La Fontaine Köşkü

La Fontaine Mansion is one of the Levantine mansions in Bornova used by Ege University, and today it houses the university's Atatürk's Principles and Revolution History Application and Research Center and its museum. The mansion stands opposite St. Mary Magdalene Church and next to Murat Mansion. Together these three buildings form one of the best preserved corners of Bornova's Levantine core. The construction date and the architect of the building are unknown. Ege University presents the mansion as the home, at the beginning of the 20th century, of the La Fontaine family, a British family of Swiss origin. The oldest owner seen in the records is James La Fontaine. James was the son of Blanche Magdalene Whittall, granddaughter of Charlton Whittall, who bought the Big House in Bornova in 1836. The mansion thus sits within the family network of one of Bornova's most established Levantine families. After James La Fontaine died, the mansion passed to his wife Clara Lillian La Fontaine and their children, together with the neighbouring building also known as the Kuyulu House, which the university uses today as one of its centres. In 1941 Ruby Gladys Whittall, the niece of Clara La Fontaine, bought the mansion from the family. Ege University bought it from her in 1963 because it needed buildings. In the following years the mansion housed many institutions. Until 1975 it was used by the university's construction and technical works unit. It was then temporarily allocated in turn to the School for the Blind, to gendarmerie battalion and artillery brigade commands and to a public health institute. In 1996 it returned to university use. Between 1996 and 2001 the Institute of Social Sciences and the Department of Atatürk's Principles and Revolution History worked here, and between 2001 and 2009 the Dean's Office of the Faculty of Education. After the restoration in 2010 the mansion began to be used in its current role as a centre and museum. The building consists of a basement and two floors, and the two floors are clearly separated on the facade. On the upper floor a cast-iron balcony faces the main street; this balcony and its iron railings are the mansion's most recognisable detail. The main entrance is emphasised by an arched door. The facade is plain and unpretentious, and compared with the more ornate mansions of Bornova it gives the impression of a restrained Levantine house. Since most of the original interior decoration, such as frescoes, plasterwork and moulded ceilings, has been lost over time, nothing is known about the original layout inside. When you visit, first look at the facade from the pavement opposite; the balcony, the arched door and the window arrangement read best from there. Then take in the neighbouring Murat Mansion and the historic building opposite in a single view, which shows what a Levantine neighbourhood this corner once was. Because the museum section belongs to a university unit, the visiting days and hours of the interior may change; current information should be obtained from Ege University. Morning light is better for photographing the facade, as the shade of the trees falls in front of the building in the afternoon. The mansion can be reached on foot from the Bornova or Ege Üniversitesi stations on the M1 line of the İzmir Metro. Arkas Sanat Bornova in Mattheys Mansion and the Ege University Ethnography Museum in the Sirkehane can easily be combined in the same walk. Other mansions restored by the university, such as the Big House used as the rectorate building and Murat Mansion, are also around the same streets. According to Ege University, Murat Mansion was built in 1880 by a member of the British Edwards family and since its restoration in 2005 has served the university's community projects and student clubs. The university states that it has restored a total of eight mansions in Bornova faithfully to their original form. The Big House, bought by Charlton Whittall at the beginning of the 19th century, passed to the Treasury in 1948 and is now used as the administrative building of the rectorate. On Bornova's mansion route, La Fontaine Mansion is one of the stops that most clearly shows how Levantine houses were turned into public buildings in the republican period.