In 2010, real estate company the Marmara Group bought the Zeyrek Çinili Hamam site planning to restore and open the hamam within three years, but “it became like an excavation… as we discovered layers, and all these stories”, founding director Koza Gureli Yazgan tells me over video call from the hamam, as it finally nears its opening date. “The hamam pulled us into its history, and we couldn’t dare just start operating without sharing that.”
Zeyrek Çinili Hamam stands within Istanbul’s Fatih district, old Constantinople, in the neighbourhood of Zeyrek, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The historic bath was commissioned by Hayreddin Barbarossa, the Grand Admiral of the Ottoman Navy, and built by chief Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan in the mid-1500s. Çinili translates as ‘tiled’, denoting the hamam’s interior, decorated in elaborate iznik tiles that combine traditional Ottoman patterns in cobalt blue and turquoise with the influence of the blue-and-white porcelain of Ming-dynasty China. They adorned the imperial buildings designed by Sinan, a contemporary of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, and the Zeyrek Çinili Hamam was the first example of iznik tiles being applied to a public, communal space — with 10,000 tiles in 37 unique patterns lining the walls.
When restoration began, there were no tiles left. “During excavation, we found tile fragments”, says Koza. “We traced them, and through working with experts and historians, we were led to European museums who had our tiles in their collections — the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Louvre, the British Museum. We contacted them to find out more about them, and we will show the patterns through 3D mapping on tile fragments, so people will be able to see how the tiles were during the 16th century.”
The fragments are part of a process of discovery that uncovered paintings, carvings, objects, and Byzantine cisterns. What had begun as a hamam restoration project became the development of a compound containing a museum, cisterns, and a garden: “the hamam is only one third of the site. We didn’t plan to build a museum, or have an arts and culture programme, but it turned into this as we discovered everything.” The tile fragments will be shown on a dedicated floor of the museum, in a display designed by Atelier Brückner. Alongside them, the museum will display artefacts, and objects associated with the hamam ritual, including Ottoman wooden shoes decorated with precious metals and mother-of-pearl, bowls, and towels. It will detail the complex water and heating system of the hamam, and the public will be able to access the cisterns, view the naval carvings thought to have been created during construction, and experience contemporary audio-visual installations.
The hamam will be heated and re-open as a bath house next year, but as a way of celebrating the history of the site, and its future as a convivial, communal environment, Gureli Yazgan wanted to open with an exhibition in the rooms of the bathhouse. She approached curator Anlam De Coster with the desire of wanting to share the hamam with as broad an audience as possible. “When you experience the traditional hamam ritual, it is more of an inward journey. The exhibition will invite people in to experience the site, and understand the layers of history that were unearthed through the lens of contemporary art”, says Anlam. “The hamam is charged with history, with symbolism, with incredible characters that carried it until today. Once I began to understand the secrets and myths that were unravelled through the process of restoration, I was hooked.”
In Healing Ruins, works are exhibited throughout the building, “exploring the possibilities for transformation at both an individual and societal level”, through the act of repairing ruins, and experiencing ruins as inherently healing in and of themselves. “It is an intuitive, indirect way of travelling through time. It can be an almost spiritual way of engaging with the hamam”. Twelve artists were invited to make new, site-specific works responding to the history, mythology, and architecture of the hamam, including Lara Ögel, Zoë Paul and Francesco Albano, which are shown alongside works by Hera Büyüktaşcıyan, Ayça Telgeren, and Marion Verboom. “During the restoration process, they found poems written in Farsi on the walls. One of the artists is creating a sound installation based on the poems, and interpretations of their meaning. They also found materials from Byzantine crypts and holy sites — the central stone in the men’s section has a cross on its reverse side — and one of the artists is responding to these ‘spolia’, both those that were found at the hamam, and imaginary examples that draw from the multiple civilisations built on top of each other in Turkey, using each other’s ruins, fragments, and materials. This work is a beautiful example of how nothing falls from the sky, we are each building on each other’s experiences.”
Hamams are traditionally divided into three sections, a cold room with day beds and a fountain, a warm stone room, and a hot room with a heated stone, and they can have either a single of double bath. Rooms are set up in this way to allow for relaxation, slowly adjusting to the heat as your skin softens, ready for laying on the stone for a full body scrub and massage. They have high domes, mirroring the architecture of religious buildings, with dappled light casting shadows that dance over the interior from the constellation of skylights scattered over the ceiling.
Sinan’s hamams are known for their symmetry and acoustics. Informed by his approach to designing mosques, his knowledge of Byzantine architecture and engineering meant that as well as being beautiful, elaborate structures, his buildings were reinforced for earthquakes and had complex water systems that allowed the hamam to self-sustain. “He used every water source, from rain water to the cisterns [below the hamam], because he was commissioned by Hayreddin Barbarossa, they had special water permits and used a network called Forty Fountains” Koza tells me. During the restoration project, with architectural designers KA-BA, they made use of modern technology, but hid it either underneath the hamam or in neighbouring buildings: “In the historic parts, you can’t see anything contemporary”, Koza says. The closest thing to a modern intervention in the hamam is the woodwork that lines the dressing rooms, a practice that was introduced in the 18th century.
Hamams have historically been integral to communal life, and a place where people would gather for important gatherings and celebrations. It was especially true for women, who “would get together to eat, share, and gossip”, says Koza. “Hamams have lost this role, and become touristic spaces. We hope that through arts and culture programming, we can regain this sense of community and belonging.”
Zeyrek Çinili Hamam stands within Istanbul’s Fatih district, old Constantinople, in the neighbourhood of Zeyrek, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The historic bath was commissioned by Hayreddin Barbarossa, the Grand Admiral of the Ottoman Navy, and built by chief Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan in the mid-1500s. Çinili translates as ‘tiled’, denoting the hamam’s interior, decorated in elaborate iznik tiles that combine traditional Ottoman patterns in cobalt blue and turquoise with the influence of the blue-and-white porcelain of Ming-dynasty China. They adorned the imperial buildings designed by Sinan, a contemporary of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, and the Zeyrek Çinili Hamam was the first example of iznik tiles being applied to a public, communal space — with 10,000 tiles in 37 unique patterns lining the walls.
When restoration began, there were no tiles left. “During excavation, we found tile fragments”, says Koza. “We traced them, and through working with experts and historians, we were led to European museums who had our tiles in their collections — the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Louvre, the British Museum. We contacted them to find out more about them, and we will show the patterns through 3D mapping on tile fragments, so people will be able to see how the tiles were during the 16th century.”
The fragments are part of a process of discovery that uncovered paintings, carvings, objects, and Byzantine cisterns. What had begun as a hamam restoration project became the development of a compound containing a museum, cisterns, and a garden: “the hamam is only one third of the site. We didn’t plan to build a museum, or have an arts and culture programme, but it turned into this as we discovered everything.” The tile fragments will be shown on a dedicated floor of the museum, in a display designed by Atelier Brückner. Alongside them, the museum will display artefacts, and objects associated with the hamam ritual, including Ottoman wooden shoes decorated with precious metals and mother-of-pearl, bowls, and towels. It will detail the complex water and heating system of the hamam, and the public will be able to access the cisterns, view the naval carvings thought to have been created during construction, and experience contemporary audio-visual installations.
The hamam will be heated and re-open as a bath house next year, but as a way of celebrating the history of the site, and its future as a convivial, communal environment, Gureli Yazgan wanted to open with an exhibition in the rooms of the bathhouse. She approached curator Anlam De Coster with the desire of wanting to share the hamam with as broad an audience as possible. “When you experience the traditional hamam ritual, it is more of an inward journey. The exhibition will invite people in to experience the site, and understand the layers of history that were unearthed through the lens of contemporary art”, says Anlam. “The hamam is charged with history, with symbolism, with incredible characters that carried it until today. Once I began to understand the secrets and myths that were unravelled through the process of restoration, I was hooked.”
In Healing Ruins, works are exhibited throughout the building, “exploring the possibilities for transformation at both an individual and societal level”, through the act of repairing ruins, and experiencing ruins as inherently healing in and of themselves. “It is an intuitive, indirect way of travelling through time. It can be an almost spiritual way of engaging with the hamam”. Twelve artists were invited to make new, site-specific works responding to the history, mythology, and architecture of the hamam, including Lara Ögel, Zoë Paul and Francesco Albano, which are shown alongside works by Hera Büyüktaşcıyan, Ayça Telgeren, and Marion Verboom. “During the restoration process, they found poems written in Farsi on the walls. One of the artists is creating a sound installation based on the poems, and interpretations of their meaning. They also found materials from Byzantine crypts and holy sites — the central stone in the men’s section has a cross on its reverse side — and one of the artists is responding to these ‘spolia’, both those that were found at the hamam, and imaginary examples that draw from the multiple civilisations built on top of each other in Turkey, using each other’s ruins, fragments, and materials. This work is a beautiful example of how nothing falls from the sky, we are each building on each other’s experiences.”
Hamams are traditionally divided into three sections, a cold room with day beds and a fountain, a warm stone room, and a hot room with a heated stone, and they can have either a single of double bath. Rooms are set up in this way to allow for relaxation, slowly adjusting to the heat as your skin softens, ready for laying on the stone for a full body scrub and massage. They have high domes, mirroring the architecture of religious buildings, with dappled light casting shadows that dance over the interior from the constellation of skylights scattered over the ceiling.
Sinan’s hamams are known for their symmetry and acoustics. Informed by his approach to designing mosques, his knowledge of Byzantine architecture and engineering meant that as well as being beautiful, elaborate structures, his buildings were reinforced for earthquakes and had complex water systems that allowed the hamam to self-sustain. “He used every water source, from rain water to the cisterns [below the hamam], because he was commissioned by Hayreddin Barbarossa, they had special water permits and used a network called Forty Fountains” Koza tells me. During the restoration project, with architectural designers KA-BA, they made use of modern technology, but hid it either underneath the hamam or in neighbouring buildings: “In the historic parts, you can’t see anything contemporary”, Koza says. The closest thing to a modern intervention in the hamam is the woodwork that lines the dressing rooms, a practice that was introduced in the 18th century.
Hamams have historically been integral to communal life, and a place where people would gather for important gatherings and celebrations. It was especially true for women, who “would get together to eat, share, and gossip”, says Koza. “Hamams have lost this role, and become touristic spaces. We hope that through arts and culture programming, we can regain this sense of community and belonging.”