From Gülhane to Cağaloğlu, Books, Kiosks and a Street

From Sirkeci, go out to the shore road, Kennedy Caddesi, and turn to face Sarayburnu; the stone mass on the right of the road, sitting on the sea walls of Topkapı Palace, is Sepetçiler Kasrı. The kiosk is now used as the headquarters of Yeşilay, the Turkish Green Crescent, so this stop is toured from outside only; do not try the door, the facades already tell the whole story. Even so, as the only surviving piece of the palace's waterfront life, the building is the right place to begin the route. The kiosk was built in 1643 for Sultan İbrahim, during the tenure of Chief Architect Kasım Ağa, on top of the Byzantine walls facing the mouth of the Golden Horn. In the seventeenth century there were several other pavilions along the shore of the walls enclosing the outer palace garden; this is the only one still standing. The name comes from the basket-makers who worked nearby; according to tradition they contributed to the building costs for a sultan fond of basketry. Another tradition ties the name to the word sepetçi used for the raised pavilions of Edirne Palace; both accounts sit side by side in the sources. Look first from a distance, then move closer: the arches and vaults of the lower level carry the upper floor, which means the kiosk actually sits on a boathouse buried in the wall. The imperial barges were kept in the boathouse; the sultan set out from here to watch naval processions, and the women of the harem are thought to have watched the ceremonies from the upper windows. The arched openings of the lower level belonged to this boathouse. The upper floor consists of a cube-shaped, domed central space with three projecting bays, and a rectangular room beside the entrance. Pay attention to the windows: rectangular marble frames in the lower row, pointed arches in the upper row; the difference between the two levels can be read even from afar. According to information published by Yeşilay, the red marble came from Darıca and Rusçuk, the tiles from İznik and the ironwork from Samakov and Salonica. The best photograph of the building is taken in the morning, with the sun striking from the east; the roof of Sirkeci Station fills the background and the boats entering the Golden Horn the foreground. From the windows of the kiosk you can see Galata Bridge, Galata Tower and Karaköy; you can enjoy the same view from the pavement. According to the sources the building was overhauled once more in 1739, under Mahmud I; the following two centuries were not kind to it. In the early years of the Republic it served as a pharmacy depot for the medical school; it was restored in the 1960s and in 1980, and the Eminönü Service Foundation carried out another repair in 1998. From the 1980s until 2011 it served as the International Press Centre, a restaurant and the project office of the European Capital of Culture; Yeşilay has been here since June 2011. Twenty minutes are enough at this stop: walk along the facade on the wide pavement of the shore road and look at how the building is set on top of the wall and at the bays on the sea side. The ferries between Kadıköy and Eminönü pass right in front of the kiosk as they round Sarayburnu; keep that line in mind if you want to see it from the water. Then walk along Kennedy Caddesi towards Sarayburnu; the road follows the shore, with the Golden Horn and Galata on your left and the palace walls on your right. At the tip of Sarayburnu the Marmara, the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn meet at a single point; stop for a few minutes and see why the headland was chosen as the site of the palace for centuries. According to the Culture Portal, the Atatürk monument of 1926 at the tip of the headland is the first Atatürk monument in Turkey. From here it is only a few steps to the sea-side gate of Gülhane Park; the next stop begins at that gate.

Source: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Sepetçiler Kasrı; Yeşilay; Kültür Portalı.

This time we enter Gülhane Park not through the main gate but through the sea-side gate at Sarayburnu; this entrance opens the park in the opposite direction from the one most visitors see, from the bottom upwards. As soon as you pass the gate, the single-piece marble column among the trees is the Column of the Goths; being at the edge of the path, it is easily missed if you walk quickly. The column dates from the Roman period, the third or fourth century, and was carved as a single block of Proconnesian marble, that is, marble from Marmara Island. Its capital is in the Corinthian order, decorated with acanthus leaves; the Latin inscription on the base celebrates a victory over the Goths. Wikipedia describes this monument as the oldest structure to reach the present day unchanged from Roman times; which emperor's victory the inscription commemorates is still debated. Stand at the foot of the column for a few minutes, walk around the base and try to find the inscription; the letters are worn but can be made out in the morning light. From here, along the path climbing towards the main gate, you will pass under the trees that form the body of the park; according to the English Wikipedia some of them date from the 1800s. The park covers about 9.7 hectares; in the Ottoman period it was the outer garden of Topkapı Palace and closed to the public. In the palace's outer garden facing the Marmara there was a field where javelin games were played, and above it stood the Gülhane Kasrı; on 3 November 1839 Abdülmecid watched from that pavilion as the Gülhane Edict that launched the Tanzimat reforms was read. The pavilion was demolished by Abdülaziz in 1865 and no trace of it can be seen today; but the park takes its name from that gülhane, the rose house of the palace. The garden was opened to the public and became a park in 1912, under the mayor Cemil Paşa; in 1926 the first Atatürk monument in Turkey was erected at the tip of the headland. According to the Governorship's page, Atatürk introduced the new letters to the public for the first time in this park on 24 November 1928. As you climb the slope, a row of long, low buildings appears on your right, on the western edge of the park; these are the palace's Imperial Stables and have housed the Museum of the History of Science and Technology in Islam since 2008. On the same edge is the Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin History of Science Library, opened in 2017; we do not enter either on this route, but as you pass their doors it is worth remembering that the buildings were built as stables. The area around the pool in the park is the shadiest place to sit; the English Wikipedia notes that grey herons live in the park, and you may see them by the pool or on the high branches. The park was closed in 2001 and reopened in 2003 after a thorough renovation; today's paths and lawns are the result of that work. The programme changes with the season: in April tulips cover the whole slope, and in autumn the ground under the trees fills with leaves. Do not rush the walk; this stop takes an hour, and half of that should go to walking slowly and half to sitting and looking. As you approach the main gate, the marble-fronted building rising on the wall at the right-hand corner is the Alay Köşkü; a wide ramp leads up to the kiosk from inside the park. The main gate itself deserves attention; in the words of the English Wikipedia it is one of the larger gates of the palace, and the Gülhane stop of the T1 tram is right outside. Before you leave through the gate, turn and look back down towards Sarayburnu; this is the best place to understand the slope of the park and how high the palace sits above the city. The next stop is a few steps away, inside the kiosk at the same corner.

Source: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Gülhane Kasrı; İstanbul Valiliği; Wikipedia, Gotlar Sütunu.

The Alay Köşkü is reached from inside the park by the wide ramp right beside the main gate; do not go out of the gate, the entrance to the kiosk is on the park side, not on the wall side. At the top of the ramp you pass first into a large room, then into the hall and then into the round imperial salon that is the kiosk's real space. Today this is the Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar Literature Museum Library, opened by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism on 12 November 2011; entry is as free as walking into a public library, but silence is expected. The kiosk's first form was a wooden structure built at the end of the sixteenth century; the present marble building was rebuilt under Mahmud II, in 1819 according to the date given by the Ministry. The TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam writes that researchers who calculate the date from the verse inscription are divided between 1810 and 1819, and that the style suggests Krikor Amira Balyan of the Balyan family. The building sits on the corner tower of the wall that Mehmed the Conqueror had built to separate the palace from the city, and faces Alemdar Caddesi with a marble-clad facade in the Empire style. The round salon has seven curved windows; each is framed in black marble, and above them stand couplets from the chronogram poem that Keçecizade İzzet Molla wrote for the kiosk. Stand in front of the windows and look at the street: directly opposite is the gate of the Sublime Porte, and below you the tram line. The sultans watched the guild processions, the army setting out on campaign and the city's parades from these same windows; in the words of the TDV, the kiosk was the only part of the palace in direct contact with the city. The Ministry's page quotes Evliya Çelebi: before the Baghdad campaign, Murad IV watched from the kiosk here as the guild procession passed with forty white camels. After the Tanzimat the ceremonial route shifted to Dolmabahçe and the kiosk lost its function; it became the Telegraph Office in 1855, was given to the Fine Arts Association by Atatürk's decision in 1926 and attached to Topkapı Palace in 1938. In later years the Eminönü People's House and the commission for the protection of historic monuments also worked here; before the library, the folk arts collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum was displayed in the building. Today the rooms display more than a hundred objects and documents belonging to thirty-three writers; the personal belongings of Tanpınar and Yahya Kemal Beyatlı are at the centre of these cases. Tour the exhibition by following the row of windows, then move to the reading places in the hall and the side rooms. The library's shelves carry some nine thousand books by more than a thousand authors; the writers of the Marmara region, award-winning Turkish literature, Nobel laureates and the TEDA editions of Turkish literature translated into other languages are in separate sections. Periodicals are read only inside the library; taking a magazine and sitting by a window of the round salon is the best half hour of this stop. According to the Governorship's page there is also a piano here, and the library holds dozens of talks a year with its Tanpınar Conferences; look at the board by the entrance, there may be an event the same day. The library keeps resources on the life, publications, personal writings and Varlık magazine articles of the writer whose name it carries in a separate section; if you have a Tanpınar book with you, this is the right place to read it. When taking photographs do not disturb the other readers and do not use flash on the display cases. The library is closed on Sundays; check its official website for working hours before you go. Of the hour at this stop, twenty minutes go to the exhibition and the rest to reading and looking out of the window. On the way out, go back down the ramp into the park, leave through the main gate onto Alemdar Caddesi and turn left, towards Sultanahmet; a few steps on, the narrow street branching off to the left and rising along the wall is Soğukçeşme Sokağı, and the next stop begins there.

Source: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı, Alay Köşkü; TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Alay Köşkü; Fatih Kaymakamlığı; İstanbul Valiliği.

When you leave the main gate of Gülhane, do not cross Alemdar Caddesi but turn left; the stone-paved street closed to cars that branches off to the left just beyond the gate is Soğukçeşme Sokağı, and it rises along the wall as far as the back of Hagia Sophia. The marble fountain that gives the street its name is at the Gülhane end, so you begin the walk with it; Wikipedia dates the fountain to the reign of Selim III, around 1800. The street itself is older: it is thought to have taken shape in the eighteenth century, and title records from 1784 show that there were houses here. As you climb, along your left arm run the palace wall built by Mehmed the Conqueror, the twelve two- and three-storey wooden houses with bay windows and lattices leaning against it, and a Byzantine cistern. The houses were Ottoman houses of four to ten rooms from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; in the early 1980s they were in ruins. Çelik Gülersoy, president of the Turkish Touring and Automobile Association, had the whole street renewed in 1985 and 1986 and closed it to traffic; the arrangement you see today is the result of that project. The English Wikipedia notes that the renewal was done in reinforced concrete rather than timber, with the facades clad in wood; the website of the İstanbul Kitaplığı also confirms that the largest building was rebuilt in concrete and covered on the outside with wood. Look with that in mind: the proportions of the bays, the window lattices and the paints were set from photographs of the old street, but the material is new. Most of the houses are used as accommodation; you do not go inside, and the street was in any case made to be walked from outside. Look at the facades, not the signs; the number of storeys and the arrangement of the bays differ slightly from house to house, and the rhythm of the street comes from that difference. In the lower part of the street, at the foot of the wall, there is a cistern from the Byzantine period; Wikipedia gives its dimensions as roughly 16 by 11 metres and its height as 12 metres, and notes that it contains six marble columns. The cistern was repaired between 1985 and 1987 and given over to a business; if the door is open you can look in from the threshold to see the columns. The largest house on the street, a three-storey building of 775 square metres, is the İstanbul Kitaplığı, to which Çelik Gülersoy donated the books on Istanbul he had collected over forty years; it opened on 24 January 1990. The library collects only books about Istanbul: Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman history, travel accounts, engravings and photograph albums are classified under thirteen headings, and the visual archive holds about twenty-four thousand documents. The English Wikipedia puts the collection at over ten thousand books; the reading room serves researchers and students and is open only on certain days of the week, so check the foundation's website before you go. If the door is open, go in; looking at a few examples from the collection of engravings and old photographs shows the street as it was before the renewal. According to the English Wikipedia, the street is the birthplace of Fahri Korutürk, the sixth President of the Republic; the sources do not say which house. The best time for photographs is the afternoon; in the morning the shadow of the wall covers the facades of the houses, and when the sun turns west the bays and the colours come out. At the upper end of the street, the back wall of Hagia Sophia opens to the right, and ahead lies the square with the Bab-ı Hümayun gate of Topkapı Palace and the Fountain of Ahmed III. Give half of the forty minutes to climbing the slope slowly and the rest to the library and the cistern; there are no benches on the street, so wait for the square at the upper end to rest. From here pass in front of Hagia Sophia into Sultanahmet Square and walk west along Divanyolu Caddesi, following the tram line. The last stop, the Press Museum, is on the right-hand side of the avenue before you reach Çemberlitaş, about ten minutes' walk away.

Source: Wikipedia, Soğukçeşme Sokağı; Çelik Gülersoy Vakfı İstanbul Kitaplığı; Wikipedia, Soğukçeşme Sokağı.

Walking along Divanyolu, before you reach Çemberlitaş, the four-storey neoclassical stone building with a symmetrical facade on the right of the avenue is the Press Museum of the Turkish Journalists' Association. The building was commissioned in 1865 by Safvet Paşa, the Minister of Education; its first occupants were the Ministry of Education and the Istanbul Darülfünun, that is, the Ottoman ministry of education and university. According to Wikipedia, Turkey's second painting exhibition opened here on 1 July 1875 and included works by Şeker Ahmet Paşa. Under Abdülhamid II the building was given to the censorship board; that the place where the press was policed is now the press museum is a small irony of fate. In 1908 it passed to the Istanbul Municipality, and various departments of the municipality worked here until 1983. That year the municipality and the Journalists' Association agreed that the building should become a museum; after a restoration lasting from 1984 to 1988, the museum opened on 9 May 1988. Wikipedia introduces it as the first press museum in Turkey and the fourth in the world. Look at the facade first: the order of the window rows, the string courses between the floors and the stonework carry the nineteenth-century Istanbul idea of a public building intact. If the museum is closed, the stop ends here and the building is seen from outside; the association states that it is open on weekday afternoons and that entry is free, so check the current information on the association's website before you go. If it is open, four galleries await you inside, and the visit begins with the gallery of press history. The first piece in the gallery is a full-scale model of the printing house that İbrahim Müteferrika founded in 1729; this is the only place to see the first step of the Ottoman press in three dimensions. On the same floor are displayed the newspaper Vekayi-i Mısriye of 1828 and documents from the Second Constitutional period and the founding years of the Republic. The floor of typesetting and printing machines is the part of the museum that asks for the most time: a lithographic press of 1870, a letterpress machine of 1892, an offset press made in Leipzig, the plate-making workshop and the machines used by the Anadolu Agency are here. Typewriters, telex machines and telephoto devices show step by step how the news reached the newspaper; do not pass without reading the labels beside the machines. The memorabilia section holds the personal belongings of journalists such as Abdi İpekçi, Sedat Simavi, Burhan Felek and İlhan Selçuk; the writing desk of Ahmet Mithat Efendi is also among the donated pieces. In the portrait gallery hang oil and charcoal portraits of more than seventy journalists who left their mark on the Turkish press; there is also a section dedicated to murdered journalists. The museum's library keeps thirty thousand books and the printed and microfilm collections of newspapers and magazines published since 1923; an application is required for research. The building also has a conference hall, exhibition spaces and a handicrafts gallery; the association holds panels and exhibitions here, so look at the notice by the entrance. Of the forty-five minutes, give fifteen to the press history floor, twenty to the machines and the rest to the portraits and the memorabilia. If you come as a group, the association asks for an application in advance. A little further west of the museum, in the middle of the avenue, rises Çemberlitaş, the Column of Constantine; it is fitting to end the route there, at the foot of one of the city's oldest monuments. For the return, the Çemberlitaş stop of the T1 tram is beside the column; Sirkeci or Kabataş is a few stops away.

Source: Türkiye Gazeteciler Cemiyeti, Basın Müzesi; Kültür Portalı; Wikipedia, Türkiye Gazeteciler Cemiyeti Basın Müzesi.