The Istanbul of Vedat and Kemaleddin, Architects of a National Style

The route begins with the Aviation Martyrs' Monument in Fatih Park at Saraçhanebaşı. The monument was built for Fethi, Sadık and Nuri, remembered as the first airmen to lose their lives in Turkish aviation history. Shortly before the First World War they set off in two aircraft on a flight of some 2,500 kilometres from Istanbul to Cairo, died on the way and were buried in Damascus, beside the tomb of Saladin at the Umayyad Mosque. Designed by Vedat Tek, the monument had its foundation stone laid on 2 April 1914 and was completed in 1916. It was placed opposite what was then the Fatih municipal building, which since 2010 has served as the rectorate of a university.

Walk slowly around the monument to read it. The column rising from the marble base was deliberately left broken, symbolising the unfinished flight. On top of the column is a bronze laurel branch. On both sides of the base are enlarged copies of the medal that would have been hung around the airmen's necks had they reached Cairo; it shows an aircraft, the Beyazıt Tower and a view of Istanbul. The monument is about 7.5 metres tall.

This small stop is a good introduction to the rest of the day. When Vedat Tek made this monument he had already completed the building of the Ministry of Post and Telegraph; the grand facade you will see shortly at Sirkeci and this plain broken column came from the same hand. From the monument it is about a ten-minute walk to the next stop in Laleli.

Source: Wikipedia.

On Ordu Caddesi in Laleli, next to the 18th-century Laleli Mosque, this large building was built as the first public housing project inside the city walls. After the fire of 1918 destroyed a wide area around Cibali, Altımermer and Fatih, Kemaleddin was commissioned to design a group of apartments in four blocks to house some of those left homeless. The Ministry of Pious Foundations gave as its site the ground of the Koska Madrasa, part of the Laleli complex, which had been damaged in the 1894 earthquake and burnt in 1911. Construction, funded by public donations, began in 1919 and ended in 1922. The building's first name was Harikzedegan, the apartments for fire victims.

According to the English Wikipedia article, these apartments are among the first modern buildings in Istanbul constructed in reinforced concrete. Four symmetrical square blocks of equal size form a single whole around the courtyards between them. There were 124 flats in all, 25 shops, a shared laundry and a coal store for each flat. Because completion coincided with the end of the empire, the fire victims could not move in. In the early years of the Republic the building was transferred to the Turkish Aeronautical Association and became known as the Tayyare (Aircraft) Apartments; it was used as housing until 1985 and is a hotel today.

Cross to the opposite pavement and look at the building as a whole: how Kemaleddin brought the classical Ottoman decorative language together with the new material of his day, reinforced concrete, and a multi-flat housing programme reads best from a distance. As it is a hotel, going inside depends on the management's permission. From here walk to the Laleli-Üniversite tram stop and ride down to Sirkeci.

Source: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi; Wikipedia; Wikipedia.

The Fourth Vakıf Han is the best known of the foundation office blocks built by the Ministry of Pious Foundations to generate income. According to the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, Kemaleddin prepared the designs for the foundation hans, mosques and schools the ministry planned to build between 1910 and 1911, and the five foundation hans in Istanbul were built between 1911 and 1926. This one replaced the Hamidiye complex of Abdülhamid I. Work began in the 1910s but, because of the Balkan Wars and the First World War, could only be finished in 1926. During the occupation, French troops used the still unfinished building as barracks from 1920 to 1923.

The facade on Hamidiye Caddesi is about 79 metres long and 27 metres high, with corner towers rising at each end. The west, south and east facades are clad in cut stone and marble. The building stands on a steel frame; there were 24 shops on the ground floor and, on the four floors above, 148 offices of equal size, 37 on each floor. The two main staircases were placed 30 metres apart in line with the fire regulations of the time and served by lifts. In other words, the facade speaks the classical Ottoman decorative language while inside is the programme of a modern office block.

In the last decades of the 20th century the building also housed the Istanbul Stock Exchange. Emptied in 2000, the han has been used as a hotel since 2006 after restoration. The facade is best seen from the opposite pavement; look at the corner towers and the stonework between the windows, then walk a few steps on to the Grand Post Office.

Source: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi; Kültür Envanteri; Wikipedia.

The Grand Post Office is considered the most important project of Vedat Tek's life and is one of the earliest examples of the First National Architectural Movement. Vedat was appointed architect of the Ministry of Post and Telegraph in 1905, and the building, begun in 1905 as the ministry's headquarters, was completed in 1909. Postal business had been run from the courtyard of the New Mosque from 1840, moved to the Postahane-i Amire building in Eminönü in 1890 and to this building in 1909. In the 1930s it was renamed the New Post Office and later the Grand Post Office. Between 1927 and 1936 Istanbul Radio also broadcast from here.

Look at it from outside first. The entrance of the four-storey building is raised on steps; the two corners of the main facade project forward, rise higher and are capped with domes. The facade is of dressed stone and marble, and the decoration follows the 16th-century Ottoman style. The tile panel above the door reads Ministry of Post and Telegraph in Ottoman script. Notice the two-coloured stonework, the tiles with geometric patterns, the Kufic lettering and the muqarnas capitals; the bricks are also thought to have been designed specially by Vedat Tek.

Inside, the main entrance opens onto a rectangular central hall rising through three floors, roofed with glass in mainly orange and blue tones. The ground floor still has a working post office, and since 2000 part of the building has housed the PTT Istanbul Museum on the history of communications. Kültür Envanteri lists the building among structures under restoration, so check before you go whether the post office and museum are open. As it is a working public building, ask the staff before taking photographs inside.

Source: Wikipedia; Wikipedia; Kültür Envanteri.

In Beyoğlu, on the Tarlabaşı side, in the neighbourhood that bears its name, this small mosque is one of Kemaleddin's works from his time as chief architect of the Pious Foundations. According to the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, after 1909 Kemaleddin, as the ministry's chief architect and head of the newly founded Directorate of Construction and Repair, took on the restoration of many mosques and masjids. According to Wikipedia, the first mosque was built in 1514 by Selim I for his wet nurse Kamer Hatun and had fallen into ruin by the 19th century. The foundations had it rebuilt by Kemaleddin; TDV dates this rebuilding to 1911. Sources on the First National Architectural Movement count the Kamer Hatun Mosque among its important examples.

The mosque occupies only 223 square metres of a 565 square metre plot, leaving a small yard around it. Its walls are of masonry, its roof is covered with lead on a timber frame, and its single minaret rises to the left of the mihrab. Coming here after the imperial mosques or the great facades of Sirkeci offers a useful comparison: you see how the same architectural language works at the scale of a small neighbourhood mosque.

It is a neighbourhood mosque in use for worship. Postpone your visit during prayer times, take off your shoes, wear clothing that covers shoulders and knees, women should cover their hair, and keep quiet inside. From Tünel square it is about a ten-minute walk along Meşrutiyet Caddesi. From here, for the last stop at Bebek, go up to Taksim and take a bus that follows the coastal road.

Source: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi; Wikipedia.

The route ends at the mosque on Bebek Bay on the Bosphorus, right next to the Bebek ferry pier. Officially named the Hümayun-u Abad Mosque, it was built of cut stone by Kemaleddin in 1913, replacing an earlier mosque built by Nevşehirli Damat İbrahim Paşa. The TDV Encyclopedia of Islam also lists the Bebek Mosque among Kemaleddin's works with the date 1913; in the same years he was also designing the Kuloğlu Mosque in Bostancı and the Amine Hatun Mosque in Bakırköy, while the Mecidiye Mosque in Yeşilköy had been finished in 1909. The Bebek Mosque is thus one of the architect's mosques scattered across Istanbul. Wikipedia places the building within the neoclassical movement.

The mosque follows a classical scheme on a small scale: the dome sits on an octagonal drum and is supported on the sides by four half domes. Look at it from the pier or the shore, stepping back and turning round; the stepped rise of the dome and half domes reads best from there. Think of the steel-framed office block you saw at Sirkeci at the start of the day alongside this small Bosphorus mosque: Kemaleddin used the same architectural language for both a business centre and a neighbourhood mosque.

The mosque is in use for worship. Avoid prayer times, especially Friday noon; take off your shoes, wear clothes that cover shoulders and knees, women should cover their hair, and keep quiet inside. After your visit you can end the day with a walk along the Bebek shore, looking out over the Bosphorus; the Bebek waterfront also appears on our other routes.

Source: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi; Wikipedia.