Grand Bazaar, Istanbul
Kapalıçarşı | |
41°0′38.09″N 28°58′4.56″E / 41.0105806°N 28.9679333°E | |
Location | Istanbul, Turkey |
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Type | Covered bazaar |
Beginning date | 1455 |
Completion date | after 1730 |
Dedicated to | Mehmed II |
The Grand Bazaar (
Location
The Grand Bazaar is located inside the
History
The construction of the future Grand Bazaar's core started during the winter of 1455/56, shortly after the Ottoman
The construction of the Bedesten ended in the winter of 1460/61, and the building was endowed to the waqf of the Hagia Sophia Mosque. Analysis of the brickwork shows that most of the structure originates from the second half of the 15th century, although a Byzantine relief representing a Comnenian eagle, still enclosed on the top of the East Gate (Kuyumcular Kapısı)) of the Bedesten has been used by several scholars as proof that the edifice was a Byzantine structure.[1]
In a market near the Bedesten, named in Turkish Esir Pazarı, the slave trade was active, a use also carried over from Byzantine times.[12] Other important markets in the vicinity were the second-hand market (Turkish: Bit Pazarı),[10] the "Long Market" (Uzun Çarşı), corresponding to the Greek Makros Embolos (Μακρὸς Ἔμβολος, "Long Portico"), a long porticoed mall stretching downhill from the Forum of Constantine to the Golden Horn, which was one of the main market areas of the city,[13] while the old book market (Sahaflar Çarşısı) was moved from the Bazaar to the present picturesque location near the Beyazid Mosque only after the 1894 Istanbul earthquake.
Some years later [14]—according to other sources,[12] this occurred in 1545 under Sultan Suleiman I—Mehmed II had another covered market built, the "Sandal Bedesten" (the name comes from a kind of thread woven in Bursa, which had the colour of sandalwood[15]), also named Küçük ("Little"), Cedit or Yeni (both words meaning "New") Bedesten, which lay north of the first.[citation needed]
After the erection of the Sandal Bedesten the trade in textiles moved there, while the Cevahir Bedesten was reserved for the trade in luxury goods. At the beginning the two buildings were isolated. According to the 16th-century French traveller
At the beginning of the 17th century the Grand Bazaar had already achieved its final shape. The enormous extent of the Ottoman Empire in three continents, and the total control of road communications between Asia and Europe, rendered the Bazaar and the surrounding hans or caravanserais the hub of the Mediterranean trade. According to several European travelers, at that time, and until the first half of the 19th century, the market was unrivaled in Europe with regards to the abundance, variety and quality of the goods on sale. At that time we know from European travelers that the Grand Bazaar had a square plan, with two perpendicular main roads crossing in the middle and a third road running along the outer perimeter.[10] In the Bazaar there were 67 roads (each bearing the name of the sellers of a particular good), several squares used for the daily prayers, 5 mosques, 7 fountains, 18 gates which were opened each day in the morning and closed in the evening.[10] Around 1638 the Turkish traveller Evliya Çelebi gave us the most important historical description of the Bazaar and of its customs. The number of shops amounted to 3,000, plus 300 located in the surrounding hans, large caravanserais with two or three stories round a porticoed inner courtyard, where goods could be stored and merchants could be lodged.[16] In that period one tenth of the shops of the city were concentrated in the market and around it.[10] For all that, at that time the market was not yet covered.
Recurrent calamities, fires and earthquakes hit the Grand Bazaar. The first fire occurred in 1515; another in 1548.
In this period, because of the new law against fires issued in 1696, several parts of the market which lay between the two Bedesten were covered with vaults.[12] Despite that, other fires ravaged the complex in 1750 and 1791. The quake of 1766 caused more damages, which were repaired by the Court Chief Architect (Hassa Baş Mimarı) Ahmet a year later.[17]
The 19th-century growth of the textile industry in western Europe, introduction of mass production methods, the
According to an 1890 survey, in the Bazaar there were 4,399 active shops, 2 bedesten, 2195 rooms, 1
The last major catastrophe happened in 1894: a strong earthquake that rocked Istanbul.[17] The Minister of Public Works, Mahmud Celaleddin Pasha, supervised the repair of the damaged Bazaar until 1898, and on this occasion the complex was reduced in area. To the west, the Bit Pazarı was left outside the new perimeter and became an open-sky road, named Çadırcılar Caddesi ("Tentmaker Road"), while the old gate and the Kütkculer Kapi were demolished. Among all the hans which belonged to the Market, many were left outside, and only nine remained enclosed in the structure.
In 1914 the Sandal Bedesten, whose handlers of textile goods had been ruined by the European competition, was acquired by the city of Istanbul and, starting one year later, was used as an auction house, mainly for carpets. In 1927 the individual parts of the bazaar and the streets got official names. The last fires of bazaar happened in 1943 and 1954, and the related restorations were finished on 28 July 1959.[22]
The last restoration of the complex took place in 1980. On that occasion, advertising posters around the market were also removed.
Architecture
The Iç Bedesten has a rectangular plan (43.30 m x 29.50 m). Two rows of stone piers, four in each row, sustain three rows of bays, five in each row. Each bay is surmounted by a brick dome with blind drum. In the inner and in the outer walls have been built 44 cellars (Turkish: mahzen), vaulted rooms without external openings. The sunlight in Bedesten comes from rectangular windows placed right under the roof: they can be accessed through a wooden ambulatory. Due to the scarce illumination, the edifice was kept open only some hours each day, and was devoted to the trade of luxury goods, above all textiles.[12] Moreover, the Bedesten's Mahzen were also used as safes.[12] The building can be accessed through four gates:
- "Second-hand Book Sellers' Gate" (Sahaflar Kapısı) in the north,
- "Skullcap Sellers' Gate" (Takkeciler Kapısı) in the south,
- "Jewellers' Gate" (Kuyumcular Kapısı) in the east, and;
- "Women's Clothiers' Gate" (Zenneciler Kapısı) in the west.[23]
The Sandal Bedesten has also a rectangular plan (40.20 m × 42.20 m), with 12 stone piers bearing 20 bays surmounted by brick domes with blind drum. In this case shops are carved only in the outer walls.[21] In both edifices, each bay is tied to the others through brick arches tied by juniper beams, and masonry is made with rubble. Both buildings were closed by iron gates.
Aside from the bedestens, originally the Grand Bazaar structures were built with wood, and only after the 1700 fire, they were rebuilt in stone and brickwork, and covered.[21] All the bazaar edifices, except the fur dealers market (Turkish: Kürkçüler Çarsısı), a later addition which is two-story, are one story.[24] The roofs are mainly covered with tiles, while the part burnt in 1954 uses now tarmac. In the bazaar no artificial light was foreseen, also to prevent fires, and smoking was strictly prohibited. The roads outside the inner Bedesten are roughly parallel to it. The damages caused by the many fires and quakes along the centuries, together with the repairs done without a general plan, gave to the market – especially in its western part – a picturesque appearance, with its maze of roads and lanes crossing each other at various angles.
Social history of the Grand Bazaar
Until the restoration following the quake of 1894, the Grand Bazaar had no shops as found in the western world: along both sides of the roads merchants sat on wooden divans in front of their shelves.
This kind of organization disappeared gradually, although nowadays a concentration of the same business along certain roads can be observed again:[30]
- Jewellers and gold bracelets along Kalpakçılar Caddesi;
- Gold bracelets along Kuyumcular Çarşısı;
- Furniture along Divrikli Caddesi;
- Carpets along Sahaflar Caddesi;
- Leather goods along Perdahçılar Caddesi
- Leather and casual clothes at the Bit Pazarı.
Actually, the main reason of concentrating the trade in one place was to provide the highest security against theft, fire and uprising.
The ethics of trade in the Market until the Tanzimat age (i.e. until the mid-19th century) were quite different from the modern ones: indifference to profit, absence of envy in the successes of other traders, and a single and correct price were peculiar traits of the Ottoman bazaar during its golden age.[37] The reason for such behavior lies partly in the ethics of Islam, and partly in the guild system which provided a strong social security net to the merchants.[37] Afterwards, the westernization of the Ottoman society and the influence of the national minorities caused the introduction of mercantile ethics in Ottoman society.[38]
Right during the westernization of Ottoman society, the Grand Bazaar became an obligatory topos of the romantic literature. We owe descriptions of the Bazaar in the middle of the 19th century to writers such as Edmondo De Amicis[39] and Théophile Gautier.[40]
Another peculiarity of the market during the Ottoman age was the total lack of restaurants.
The Bazaar's merchants were organized in guilds. In order to establish a new one, it was only necessary to have enough traders of the same good.[44] Afterwards, a monopoly was formed and the number of traders and shops was frozen.[44] One could only be accepted in the guild through co-optation, either as son of a deceased member, or after paying a suitable sum to a member who wanted to retire.[44]
The guild's chief was a public officer called
The Grand Bazaar today
Today the Grand Bazaar is a thriving complex, employing 26,000 people[46] visited by between 250,000 and 400,000 visitors daily, and one of the major landmarks of Istanbul.[5] It must compete with modern shopping malls common in Istanbul, but its beauty and fascination represent a formidable advantage for it. The head of the Grand Bazaar Artisans Association claimed that the complex was in 2011 – the year of its 550th birthday – the most visited monument in the world.[46] A restoration project starting in 2012 should renew its infrastructure, heating and lighting systems.[46] Moreover, the hans inside the Market will be renovated and later additions will be demolished.[47] This project should finally solve the big problems of the market: for example, in the whole Bazaar there is no proper toilet facility.[48] Moreover, the lack of controls in the past years allowed many dealers to remove columns and skive walls in their shops to gain space; this, together with the substitution of lead (stolen in the last years) with concrete on the market's roof, has created a great hazard when the earthquake expected in Istanbul in the next years will occur.[47][48]
The Grand Bazaar is opened each day except Sundays and bank holidays from 9:00 until 19:00.[5]
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Café
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One of the 17th-century kiosks, which used to be a small cafe.
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One of the four marble drinking fountains
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The Bazaar after closing hour.
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Lanterns hanging in a shop.
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Teenager in the door of a lantern shop.
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Faucets of a fountain in the bazaar.
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Ornamented ceiling
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Another interior view from the bazaar.
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A Turkish flag inside the bazaar.
See also
- Arcade: a covered passageway with stores along one or both sides.
- Bazaar of Tabriz (World's largest covered bazaar)
- Bazaar
- Bazaari
- Covered Market, Oxford, England
- Gold Souq: a market trading in gold.
- List of streets, hans and gates in Grand Bazaar, Istanbul
- List of shopping malls in Istanbul
- Market
- Merchant
- Peddler
- Retail
- Souq
References
- ^ a b c Müller-Wiener (1977), p. 345.
- ^ a b Müller-Wiener (1977), p. 349.
- ^ As of 2012, there is no official statistics about the number of shops in Bazaar. This oscillates between 3,000 and 4,000.
- ^ "History of the Grand Bazaar Istanbul". Archived from the original on 19 April 2019. Retrieved 19 April 2019.
- ^ a b c "The Grand Bazaar". Archived from the original on 12 March 2017. Retrieved 12 March 2012.
- ^ "World's Most-Visited Tourist Attractions". Archived from the original on 2 January 2015. Retrieved 20 November 2014.
- ^ İnalcık, H. and Quataert, D., An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914. Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 14
- ^ Eyice (1955), p. 26.
- ISBN 9781907822506.
- ^ a b c d e Mantran (1998), p. 177
- ^ Janin (1964), p. 95.
- ^ a b c d e f g Müller-Wiener (1977), p. 346.
- ^ Mamboury (1953), p. 212
- ^ Gülersoy (1980), p. 8
- ^ a b Gülersoy (1980) p. 29
- ^ Gülersoy (1980) p. 17
- ^ a b c Müller-Wiener (1977), p. 348.
- ^ Gülersoy (1980), p. 31
- ^ Gülersoy (1980), p. 30
- ^ Gülersoy (1980) p. 41
- ^ a b c Eyice (1955), p. 27.
- ^ Gülersoy (1980) p. 13
- ^ Gülersoy (1980), p. 14
- ^ Gülersoy (1980), p. 15
- ^ a b c d Gülersoy (1980) p. 18
- ^ Gülersoy (1980) p. 19
- ^ a b Gülersoy (1980) p. 23
- ^ Gülersoy (1980), p. 33
- ^ Gülersoy (1980), p. 34
- ^ Gülersoy (1980) p. 37
- ^ a b c Gülersoy (1980) p. 49
- ^ a b c Gülersoy (1980) p. 50
- ISBN 9781139484442. Retrieved 6 November 2017.
- ^ Gülersoy (1980) p. 38
- ^ a b Gülersoy (1980) p. 61
- ^ Gülersoy (1980) p. 62
- ^ a b Gülersoy (1980) p. 43
- ^ Gülersoy (1980) p. 45
- ^ De Amicis, Edmondo (1878). Tilton, Caroline (ed.). Constantinople. G.P. Putnam's sons. pp. 91-94. Retrieved 6 November 2017.
Edmondo De Amicis grand bazaar.
- ^ Gautier, Théophile (1901). The works of Théophile Gautier, Volume 10. G.D. Sproul. pp. 83-91. Retrieved 6 November 2017.
Théophile Gautier grand bazaar.
- ^ a b c d Gülersoy (1980) p. 36
- ^ Gülersoy (1980) p. 52
- ^ a b Gülersoy (1980) p. 53
- ^ a b c d e f g h Gülersoy (1980) p. 47
- ^ Gülersoy (1980) p. 48
- ^ a b c "Grand Bazaar outdoing all its rivals". Hürriyet Daily News. 2011. Retrieved 14 March 2012.
- ^ a b "Grand Problems at the Grand Bazaar". Hürriyet Daily News. 2008. Retrieved 14 March 2012.
- ^ a b "Saving the Grand Bazaar from its fate". Hürriyet Daily News. 2010. Retrieved 14 March 2012.
Sources
- Mamboury, Ernest (1953). The Tourists' Istanbul. Istanbul: Çituri Biraderler Basımevi.
- Eyice, Semavi (1955). Istanbul. Petite Guide a travers les Monuments Byzantins et Turcs (in French). Istanbul: Istanbul Matbaası.
- Janin, Raymond (1964). Constantinople Byzantine (in French) (2 ed.). Paris: Institut Français d'Etudes Byzantines.
- ISBN 978-3-8030-1022-3.
- Gülersoy, Çelik (1980). Story of the Grand Bazaar. Istanbul: Istanbul Kitaplığı.
- Mantran, Robert (1998). La vita quotidiana a Constantinopoli ai tempi di Solimano il Magnifico e dei suoi successori (XVI e XVII secolo) (in Italian) (3 ed.). Milan: Rizzoli. ISBN 8817165581.
- Hallam, Katie (2009). The Traveler's Atlas: Europe. London: Barron's Educational Series. ISBN 978-0-7641-6176-6.
- Archnet Digital Library – Covered Bazaar
- Turkish Culture Portal – Grand Bazaar in Istanbul