkeci Train Station, which was called \u201cOsmanl\u0131 toplumu i\u00e7in bat\u0131ya a\u00e7\u0131lan kap\u0131\u201d (the door that opens to the West for Ottoman society). It was built on the historical peninsula on the European side of \u0130stanbul in January 1871. It was not a coincidence for the Ottoman administration to build its first railway routes in the European part of the state. In fact, Ottomans intended to quickly transport their army with trains, when there was a need to suppress a possible rebellion.<\/p>\n

Turkey\u2019s famous Haydarpa\u015fa Railway Station, which is still in use, was built by German architects Ritter and Cuno. But Turkey\u2019s busiest rail terminal is now taking a break in service for the first time since the station\u2019s main building opened in 1908. Service has been interrupted so that improvements on the high-speed train (YHT) line to Ankara and the Marmaray project, which will connect \u0130stanbul\u2019s Asian and European sides via an undersea commuter train line, can be completed. The decision has sparked anger and frustration among people of all generations, many of whom see the move as typical of a trend pushing urban renewal in \u0130stanbul to the detriment of preserving historic structures.<\/p>\n

The book contains detailed information history of many buildings, with hundreds of new and old photographs. The \u0130TO stated that it plans to distribute the book all around Turkey soon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

18 March 2012, Sunday \/ MEHMET SOLMAZ, \u0130STANBUL SUNDAY\u2019S ZAMAN Late Ottoman \u0130stanbul was renowned for its public buildings that were constructed during the reign of Sultan Abd\u00fclhamit II — the last sultan to exert effective control over the Ottoman Empire. \u0130stanbul\u2019s century-old Haydarpa\u015fa Railway Station was built during the reign of Sultan Abd\u00fclhamit II, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":52283,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2939],"tags":[8078,4582],"class_list":["post-52282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cultureart","tag-abdulhamit-ii","tag-haydarpasa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}