Three Pavilions Outside the Walls, from Kağıthane to Kazlıçeşme

The Kağıthane station of the M7 metro is built right over the Kağıthane stream, so the first step of the route is to come down from the station and look at the water. Known in the Byzantine period as the Barbysos, this stream flows into the Golden Horn, and the whole story of Sadabad unfolds along its two banks. After leaving the station, walk along the stream in the direction of the current, that is, towards the south-west. This walk of about one kilometre shows today's state of the line along which the pavilions were arranged in the Tulip Era. As you walk, pay attention to the bed of the water, because in 1722 the stream here was cleared, lined on both sides with regular embankments and turned into a canal called Cedvel-i Sim, the Silver Stream. The sources record that the marble of this canal was brought from the Kulelibahçe Kasrı in Çengelköy. Along the canal there were weirs, cascades and marble pools; the water passed over these cascades and collected in the pools. Sultan Ahmed III ordered by decree that hundreds of trees, plane, linden, elm, ash and chestnut, be brought with their roots from the mountains of Yoros to be planted in this garden. The place you reach at the end of the walk is today's Kağıthane Municipality building, and this is where the Sadabad Palace actually stood. Knowing that several palaces rose one after another on the same spot is the key to understanding the scene. The first palace was finished in a short time in 1722 under the supervision of Damat İbrahim Paşa, and the poets gave it the name Sadabad, meaning a fortunate and prosperous place. In the Patrona Halil revolt of 1730 the pavilions around it were plundered and pulled down; Mahmud I prevented the palace from being burned but could not stop its destruction. Mahmud II had the worn-out palace demolished in 1809 and rebuilt by Krikor Amira Balyan. Sultan Abdülaziz then had a third palace, known as the Çağlayan Kasrı, built in 1862-1863 by Sarkis and Agop Balyan in place of the second building. According to the Kağıthane District Governorship, the palace was demolished in 1943, a military supply school was built in its place in 1952, and that building is used today as a municipal service building. According to the Wikipedia article, the few remaining fragments of the palace can be seen as an open-air display near the municipal building; look for these pieces of stone around it. The Sadabad Mosque on the same site is also known as the Aziziye Mosque because it was rebuilt in the reign of Abdülaziz; you can take an architectural look at its facade and continue on your way. The fame of Sadabad comes less from its buildings than from the life lived here. Crowds arriving from the Golden Horn in boats decked with flowers and overland in carriages set up entertainments that lasted all day in different corners of the promenade. The poet Nedim immortalised the place with the refrain "Gidelim serv-i revanım yürü Sa'dabad'a"; the line is also quoted in the entry of the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam. It is worth remembering that the name Tulip Era was given to this period by Ahmed Refik and is in wide use today. It is a common view that the gardens were influenced by plans brought back by Yirmisekiz Çelebi Mehmed Efendi, the envoy sent to Paris, but Sedad Hakkı Eldem argued in his 1977 study that this resemblance has been exaggerated. The best angle for photographs is from the bridges over the stream, looking in the direction the water flows; the morning light makes the stream banks look soft. After wandering here for about an hour, take the M7 to Mecidiyeköy and set off towards Davutpaşa with transfers to the M2 and the M1A.

Source: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Sadabad ve Kağıthane; Kağıthane Kaymakamlığı, Sadabad Sarayları; Wikipedia, Birinci Sadabad Sarayı.

The Davutpaşa-YTÜ station of the M1A line stands on a viaduct on the Güngören side and lies about half a kilometre from Otağ-ı Hümayun. Leave the station, head for the Davutpaşa Campus of Yıldız Technical University and follow the directions of the security staff at the entrance. The plain on which the campus stands appears in Ottoman sources as the Davutpaşa plain and takes its name from Koca Davud Paşa, grand vizier of Bayezid II. When the army set out on campaign to the west, this was its first place of assembly and encampment; if the sultan was not joining the campaign, he saw the army off from the pavilion here and welcomed it here on its return. As you approach the pavilion, first look at its mass, because the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam describes it as a two-storey building of finely cut stone. The entrance porches on the west side are sheltered by pointed arches resting on a single column, and the tops of these porches are laid out as terraces. The encyclopedia specifically notes that a wide view opened from the terraces towards the east; today that direction is filled with the fabric of the city, but the direction of the gaze has not changed. If the building is open to visitors, pay attention to the square hall on the lower floor; this room, each side of which is longer than ten metres, is covered by a ribbed cross vault. On the entrance wall of this floor there is a fireplace and a room fountain bearing a verse inscription written by Ahmed I under his pen name Bahti. The great hall on the upper floor is covered by a dome about ten metres in diameter, carried on pendentives. Because the windows are arranged in two rows, both floors are filled with plenty of light; stand inside and watch how the light moves over the stone surfaces. The sources say different things about the history of the building. The traditional account links the origin of the pavilion to the fifteenth century, while the TDV, on the basis of an archival document, writes that the present building was built in the reign of Mehmed III by the chief court architect Dalgıç Ahmed Ağa and completed under Ahmed I. A document dated 1603 asked the tile makers of İznik to complete the missing tiles for this pavilion. It is known that the palace enjoyed its most brilliant period under Mehmed IV, famous for his love of hunting, when many additional buildings were added around it. The encyclopedia mentions range stones showing that Mehmed III and Ahmed I shot arrows on the plain in front of the pavilion; you may notice old stones in the open areas of the campus. In the nineteenth century, after the abolition of the Janissary corps, the great Davutpaşa Barracks were built here, and for a time the pavilion was used as the barracks' ammunition store. According to the history published by Esenler Municipality, the barracks remained in use in the Republican period, and the site was finally handed over to Yıldız Technical University. The pavilion was restored in 1957 and renovated again in 2010, opening as the Otağ-ı Hümayun Cultural Centre. A fountain dated 1849 also stands near the pavilion; according to Wikipedia, this fountain was moved here at the end of the twentieth century and restored in 2019. When taking photographs on campus, follow the university's rules and respect the private space of students and staff. From here, return to Davutpaşa-YTÜ station, board the M1A towards the airport and get off at Bahçelievler station.

Source: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Davud Paşa Sarayı; Esenler Belediyesi, Esenler Tarihçesi; Wikipedia, Otağ-ı Hümayun.

Bahçelievler metro station stands beside the northern service road of the D-100 highway; the pavilion lies to the north-west of the station, a walk of a little over one kilometre. Your goal is the park next to the Bahçelievler Municipality and District Governorship, because the pavilion stands today inside this area, which the municipality has turned into a public park. When you enter the park, look first at the pool rather than the building, because what sets this pavilion apart from its counterparts in Istanbul is that it sits in the middle of a pool. According to Hamza Gündoğdu's study published on DergiPark, the pool measures roughly twenty-five by twenty metres and is one and a half metres deep. The pavilion itself is built in the middle of this pool on a rectangular area of roughly thirteen by eight metres. The ground slopes from east to west, so the wall of the pool stays close to ground level on the east, while on the west it becomes a retaining wall more than two metres high. Go round to the east facade where the entrance is and follow the bridged link that crosses the pool; the door is reached by a staircase with railings on both sides, resting on two pointed arches and a pier. Look closely at the low arch of interlocking white and red marble over the door and at the inscription in relief above it. The small window with a hexagonal marble grille to the left of the door and the narrow slit window beside it give clues about how the interior worked. Then walk to the east side of the pool and look for the thin water channel carved in a winding line into a single block of white marble. Gündoğdu writes that where this channel meets the pool there is a tiny basin framed in the shape of an oyster shell. Walk round to the west facade and look at the corners of the retaining wall; it appears that there were balconies and arbours resting on stone corbels here. The present roof of the pavilion, that is the dome on the north and the vault on the south, is the product of the restoration carried out by Mualla Eyüboğlu in 1973. In that restoration a tower-like upper storey, thought to have been added at the beginning of the nineteenth century, was removed, and the roof, whose original form is disputed, was rebuilt as a conjectural completion. The founder of the building, Siyavuş Paşa, was a statesman recruited from the region of Kanije, trained in the palace school and three times grand vizier in the reign of Murad III. The TDV Encyclopedia of Islam notes that the name of the pasha's estate, which included his pavilion, lives on today as the name of the neighbourhood. The pavilion has no building inscription; Gündoğdu dates it to the same years on the basis of the 1571-1572 inscription on the fountain about a hundred metres to the north-east. Whether the architect was Sinan is not known from documents; only the date and the style point to him. The sentence "Koca Mimar Sinan'ın eseri harap oluyor efendiler!" in Mithat Cemal Kuntay's novel Üç İstanbul is the trace of this belief in literature. According to Gündoğdu, the pavilion was built inside a hunting garden of forty dönüm together with stables, storehouses, kitchens, a bath and servants' rooms; of these, only the pavilion has survived. The Kültür Envanteri also records the remains of a Siyavuş Paşa bath nearby; you can look for these traces as you walk around the park. Whether the interior of the pavilion is open may vary from time to time; if it is closed, sitting by the edge of the pool and walking round the building's four facades is satisfying enough. From here, return to Bahçelievler station, take the M1A to Yenibosna and board one of the İETT lines going to Kazlıçeşme.

Source: DergiPark, Gündoğdu, Siyavuş Paşa Köşkü Üzerine Bazı Gözlemler; TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Siyavuş Paşa; Wikipedia, Siyavuşpaşa Kasrı.

When you reach the last İETT stop in Kazlıçeşme or Kazlıçeşme station, used by Marmaray and the Sirkeci-Kazlıçeşme suburban line, your goal is the fountain a few hundred metres to the west. The fountain stands on Demirhane Caddesi, today called Abay Caddesi, the street that divides the Kazlıçeşme neighbourhood in two. It was once a wall fountain; because of the road opened behind it, today it looks like a fountain standing alone in a square. First look at the facade from the front: in a rectangular face of cut stone framed by mouldings there is a niche with a low pointed arch. On the panel inside the niche is a Turkish verse inscription written in thuluth script in five cartouches. According to the Kültür Envanteri, the inscription gives the date 1546 by the abjad system and names Mehmed Bey as the person who had the fountain built. The Mehmed Bey of the inscription is thought to be the teacher Aşık Pir Mehmed Çelebi. Go closer to the white marble below the inscription; the plump goose relief that gave its name to the district is right here. A branch with star-shaped leaves is also carved in front of the goose; you need to step a little closer to see the detail. This marble is in fact a reused piece from the Byzantine period and is dated to the fifth century. According to the Wikipedia article, the relief was damaged in 2002 by treasure hunters; when the broken pieces were examined, it was understood that the marble had been turned upside down in the Ottoman period and the goose carved on it. The relief you see today is a faithful copy made by Zeytinburnu Municipality in 2010. Evliya Çelebi praised this goose as too beautiful to be described in words. Also look at the arched recesses for drinking bowls on either side of the fountain; they recall how the water was once used. According to legend, a water carrier searching for water during the conquest followed flying geese and found a spring here; this story is told as a legend. After seeing the fountain, turn to the history of the neighbourhood. According to Wikipedia, after the conquest Mehmed II assigned this area outside the walls to butchers and tanners, and tanneries numbering in the hundreds were set up here. The Zeytinburnu District Governorship also relates that Mehmed II settled here the leather craftsmen he brought from Edirne and Anatolia. In the nineteenth century new industrial establishments such as an iron works were added beside the tanneries, and in the Republican period cement and textile factories arrived. With the relocation of the leather factories in the 1990s the neighbourhood remained a run-down area for a long time and then took on its present appearance through urban renewal. Funda Budak's article in the Marmara University journal examines this transformation along a line running from the conquest to the present day. At the end of the day, if you are not in a hurry, step onto the walking and cycling path created from the old railway section beside the Sirkeci-Kazlıçeşme line. This path takes you east, towards the walls of Yedikule, and lets you feel with your own feet the passage from outside the walls to inside them. On the way back you can easily reach both sides of the city by taking Marmaray from Kazlıçeşme station.

Source: Kültür Envanteri, Kazlı Çeşme; Wikipedia, Kazlı Çeşme ve Kazlıçeşme; Zeytinburnu Kaymakamlığı, İlçemizin Tarihi.