Abstract
As culture-led urban regeneration has become a widely adopted strategy for dilapidated historic cities, the museum as a concept has become a key aspect of this regeneration. With the tangible and intangible aspects of culture being presented in museums, many historic buildings are repurposed as museums, urban, or archaeological sites designated as open-air museums, and the boundaries between museums and historic cities have been dissolved. This article discusses how the museum concept expands from the boundaries of a single building into the historic city itself. Defining this expansion as musealization, this article evaluates its contribution as an urban process in the transformation of Sultanahmet in Istanbul’s historic peninsula, which has been the major subject of conservation studies from the nineteenth century until present day.
Introduction: Defining Musealization
There are such cities in the world, turning even stones into cash and sell to the world. You see a lot of this in Rome. They present stones and make money out of it, whereas we have been incapable of presenting our values to the world until now.
1
When emphasizing the contribution of Rome’s cultural heritage to the economy, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, then prime minister of Turkey, criticized the former urban policies of Istanbul for being insufficient for the presentation of the city. This critique was intentional, since the Istanbul Museum-City Project had already been launched by the state authorities, promoting the museum concept for the regeneration of Istanbul’s historic peninsula. The Sultanahmet district, at the tip of the peninsula, formed the core of the project as an emerging museum-quarter. 2 As the administrative, religious, and social center of Istanbul through the ages, the district embraces iconic monuments from the late Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman periods such as Hagia Sophia, the Great Palace Complex, Basilica Cistern, Hippodrome, Topkapı Palace, the Palace of Ibrahim Pasha, and Sultanahmet Complex. The district has been the major witness of conservation and museological practices from the late Ottoman period onward and has been a major tourist attraction. 3 In line with the Istanbul Museum-City Project, exploiting the peninsula’s heritage for cultural tourism has become the dominant vision of the subsequent conservation masterplan, approved in 2005. 4 This approach is not unique, and Istanbul is not the only city that has been envisioned as a museum. In a globalized world encouraging cities to be in constant competition with each other, 5 the museum concept has been widely promoted for the regeneration of historic cities.
The expansion of the museum concept into the historic city has been named differently by scholars. Referring to the museum’s effect on everyday life, Andreas Huyssen introduced the term musealization, arguing that museums are no longer bound to the institution. 6 Baudrillard preferred using museification to argue that everything can be museified even before it becomes a potential museum object in his critique of the museum’s involvement in every aspect of culture. 7 Edward Relph discussed for the first time the expansion of museum concept in relation to the impacts of tourism. By naming the process as “museumisation,” Relph defines it as the preservation, reconstruction, and idealization of history specifically seen in traditional villages, fortresses, and castles. 8 The process affecting urban areas, wherein the boundaries between museums and cities are dissolved, is identified as “vernacular museumification” by Ashworth and Graham. 9 The terms museumification, museumization, or musealization have all been used interchangeably to make sense of culture-led regeneration strategies transforming historic cities into tourist spectacles and objects for cultural consumption.
According to Udo Küsel, “the whole environment can be regarded as one large museum if we recognize it as such and if we apply musealisation.” 10 Therefore, museums have no geographical limits and their essence is not based on technical or institutional aspects and certainly not the building, but it is the mechanism, the musealization process itself, that transforms objects regardless of whether they are artifacts, buildings, or cities. 11 The International Council of Museums (ICOM) defines musealization as the operation of extracting a thing, physically or conceptually, from its original environment and providing it with museal status, thereby turning it into a museum object or placing it into the museal field. 12 Thus, a museum object is not simply an object within the museum perimeter, but instead it changes its status through the change of context by selection, conservation, and presentation. 13 Similarly, when musealization extends to historic cities, as a transformative process, it changes the status of the urban form. Barbara Kirshenbatt-Gimblett argues that display or presentation not only shows or speaks about heritage, but it has a pivotal role in the production of heritage. 14 Therefore, presentation as an intervention is a significant component of conservation studies, through which an object becomes heritage. 15
Just like museums themselves, heritage sites are also meant to be visited, and their presentation to visitors is an important concern, given the increasing demands of tourism. 16 Thus, as Edward Bruner suggests, museums, tourism, and heritage sites have many things in common. They are all selective in their display depending on the politics of their setting, should construct and even invent what they display, and they all depend upon visitors. 17 However, as cultural tourism becomes the sole strategy for the future of historic cities, every component of the city becomes a potential display object or a tourist setting, contributing to the musealization of the historic city. Thus, musealization transforms vivid and living heritage into a staged artifact directed toward visitors. 18 By constructing authentic-like buildings or historic areas, a superficial setting of a fictional history is created in the service of tourism. 19 When musealization expands to the scale of the city, the process becomes far more complicated since cities are living, dynamic environments in which museums and heritage sites form only a part of a complexity of relationships. 20 The following section discusses how musealization operates within the urban context.
Musealization as an Urban Process
In his seminal book The Architecture of the City, Aldo Rossi suggests that the city continues to exist through its various temporal changes by revealing continuities, discontinuities, and alterations. 21 He traces the transformation of urban form through what he calls “permanences” serving as imprints of the past that are still experienced in the present-day city. 22 Rossi also distinguishes between those permanences that serve as “propelling” elements, accelerating the process of urbanization as vital parts of urban life, and “pathological” elements that retard urbanization as being virtually isolated from the urban life. By giving Alhambra in Granada as an example of “pathological permanence,” he argues that a historic monument functioning as a museum is frozen in the modern city and is detached from the orbit of everyday life. 23 Although museums as “pathological permanences” might seem to resist urbanization in certain ways, they are in fact also “propelling permanences” since they trigger musealization. Thus, musealization is one among many transformative processes contributing to the transformation of historic cities.
To understand the contribution of musealization in the urban context, Anja Barbara Nelle suggests three criteria; which are “the loss or alteration of function, alteration of context, and establishment of a new viewer-object relation by a posture of admiration.” 24 She studies the alteration of context in historic cities through acts such as altered facades, pedestrianization, the insertion of street furniture, changes in the way urban spaces are used, and changes in the type of people using these urban spaces. 25 Based on Nelle’s criteria, musealization within an urban context involves the mutual acts of decontextualization and recontextualization.
Similar to separating an object for a museum collection, musealization as an urban process starts with selection by conceptualizing an entity as cultural heritage. Accordingly, some entities are selected for listing or designation considering their associations with the history, memory, identity, or culture of a certain individual or community. Thus, the identification of an entity as cultural heritage is the beginning of musealization process. With this new status, these entities are first decontextualized from their physical, functional or social contexts. The demolition of the surroundings of historic monuments is one way of physical decontextualization. Functional decontextualization can also result from abandonment over time, or the adaptive reuse of a building including conversion into a museum. Decontextualization also has social consequences with the desertion of the historic city by its inhabitants.
Depending on the motive behind their selection, these selected entities are then signified by recontextualization by presenting them in a sterilized and sometimes idealized manner, in the service of cultural tourism. Physical recontextualization can involve interventions ranging from landscaping to reconstruction. Similarly, functional recontextualization might range from the reuse of buildings or urban areas for touristic purposes to their conversion into museums. Social recontextualization typically results in the influx of tourists as new users after the displacement of local inhabitants. 26 Similar to any act of signification, musealization cannot be evaluated without considering the act of not signifying. Recontextualization can also aim to eradicate certain aspects of urban form through negligence, diminishing, or even destruction. Therefore, musealization is a twofold process, including both signification and eradication. 27 Musealization as an urban process operates in different geographical, cultural or ideological contexts, and across different time periods. The following section introduces the Sultanahmet district in Istanbul’s historic peninsula, which has been the major witness of planning and conservation projects mainly aiming at musealization from the nineteenth century to the present.
Sultanahmet District as the Public Face of Istanbul’s Historic Peninsula
From its rebuilding by Emperor Constantine I in 330 CE, the tip of the historic peninsula was the administrative, religious, and social center of Constantinople. The Great Palace served as the main seat of emperors until the late eleventh century, while Hagia Sophia endured as the city’s main church. 28 The Hippodrome, as the main gathering place for citizens, played an intermediary role where the crowds could encounter emperors during races and public ceremonies. 29 After the city was captured by the Ottomans in 1453, Hagia Sophia was converted into an imperial mosque and Sultan Mehmed II selected the former acropolis of Byzantion, a spot dominating the entire landscape, for his new palace, known today as Topkapı Palace. 30 The Hippodrome—named first as Atmeydanı and later as Sultanahmet Square—remained as the key public open space for centuries. With this reproduction of the Byzantine spatial arrangement, the tip of the peninsula remained the heart of Ottoman Istanbul. 31
At present, the Sultanahmet district stretches from Sarayburnu, the very north of the tip of the peninsula, to the Küçükayasofya Mosque (formerly the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus) and the fifth-century Palace of Boukoleon at the south with a main façade looking toward the sea. Sea walls lie on the east framed by a seaside road, though certain sections of these walls were demolished during railway construction in the nineteenth century. Sirkeci train station is located on the north-west, outside the Imperial Walls. Topkapı Palace Complex, Hagia Irene, Istanbul Archaeology Museums, and Gülhane Park are located within the grounds of the Imperial Walls. Alemdar Street, tracing the route of the Imperial Walls, connects Sirkeci Station to Sultanahmet Square through the Sublime-Porte. Divanyolu (the Byzantine Mese) connects the Sultanahmet district to the inner parts of the historic peninsula, as the main east-west axis. Sultanahmet Square is framed by the Binbirdirek neighborhood in the west, Küçükayasofya in the south, and the Cankurtaran and Sultanahmet neighborhoods in the east (Figure 8).
Embracing iconic buildings from successive periods, the Sultanahmet district has been the major witness of planning and conservation activities from the nineteenth century onward. Considered the public face of Istanbul, its presentation to the outside world with a coherent narrative was the main motive behind planning and conservation approaches. Therefore, musealization is among the many processes that have contributed to the formation of present-day Sultanahmet district. 32 To evaluate its contribution as an urban process, this article outlines the urban transformation of the Sultanahmet district by discussing policies, plans, and projects stimulating musealization together with their spatial reflections “on the ground” over time. 33
The evaluation begins in the Tanzimat (Reorganization) reforms enacted by the Ottoman state, beginning around 1839. 34 Considered a period of modernization and a divergence from traditional norms of planning and conservation in the Ottoman Empire, this modernization touched almost every dimension of the Ottoman Empire, aiming at structural differentiation, secularization, and urbanization. 35 The push for Tanzimat modernization led to the establishment of the first public display of the Ottoman Empire, housed at the former Church of Hagia Irene, which had been integrated with the Topkapı Palace Complex as the imperial armory. With the rearrangement of Hagia Irene into the House of Antiquities and Weaponry in 1846, the Sultanahmet district first encountered the notion of museum, and of musealization as a potentially transformative process.
The contribution of musealization in the Sultanahmet district is analyzed in this article by tracing the transformation of its urban form from the nineteenth century to the present. Shifting attitudes toward conservation are indeed the major force behind the musealization process, being shaped by conceptualizations of heritage, which constantly inform the museum concept. Depending on the changing conceptualizations of heritage, musealization signifies certain aspects of the urban form based on the preferences of changing ideologies, economies, or cultural policies. To trace the urban transformation imposed by musealization, key periods of change in the urban form of the Sultanahmet district are identified first. These key periods are marked by momentous changes in the urban form of the district through future projections and implementation strategies, each informed by paradigm shifts in ideologies, economics, cultural policies, and conservation approaches (Figure 6).
Although conservation legislation recognizing monuments that are part of living cities only occurs at the turn of the twentieth century for the Ottoman Empire, the emergence of the idea of “historic monument” has its basis in the regularizations of urban form from the Tanzimat period onward, coinciding with the institutionalization of museums. The first crucial period is identified as that of the late Ottoman period, when we can trace the initial attempts at musealization. Following the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, musealization became a significant strategy to secularize the religious and imperial connotations of the Ottoman monuments. Along with the secularizing approach of the Republican authorities, the Byzantine past of Sultanahmet district was also given a special attention. Hence, the second key period is identified as the early Republican period up until the recognition of historic houses and the historic urban fabric as vital components of cultural heritage in the early 1970s. 36 Following the acknowledgment of area-based conservation, the Sultanahmet district was declared as a tourism center in 1982, encouraging tourism-oriented regeneration of the district directed particularly toward foreign visitors. This time interval can be regarded as another key period of change. With the Istanbul Museum-City Project in 2004, the historic peninsula had been conceptualized as a museum in its entirety. Accordingly, the Sultanahmet district was envisioned as a “museums-quarter,” and culture-led urban regeneration became a major strategy, prioritizing mainly the Ottoman past, through widespread reconstruction of demolished buildings of that era. Consequently, the final key period is the recent urban transformations as stimulated by the Istanbul Museum-City Project and continuing through to the present day. The key periods accumulated over time reveal those aspects of urban form that convey continuity over time, while at the same time being manipulated through the musealization process.
After identifying the key periods, the conservation and planning decisions, projects and implementations stimulating musealization are collected based on bibliographical survey and archival research. 37 These decisions, projects and implementations are categorized as selection (listing of cultural heritage), signification (either decontextualization or recontextualization), or eradication. The spatial reflections of these decisions, projects, and implementations are mapped on the urban form of the Sultanahmet district in different key periods together with overlaying major incidents like fires using geographic information systems (ArcGIS). After identifying these key periods, the transformation imposed by musealization is evaluated by discussing the spatiotemporal changes in the physical/morphological, functional, ownership, and social aspects of the Sultanahmet district based on archival research and fieldwork surveys (Figure 7). 38
Initial Attempts of Musealization: Sultanahmet District as the Symbolic Center of the Ottoman Empire (1839-1922)
The first public display of the Ottoman Empire was opened in the Sultanahmet district with the rearrangement of Hagia Irene into Magazine of Antiquities and Weaponry in 1846. The integration of the antiquities section into the old weaponry collection can be regarded as a response to foreign archaeological excavations within Ottoman territory. 39 However, according to Edhem Eldem, the atrium of Hagia Irene was more like “a glorified warehouse of antiques” rather than a museum. 40 Consequently, the collection of antiquities was gradually dominated by the collection of ancient weaponry in the following years. 41 In 1852, the display of Ancient Costumery was also moved from Hagia Irene to the Palace of Ibrahim Pasha at the edge of the Hippodrome. 42
While the grounds of the Imperial Walls witnessed the emergence of a museum, the imperial family moved to the new Dolmabahçe Palace along the Bosphorus, abandoning Topkapı Palace in 1856. 43 However, several permission requests to visit Topkapı Palace along with Hagia Sophia and Sultanahmet Mosque in the Ottoman state archives reveal that there remained incessant demand by foreign travelers to visit Topkapı Palace as an object of Orientalist curiosity. 44 The visits to the old palace were soon systematized by opening up the imperial treasury on certain days. 45 As Nilay Özlü notes, these visits aimed to “display the grandeur and prosperity of the Ottoman state,” accompanied by Ottoman officers. 46 Thus, Topkapı Palace began functioning almost like a museum by the late nineteenth century.
While the Sultanahmet district was emblematic of Istanbul, its urban form was composed of timber-frame houses arranged in an organic manner and connected by narrow unpaved streets. Therefore, urban regularization of the district’s urban form became an important concern starting in the Tanzimat period. 47 When the Hippodrome was selected as the venue of the Ottoman General Exhibition in 1863, the surrounding buildings underwent a “face-lift” to present the otherwise dilapidated Sultanahmet district in a better light for visitors. 48 However, only after the 1865 Hocapaşa fire did the urban form of the district actually face comprehensive transformation. Affecting a large portion of the peninsula, the fire opened the way for the redevelopment of the district in a more regular street pattern, mainly by enlarging the previous street network (Figure 7a). 49 There was a certain sensibility of conserving mosques and large-scale masonry buildings during urban regularizations, especially in the northern neighborhoods. 50 The monumental buildings along Divanyolu, which had been the main artery for the sultan’s stately processions, were either sliced-off, as in the case of Çemberlitaş Baths, or transferred to their new location after street enlargement, as was the case for Köprülü Mehmet Pasha Tomb. 51
Although the major motive was the regularization of the traditional urban fabric, one can also trace the initial attempts at musealization in the urban context. The urban regularizations directed the attention of visitors to significant monuments by clearing away surrounding houses and opening new arteries to visually connect different monuments. 52 Consequently, Hagia Sophia was isolated from its surroundings through the demolition of houses attached to its courtyard walls and a wide street with trees on both sides was opened at its southern side. 53 Moreover, houses that were once built surrounding Firuz Ağa Mosque at the intersection of Atmeydanı and Hagia Sophia were demolished, and the area was arranged into an urban park (Figure 1). 54 In this way, the relationship between the Hippodrome and Hagia Sophia was strengthened both physically and visually. The approach of isolating Hagia Sophia can be seen as an attempt at musealization, leading to the physical decontextualization of the monument from its surroundings and its presentation as an art object within the city.
Sultanahmet Square in the early twentieth century (The Ottoman archives, no. PLK_P-3107).
Similarly, the grounds of the Imperial Walls were gradually exposed to musealization. The title of the Magazine of Antiquities was changed to Imperial Museum in 1869, marking the establishment of the museum as an institution in the Ottoman Empire. 55 Unlike its European counterparts, Imperial Museum was almost inaccessible to the public. 56 This collection was soon transferred to the Tiled Pavilion, a fifteenth-century kiosk in the outer courtyard of Topkapı Palace Complex, in 1876. 57 As the sole display space for antiquities, the collection of the Imperial Museum increased notably after the 1884 Antiquities Regulation, which clearly stated that all antiquities belonged to the Ottoman state and could not be exported under any circumstances. 58 The need for a new display space resulted in the construction of a purpose-built museum across the Tiled Pavilion in 1891, which is currently known as the Istanbul Archaeology Museums. 59
The Ottoman state had finally enacted a regulation prohibiting the export of antiquities, set up a legal and institutional framework to superintend archaeological excavations, and a purpose-built Imperial Museum for preservation and display. The “Ottoman awakening” of antiquities was mainly “a response to European interest in antiquities, but also part of a search for a new identity that capitalized on the historical wealth of its territories,” as put forward by Bahrani, Çelik, and Eldem. 60 Similarly, the main function of the Imperial Museum was to represent the Sultan as a modern, Europeanized sovereign. 61
While the Sultanahmet district was exposed to urban regularizations after the Hocapaşa fire, it was the 1912 İshakpaşa fire—damaging almost the entire residential neighborhood in the eastern section of the Sultanahmet district—that proved a major turning point for the Sultanahmet district’s urban form. Regarding the damage caused by this fire as an opportunity, authorities proposed that the entire area to the south of Hagia Sophia affected by fire be demolished rather than rehabilitated. 62 A map of the area shows the extent of the damage caused by the İshakpaşa fire and the lots that were to be expropriated (Figure 2). With the motive of presenting Hagia Sophia more clearly within the urban fabric, this entire area was indeed demolished and expropriated, forcing the evacuation of many inhabitants.
Hürrem Sultan Baths on the left and its surrounding expropriated after 1912 İshakpaşa fire (Atatürk Library, no. Hrt_003836-1329).
The late Ottoman authorities also wished to demolish the Hürrem Sultan Baths, a sixteenth-century building designed by famous architect Sinan. Fortunately, the building was saved from demolishment due to a growing awareness of conservation, especially after the enactment of the 1906 Antiquities Regulation. 63 After a broad definition of antiquities, the regulation gave a detailed list of monuments (abidat) including mosques, churches, public baths, and houses. 64 This recognition of the concept of “monument” can be interpreted as an attempt to institutionalize the conservation of historic monuments. 65 Consequently, the site around Hürrem Sultan Baths was arranged into Sultanahmet Park. 66 However, the baths became an isolated monument decontextualized from its physical and social context. Since the decontextualized bath remained at a strategic location where significant monuments were concentrated, the Ottoman authorities saw musealization of the bath as the only possible way for it survival.
As the historical heart of former Constantinople, the Sultanahmet district attracted even more attention from scholars after the İshakpaşa fire, which led to the demolition of the buildings over the remains of the Great Palace. Immediately after the fire, the Russian Archaeological Institute was granted permission in 1912 to conduct an archaeological survey of the Great Palace Complex, followed by the survey of other scholars focusing on the Great Palace and Hippodrome area. 67 Since the Sultanahmet district was an emerging destination for travelers and a focal point of archaeological investigations, the Ottoman authorities in the early twentieth century remained fixated on its sterilization from any indicators of poverty. The documents in the Ottoman state archives reveal that houses near the Sultanahmet Arasta Bazaar were swept away due to poor hygiene, and street-children wandering near Sultanahmet Mosque and Hagia Sophia were gathered up and sent to a more “suitable” neighborhood. 68
After the Imperial Museum acquired new artifacts from excavations, the Ottoman authorities suggested converting the Hürrem Sultan Baths, which remained abandoned within Sultanahmet Park, into a display space in 1914. 69 Although this did not prove possible, the School of Fine Arts building next to the Tiled Pavilion was then incorporated into the Imperial Museum to display Near Eastern antiquities in 1917. 70 Consequently, the authorities sought another purpose for this now decontextualized building including an industrial museum, an agricultural museum, “Turkish baths” for foreign tourists, and temporary exhibition space. 71 Discussions were then interrupted after the occupation of Istanbul by Allied forces in 1922. 72 Thereafter, the search for a new function for Hürrem Sultan Baths rumbled on for years.
The regularization of the urban fabric, which led in turn to the emergence of the concept of “historic monument,” was played out in its most extreme form in the Sultanahmet district as the symbolic center of Istanbul (Figure 6a). The cleansing of areas around important monuments like Hagia Sophia and the Hürrem Sultan Baths not only isolated them from their surroundings but also distanced them from the daily lives of inhabitants. Their presentation within the district reveals the initial contributions of musealization as an urban process. In contrast, the nearby neighborhoods destroyed by İshakpaşa fire remained as they were, with comparatively little rebuilding, which meant that the Sultanahmet district remained as a “quartier incendie” that affected the Republican visions for the district.
Musealization as a Strategy for Secularization: Sultanahmet District as the Old Capital of the Ottoman Empire (1923-1950s)
After the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, museums played a significant role in distancing the new secular Republic from its Islamic and imperial past. 73 In embracing the most symbolic historic buildings, musealization was adopted as a major strategy for neutralizing the imperial and Islamic associations of historic monuments in the Sultanahmet district. One of the earliest decisions regarding the district was the official declaration of Topkapı Palace as a museum in 1924, as a symbol of the transformation into a secular republic. 74 While this symbolic act was relatively straightforward to achieve, given the fact that the palace had already lost its function, other attempts at musealization proved more controversial. For instance, there was a proposal to convert Sultanahmet Mosque into an art gallery by cutting lighting holes in its dome. 75 In a departure from the Ottoman period, musealization as a strategy had clearly ideological motives in the early Republican period.
Archaeological surveys also started again in the early years of the Republic. Archaeologists took courage from the secularist ideology of the Turkish Republic, which placed more emphasis on late Roman and Byzantine heritage. 76 Again, the primary focus for excavations was the Sultanahmet district, which was still regarded as a “quartier incendie” disregarding a large portion of the residential fabric that remained intact after the İshakpaşa fire. During this period, archaeological studies were conducted in the ancient Hippodrome and its vicinity, uncovering the Baths of Zeuxippus and the foundations of the Hippodrome between 1927 and 1928. 77 Following these, a team from University of St. Andrews began excavating the Great Palace remains at the eastern section of Sultanahmet Mosque in 1935, unearthing a peristyle with mosaic pavement, which is the Great Palace Mosaics Museum at present. 78
Perhaps, the most contested conservation decision of the early Republican authorities was the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a museum. The idea arose after Thomas Whittemore, head of the Byzantine Institute, initiated works to uncover its Byzantine mosaics. 79 Wider scholarly interest in Hagia Sophia also fuelled the debates about the monument’s future as a mosque. In line with the secularizing approach of the early Republic, the Council of Ministers declared Hagia Sophia as a museum in 1934 on the basis that this act “would be appreciated by the eastern world and the building will become a new scientific institution for humanity.” 80 After critical repairs, Hagia Sophia opened to visitors a year later, in 1935. Widely regarded as the symbol of the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, this decision provoked serious opposition that continues to this day.
The pressures of musealization as an urban process can be traced through the conversion of structures surrounding previously established museums. Due to its proximity to Topkapı Palace and Hagia Sophia, the Turkish authorities considered converting the Hürrem Sultan Baths into a museum that would attract visitors. 81 However, the correspondences in the state archives show great indecision, with the type of display envisaged ranging from a pedagogy museum to a culture museum, an architecture museum and even a mummy museum. 82
When French architect and urban planner Henri Prost was invited to prepare a masterplan for Istanbul, Topkapı Palace and Hagia Sophia had already been functioning as museums and significant findings from the Great Palace had been uncovered. Influenced by his personal interest in Byzantine Constantinople, Prost identified the peninsula’s tip as an “archaeological park,” including the neighborhoods east of the Hippodrome. The opening of two iconic monuments, Topkapı Palace and Hagia Sophia, as museums and the consideration of Sultanahmet district as “quartier incendie” encouraged Prost’s archaeological park proposal. Prost explained the encouragement behind his proposal by indicating that the entire district “deserves the approach adopted by the Turkish Republic for Hagia Sophia when they stated that it belongs to humanity and separated it from religion.” 83
Prost’s archaeological park proposal involved excavating the area around Hagia Sophia, exposing the Great Palace ruins, and integrating them into terraced gardens. 84 Prost portrayed his intention as “the preservation of the antique remains in the open-air museum [which] will show sensitivity of the Turkish administration towards the works of arts from the past.” 85 According to İpek Akpınar, Prost’s “archaeological park” was part of the Republic’s attempts to secularize the old Ottoman capital by prioritizing the heritage of pre-Islamic Constantinople. 86 The signification of Byzantine heritage by Prost was also criticized by Sedat Çetintaş, a prominent conservation architect, who claimed that Prost was only interested in historic monuments of that earlier period. 87 Indeed, Prost was not only overlooking significant Ottoman monuments—such as the public kitchens of the Sultanahmet Complex on Hippodrome’s Sphendone or the Ibrahim Pasha Palace—but also the local inhabitants who would be displaced by his conceptualization of the Sultanahmet district as an open-air archaeological museum.
Although Prost’s plan was approved as early as 1939, its implementation proved to be difficult due to a radical shift in conservation politics starting from the 1940s. 88 Criticizing the early Republican authorities’ neglect of Ottoman monuments, this shift placed authorities in conflict with the notion of an archaeological park that would highlight the Byzantine period in the Sultanahmet district. Therefore, the archaeological park project was not given priority by Turkish authorities. Surprisingly, a piece of correspondence from 1949 reveals that the Commission for the Preservation of Antiquities, 89 which was responsible for the preservation of historic monuments within Istanbul, was not even informed of Prost’s archaeological park proposal a full ten years after its approval. 90 After their examination, the Commission rejected Prost’s archaeological park proposal since it failed to consider important monuments of Sultanahmet Complex such as the public kitchen and hospice on Hippodrome’s Sphendone, Sultanahmet Imperial Lodge, the Arasta Bazaar, and the large number of residential buildings still in existence. 91
Henri Prost was also aware of the difficulties in realizing the archaeological park project. Acknowledging Turkey’s prioritization of monuments built after the Ottoman conquest, Prost suggested launching an international campaign with the archeologists conducting research in Istanbul. 92 After securing the support of prominent Byzantine scholars, UNESCO agreed to provide the necessary scientific and financial support to realize the archaeological park in 1950. 93 In a meeting with UNESCO in Paris, however, Turkish authorities clearly expressed the shift in conservation politics by stating that, for the Turkish people, “Turkish” monuments were the priority. 94 Since it was now evident that the Turkish authorities would not support the realization of Prost’s “archaeological park,” UNESCO cut their involvement in the project. 95
Nevertheless, due to the archaeological significance of the district, the High Council of Immovable Antiquities and Monuments, the national decision-making authority on conservation issues at the time, decided to designate the Sultanahmet Archaeological Park in 1953, even if their conception was quite different from Prost’s vision. 96 The High Council only identified a limited section of the Great Palace Complex as an archaeological zone where new constructions were prohibited in preparation for future excavations. For the rest of the district, new constructions were permitted, albeit with height restrictions. 97
Although the appropriation of the archaeological park by Turkish authorities diverged significantly from Henri Prost’s open-air archeology museum, the “archaeological park” status rather recognized the district as an urban conservation site in which new developments could be restricted and regulated even if the actual legislation that enabled area-based conservation was only passed in Turkey much later in 1973. The designation of Sultanahmet as an archaeological park contributed to the presentation of the district in a sterilized manner by discouraging new developments and inharmonious functions (Figure 6b). The sterilization also had social consequences with the displacement of the migrant populations that occupied listed historic monuments or resided in squatted homes that were deemed inappropriate for tourism. Despite the lengthy wrangles over Henri Prost’s archaeological park, his proposal undoubtedly accelerated the musealization of the Sultanahmet district as an emerging tourist destination of the peninsula.
Tourism-Led Urban Regeneration as a Catalyst for Musealization of the Sultanahmet District (1970s-2004)
The Republic of Turkey passed the Antiquities Act in 1973, almost fifty years after its establishment, finally abandoning the 1906 Antiquities Regulation of the Ottoman Empire. This legislation introduced the concept of “conservation sites,” being categorized as historic, archaeological, or natural. 98 Through this act, area-scale protection had eventually entered Turkish conservation legislation. With the recognition of the urban fabric and its components as cultural heritage, the Sultanahmet district, attracting many visitors to its monuments and museums, was once again the focus of the authorities. Recognizing the economic potential of tourism, the authorities favored tourism-led regeneration for the district.
The first urban-scale inventory in the district was initiated by the Ministry of Tourism and Publicity in 1975 for Soğukçeşme Street along the Imperial Walls. Due to its strategic location between Hagia Sophia and Topkapı Palace, the authorities regarded Soğukçeşme as an important representative of a traditional Ottoman street and favored tourism-led regeneration (Figure 3). 99 Meanwhile, tourism became regarded as the prime regenerator for historic cities to ensure their conservation parallel with international discussions on the potential role of cultural tourism in conservation. 100 Given the Sultanahmet district’s tourism potential, the approach of the ministry for Soğukçeşme Street was integrated into a larger scheme titled “The Historical Environs of Sultanahmet and its Tourism Development Project” in 1979. The project evaluated the Sultanahmet district as “the museum of monuments” and suggested repurposing historic buildings through tourist facilities to create a “multi-purpose setting” especially for foreign visitors. 101
Soğukçeşme Street in the 1980s and at present (left: Commission for the Preservation of Antiquities archives, right: 2015).
The project soon evolved into a more comprehensive plan for the entire district entitled “Partial Conservation and Tourism Development Implementation Plan for Sultanahmet and its Vicinity” in 1981 (Figure 4). Accordingly, the plan proposed new tourist accommodation facilities for Soğukçeşme Street along with repurposing historic monuments, which were abandoned due to the sterilization of the district from inharmonious functions in the previous years, as touristic facilities. It was suggested that Sultanahmet Prison be converted into a hotel, whereas Kabasakal Madrasa and Şükrü Pasha Mansion at the edge of Sultanahmet Park and the building block west of Hagia Sophia were designated as commercial areas. The plan also suggested reopening the shops on the eastern façade of Hagia Sophia, which had been evacuated after its conversion into a museum. Similarly, commercial functions were suggested for the Sultanahmet Bazaar and the remaining historic monuments, such as the Ahırkapı and Şifa Baths. 102
1981 Partial Conservation and Tourism Development Implementation Plan for Sultanahmet and its vicinity (the Istanbul IV Regional Conservation Council of Cultural Assets Archives).
Armed with a tourism plan, Sultanahmet Square and its vicinity were declared as a tourism center by the Council of Ministers in 1982. 103 The main reason behind this declaration was the Tourism Incentive Act, enacted the same year, which encouraged private investment for tourism regions or centers. While state-owned properties were now to be allocated to tourist enterprises wherever possible, privately owned properties could also be expropriated. 104 A year later, in 1983, the Act on the Conservation of Cultural and Natural Assets was passed to replace the previous conservation legislation, which remains in effect with certain amendments today. The new conservation act redefined concepts such as cultural/natural assets and conservation sites, as well as the scope and practices of conservation. 105 Consequently, urban conservation was entirely integrated into planning processes and legal frameworks. 106
The early 1980s also witnessed a change from Turkey’s state-dominated economic model, which was restructured following the neoliberal policy of privatization, specifically to attract foreign capital and to integrate Turkey within the global market. 107 Parallel to the state’s policy to turn Istanbul into a global city through international investment, Sultanahmet Archaeological Park, as designated in 1953, was inscribed as a World Heritage Site together with Süleymaniye and Zeyrek neighborhoods and the land walls of Constantinople in 1985. The reason behind the nomination for inscription by Turkish authorities was primarily to attract international expertise and funds for conservation projects in the historic peninsula. 108
Accordingly, from the 1980s onward, tourism was seen as the main route for conserving historic cities in Turkey. While urban conservation found its place in the legislative framework, tourism-oriented decisions started shaping conservation practices. For the Sultanahmet district, the tourism development plan of 1981 was a major turning point, as it was explicitly based upon tourism-oriented urban regeneration as a state policy. Following the designation of the Sultanahmet district as a tourism center, the historic houses of Soğukçeşme Street were expropriated and allocated to the Touring and Automobile Club of Turkey, founded in 1930 with a vision to bring international publicity to historic monuments in significant cities. 109 However, the project depended on reconstruction rather than rehabilitation, even though most houses were almost intact. Accordingly, historic houses were dismantled, reconfigured, and reconstructed to resemble the character of a historic Ottoman street in an upper-class neighborhood. Hence, not only the physical form of these houses but also the experience of living in “an authentic Ottoman house” has been used to attract tourists. Similarly, the club also converted Şükrü Pasha Mansion at the edge of Sultanahmet Park into a hotel.
In accordance with the tourism development plan, the shops on the eastern façade of Hagia Sophia were restored as gift shops, whereas Hürrem Sultan Baths finally received its new function as a carpet shop. The Caferağa Madrasa started functioning as a traditional Turkish arts center, the Kabasakal Madrasa was restored as Istanbul Handicrafts Market, and the Sultanahmet Prison was opened as the luxurious Four Seasons Hotel. The ruinous Sultanahmet Arasta Bazaar, part of the Sultanahmet Mosque Complex, was reconstructed as a touristic bazaar. The Great Palace Mosaics Museum was also integrated with the bazaar and reopened to visitors following the construction of a new shelter. In addition, the Ibrahim Pasha Palace framing the hippodrome was opened as the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum, after the collection was transferred from the Süleymaniye public kitchen.
Following the Sultanahmet Square, a large-scale residential block on the east of the district, known as the Barbaros Houses, was also declared a tourism center in 1989 (Figure 5). 110 These row houses were initially constructed for single sailors and were associated with the famous Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha, the sixteenth-century Ottoman Admiral of the Fleet. Although the residential block was listed as cultural heritage in 1982, its demolishment after the forced evacuation of the tenants appeared in a newspaper in 1987. 111
Barbaros Houses street in the 1980s and Armada Hotel at present (left: Commission for the Preservation of Antiquities archives, right: 2017).
Seeing the reconstruction of these row houses into a hotel as a profitable investment, a private company opened Armada Hotel after the site was declared a tourism center. The company also aimed to transform the immediate surroundings of the hotel to recreate the neighborhood’s past for the benefit of the hotel’s customers. 112 An adjacent house was restored as a restaurant, and the ground floor of another became a local bakery. In due course, the company restored a row of three historic houses into studio apartments and advertised them with the motto: “Live as the locals live.” 113 As well as recreating this supposedly traditional Ottoman neighborhood as a mise-en-scène, the company also revitalized the traditional Romany celebration of springtime, known as Hıdrellez, which was soon embraced by locals and the district municipality as an annual event. While the company today proudly presents their approach as transforming not only the hotel but also preserving a historic neighborhood, they in fact simply recreated a stage-set for tourists. 114 Moreover, the Four Seasons Hotel and Armada Hotel opened these neighborhoods to hotel investments in the following years even though the 1981 tourism development plan required the retention of residential functions of these historic neighborhoods.
The Sultanahmet Conservation and Tourism Development Plan served as a catalyst for the musealization of the district. Unlike Prost’s archaeological park proposal, the state-driven tourism plan was implemented to such an extent that tourist attractions were spread outside the Imperial Walls (Figure 6c). With the conceptualization of the historic urban fabric as cultural heritage, the Ottoman residential buildings became the focus of conservation activities. However, this conceptualization was still based upon their historic and artistic values, with social factors being overlooked. 115 Consequently, all the buildings along Soğukçeşme Street, most of which were privately owned and still occupied, were expropriated and the inhabitants were evacuated. The shops that were part of the Sultanahmet Arasta Bazaar and Kabasakal Madrasa, which were again in private ownership, were also compulsorily acquired. In this way, the Sultanahmet district was sterilized not just of its functions, being found inappropriate, but also its inhabitants and their daily lives, replacing these with tourism-led activities.
Key periods of musealization (a:1839-1922, b:1823-1950s, c:1970s-2004, d:2004-present) in the Sultanahmet district (Author, 2017).
Culture-Led Urban Regeneration as a Strategy for the Musealization of Sultanahmet District (2004-present)
When the Istanbul Museum-City Project was launched in 2004, the Sultanahmet district had already been a major tourist destination of Turkey for some time, with tourism-oriented strategies gradually dominating the conservation and planning decisions. However, the implementation of these strategies was rather fragmented, concentrated mainly around the Topkapı Palace Complex, Sultanahmet Square, and its immediate vicinity. With the Istanbul Museum-City Project, musealization was identified as a unified strategy to transform the entire Sultanahmet district into a museum-quarter.
By conceptualizing the district as a museum-quarter in its entirety, the project aimed at repurposing state-owned buildings as cultural facilities such as museums, exhibition spaces, and museum services. 116 The core of the project was the area within the Imperial Walls, housing the Istanbul Archaeology Museums and the Topkapı Palace Museum. The first stage of the project was the demolition of all unwanted buildings that had been constructed over time and the reallocation of sites used by the military to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The Imperial Mint Complex was to house new collections and services for the Istanbul Archaeology Museums, while the late Ottoman barracks, and the Gülhane and Teşvikiye Hospitals, would henceforward function as exhibition halls and depots for Topkapı Palace Museum. The Procession Kiosk and the former Imperial Stables in Gülhane Park would also be converted into museums. Outside the Imperial Walls, Sirkeci train station would serve as an art gallery, the Great Palace remains would be rearranged as an open-air museum, the guesthouse of the Ministry of Agriculture would be a horse museum, and the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum would expand to the neighboring spaces. 117
In the wake of the Istanbul Museum-City Project, a conservation masterplan was prepared in 2005—and then revised in 2011—for the historic peninsula. 118 One of the main objectives of the masterplan was to increase the tourism share in the peninsula. 119 For the Sultanahmet district, the plan proposed the integration of sites owned by the military within the Imperial Walls into Topkapı Palace Complex and Gülhane Park, and their usage as museums, cultural centers, and recreational areas, similar to the museum-city project. The site containing the remains of the seventh-century Hagia Euphemia Martyrion and the Palaces of Antiochus and Lausus from the late Roman period at the edge of the hippodrome was identified as an archaeological exhibition-park, whereas the upper level of the Great Palace Mosaics Museum and the “staircase” ruins were suggested as sociocultural facilities. 120 The masterplan also proposed new accommodation facilities for the Sultanahmet and Cankurtaran neighborhoods such as boutique hotels and guest houses, as well as cultural functions like tourist agencies, libraries, bookstores, art galleries, and craft shops (Figure 6d). 121
The culture-led regeneration strategy of the conservation masterplan was strengthened in 2006 when Istanbul was declared as the forthcoming 2010 European Capital of Culture. 122 Along with several public and private bodies, the 2010 Istanbul European Capital of Culture Agency, established by the state authorities for coordination, proposed a wide range of projects to prepare the city, including the restoration of Hagia Sophia, Hagia Irene, and the Topkapı Palace Museum. 123
Consequently, previously established museums underwent substantial renovations, including Topkapı Palace, Istanbul Archaeology Museums, and the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum. Hagia Irene, which had been opened to tourists for special concerts, was now reopened as a museum and the nearby guardhouse was repurposed as a restaurant. In Gülhane Park, the former Imperial Stables were converted into the Museum of the History of Science and Technology in Islam, and the Procession Kiosk became the Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar Literature Museum Library. New cultural tourism attractions were established in historic monuments, such as the Istanbul Design Center in the former Özbekler Dervish Lodge and a multi-purpose hall in Binbirdirek Cistern.
However, the promotion of the museum concept for the regeneration of the Sultanahmet district also had ideological motives. The conservation masterplan adopted the principle, stated in the plan report, that the “prior identity” of the district is its “upper culture,” disregarding its archaeological potential. 124 The major motive was to reconstruct the demolished edifices belonging to this “upper culture,” which referred to overground edifices solely from the Ottoman period. 125 The area inside the Imperial Walls was to be kept free of any new construction since it had already been designated as a “first-degree” archaeological site. 126 However, the conservation masterplan permitted archaeological excavations only to restore “edifices belonging to the living upper culture” and prohibited any archaeological excavations that might unearth remains prior to the Ottoman period. 127 Recently, the Supreme Council for the Conservation of Cultural Assets 128 issued a decision permitting the reconstruction of demolished Ottoman monuments even within the Imperial Walls, despite its status as a “first-degree” archaeological site prohibiting any new construction. 129 Thus, the emphasis on the Sultanahmet district as a museum in fact meant prioritizing the “upper culture,” referring to the Ottoman heritage, thereby aiming to overrule the previous conservation attitudes that had favored pre-Ottoman remnants such as Henri Prost’s archaeological park proposal. 130
Recent conservation implementations reveal this aim even more clearly. In accordance with the conservation masterplan, the reconstruction project of the already demolished madrasa attached to Hagia Sophia was prepared. The legitimization of the reconstruction was the need for more space for museum administration and services. 131 However, the public kitchen of Hagia Sophia was opened as a carpet museum, rather than being used for museum services. The insistence on not making the public kitchen available for the Hagia Sophia Museum was rather deliberate, seeking to highlight the Ottoman-era additions to the monument.
The conservation masterplan also identified the Hagia Euphemia Martyrion and its surrounding as an “archaeological park and exhibition area.” 132 However, contrary to the masterplan, archaeological excavations were never conducted, and the district municipality rearranged the site as a park with unauthorized amphitheater and seats above the remains of the late antique palace of Lausus and Anthiochus, deliberately underplaying the earlier periods of the Sultanahmet district. The approval of new annex to the Four Seasons Hotel on top of the Great Palace remains and the reconstruction of the demolished Ottoman Civil Veterinary School—again on the significant remains of the Great Palace Complex—reveal that musealization is used as a strategy not only to justify new constructions but also to recreate an artificial Ottoman past for the Sultanahmet district. This artificial Ottoman past created by musealization is clearly intended to become a part of the lived reality of Sultanahmet to such an extent that people soon begin to associate the district solely with its Ottoman period. 133
Discussion
During the late Ottoman period, the Sultanahmet district witnessed substantial transformations mainly aimed at presenting the district as the symbolic center of Istanbul. The opening of Hagia Irene as a public display space led to the gradual musealization of its surroundings. Hagia Irene formed the core of the Imperial Museum, which was soon expanded to the Tiled Pavilion, its purpose-built museum and the School of Fine Arts. Parallel to the development of the Imperial Museum, Topkapı Palace gradually turned into a tourist attraction after its abandonment by the imperial family. However, these developments were within the grounds of the Imperial Walls, which was not a part of the daily life of local inhabitants. The first public display outside the Imperial Walls was housed in the Palace of Ibrahimpaşa at the edge of the Sultanahmet Square, as the major public space of the historic peninsula.
With the emergence of the idea of historic monuments over the course of the nineteenth century, urban regularizations focused mainly upon the visual accentuation of monuments within the Sultanahmet district. 134 After the Hocapaşa fire, the organic street pattern was regularized by enlarging existing axes and avoiding dead-end streets as much as possible, especially in the northern part of the district (Figure 7a). The junction of Divanyolu and Sultanahmet Square was accentuated by extending the square toward the north, and a wide street was created south of Hagia Sophia by clearing the surrounding buildings.
Changes in the urban form of the Sultanahmet district (Author, 2017).
The isolation of historic monuments from their surroundings continued after the İshakpaşa fire, especially for the area surrounding Hürrem Sultan Bath across Hagia Sophia, which was expropriated and arranged into today’s Sultanahmet Park (Figure 2). The preliminary steps of musealization at the urban scale can be traced back to these initial attempts to isolate monuments from their surroundings, resulting in their physical decontextualization in the urban fabric and the loss of their urban settings. Due to the conceptualization of conservation as being limited solely to “historic monuments,” the dense urban fabric surrounding historic monuments were swept away, displacing the inhabitants.
Yet the sweeping away of the settings for historic monuments undeniably led to new visual experiences. Urban rearrangements directing the “tourist gaze” in John Urry’s terms, such as public open spaces around monuments, indicate that historic monuments were now presented as if they were themselves museal objects. 135 Hence, demolition leads to different interpretations and new relations being brought forward by urban design, such as the recontextualization of the Hippodrome, Hagia Sophia, and Sultanahmet Mosque in the urban context, resembling a museum curation (Figure 7c and 7d). The physical decontextualization of historic monuments from their setting was adopted by the early Republican authorities and continued as a general tendency. The remaining structures at the junction of Hagia Sophia and Divanyolu were gradually demolished, freeing the Milion Stone from its surroundings. Similarly, the buildings erected over time on top of the Basilica Cistern were demolished (Figure 7c and 7d).
The conversion of Topkapı Palace and Hagia Sophia into museums in the early Republican period also affected the planning and conservation approaches for the Sultanahmet district. Henri Prost’s archaeological park proposal, highlighting the district as an open-air archeology museum, was encouraged by the secularizing approach of the authorities, concretized in these two significant museums. Although never realized as it was initially envisaged, Prost’s archaeological park proposal resulted in the sterilization of the district from any aspects not consistent with an evolving tourist destination. Functions like small industry, manufacturing, wholesaling, or storage were discouraged and removed from state-owned historic monuments as far as possible for future repurposing. In this way, most historic monuments were functionally decontextualized, waiting for their replacement with touristic facilities.
While the Sultanahmet district has attracted tourists for a long time, it only arose as a major tourist destination after the state-driven tourism plans from the mid-1980s. Consequently, state-owned listed historic monuments such as the Ibrahim Pasha Palace, Hürrem Sultan Baths, and Kabasakal Madrasa have been turned into touristic facilities. After the conceptualization of the ordinary urban fabric as cultural heritage, historic houses along Soğukçeşme Street were listed as representatives of a traditional Ottoman fabric. In accordance with tourism development strategies, these houses were expropriated and allocated for tourist accommodation, causing the displacement of many inhabitants. In addition, the houses were reconstructed in an overly idealized manner, resulting in a pseudo-Ottoman streetscape, distanced from everyday life and contributing to the further musealization of the district.
State-driven interventions continued with the encouragement of investments to convert Sultanahmet Prison into the Four Seasons Hotel. The opening of a luxury hotel in the neighborhood triggered functional change in its immediate surroundings, largely for tourist accommodation and gastronomy. For the case of Armada Hotel, the company had itself begun transforming the surroundings to offer its guests a “genuine experience” of living in a historic neighborhood, including a bakery, a local restaurant, traditional dwellings, and so on. Again, it is a superficial portrayal of an Ottoman neighborhood that has been recreated in the service of tourism. The experience of living in “an authentic Ottoman house” has been exploited to attract tourists. Likewise, the Hürrem Sultan Baths, which initially served as a carpet shop, has recently been converted into its original function because of the rising demand from tourists for an “Ottoman baths” experience.
Although the preservation of traditional settings for historic monuments was eventually recognized within Turkish legislation, the policy of isolating monuments from their surroundings is still widely implemented. While the law protects listed buildings, newer residential structures in their immediate vicinity are often demolished and arranged as public open spaces, as in the case of Küçükayasofya Mosque, Hippodrome’s Sphendone, and the Imperial Walls. Consequently, the remaining listed houses were abandoned due to the loss of a dense residential fabric surrounding them (Figure 7c).
Following its declaration as a tourism center, major changes of ownership continued to take place in the Sultanahmet district. Expropriations for street widening have been concentrated mainly along the seawalls, the intersection of Divanyolu and Hagia Sophia, and the surroundings of the Sphendone, ever since the late Ottoman period. After the extensive damage of the İshakpaşa fire, new parceling operations were not conducted for the area lying between the Sultanahmet Mosque and Hagia Sophia, which meant that Sultanahmet Park was formed by expropriating an entire neighborhood. To implement the Soğukçeşme Street project, inhabitants of the privately owned houses were evacuated and all of the plots on both sides of the street were expropriated. Ownership of the southern part of the Sultanahmet Bazaar had already been transferred to the Treasury after the excavations were finalized for the Great Palace’s peristyle. Following the opening of the Mosaics Museum, ownership of these sites was given to the Hagia Sophia Museum Directorate, while private plots were expropriated to enhance the museum’s entrance. After the reconstruction of Sultanahmet Bazaar was agreed, its plots were handed back to the General Directorate of Pious Foundations, and the former site of the Kabasakal Mosque and the northern part of the bazaar were also expropriated (Figure 7b).
When the Istanbul Museum-City Project was announced in 2004, various state authorities praised this vision as a consensual view following long years of debate and struggle, even though it ostensibly implied strict conservation measures for the historic peninsula. The adoption of the musealization strategy as the future approach for the Istanbul’s historic peninsula aimed to brand the historic peninsula’s past to attract overseas investment and at the same time posited an artificially constructed Ottoman Istanbul as the area’s sole identity. The state-driven policy to transform the Sultanahmet district into a “museum-quarter” inevitably has stimulated yet further musealization of the Sultanahmet district in line with cultural tourism. The state-owned monuments within the Imperial Walls such as the Imperial Mint Complex, military barracks, hospital, and imperial stables are all being converted into museums or exhibition spaces. New attractions have also been established, such as the Istanbul Design Centre housed in Özbekler Dervish Lodge, Binbirdirek Cistern as a restaurant, and Ayasofya Public Kitchen as a carpet museum (Figure 8). In addition, the conservation masterplan approved the use of private homes into guest houses in the Cankurtaran and Küçükayasofya neighborhoods, intensifying the process of musealization.
Functional changes of buildings in the Sultanahmet district (Author, 2017).
When the urban transformation of the Sultanahmet district is evaluated, the most obvious change triggered by musealization has been the conversion of many buildings into museums. As more buildings have been converted into museums, the urban effect of musealization has become even more apparent, especially for the areas where museums are close together. The conversion of a single building not only affects that individual building but also stimulates the musealization of its surroundings (Figure 7d). For the monuments near these museums like the Hürrem Sultan Baths, musealization was regarded as the only possible means for their survival. The long discussions on the type of museum display for the baths reveal the pressure of musealization through the conversion of nearby structures into cultural facilities. Therefore, the major functional change in the Sultanahmet district is seen within the Imperial Walls and around Sultanahmet Square. Almost all buildings within the Imperial Walls function as museums or other cultural facilities. Soğukçeşme Street, the immediate surroundings of Sultanahmet Park and Square, is dominated by touristic facilities, most of which were the result of the implementation of the state-driven tourism plan. The establishment of the Four Seasons Hotel and Armada Hotel stimulated the reuse of residential buildings as tourist accommodation and gastronomy, especially in the Cankurtaran, Sultanahmet, and Küçükayasofya neighborhoods. The major functions dominating the Sultanahmet district have been museums, other cultural and educational facilities, accommodation, and commerce (Figure 8). The pressure of musealization on the daily practices of inhabitants in the Sultanahmet district is also palpable. Due to the decrease in the neighborhood services such as local shops, coffee houses, schools, or health care centers, inhabitants have either been legally obliged (in the case of expropriations) or have chosen to leave their houses. Today, there is a significantly smaller number of inhabitants trying to pursue their lives in what were once densely populated residential neighborhoods. 136 The daily practices of tourists are gradually replacing those of local inhabitants, due to increasing demands for the nostalgia of “authentic experiences.” It therefore becomes difficult to draw a clear line between what a “living” city is, and what is being transformed through musealization, given that the current Sultanahmet district is now such a part of its inhabitants’ lived reality.
Despite the changing cultural policies, ideologies, or conservation approaches, what remains constant is the desire for the musealization of the entire Sultanahmet district. However, the district has also become a contested site for Turkish authorities in their attempts to present an urban narrative to the outside world. Thus, the musealization of the Sultanahmet district reveals a constant struggle between the selective preservation and presentation of remnants from the late Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman periods.
Conclusion
The musealization of the Sultanahmet district, which was started by the involvement of the museum as an agent of urban change, remains an ongoing story in accordance with changing conceptualizations of cultural heritage. The impetus behind musealization is, first, the desire to conserve; but with the constant development of the scope of conservation, musealization has likewise enlarged its own conceptual sphere. Due to the conceptualization of conservation as limited solely to “historic monuments,” the preliminary attempts at musealization in the urban context in the Sultanahmet district can be traced back to urban regularizations accentuating these monuments over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With the re-conceptualization of historic houses as cultural heritage, the focus shifted from historic monuments to the urban fabric. Stemming from the promotion of tourism by the state authorities, the components of the urban fabric underwent substantial transformation in the service of tourism, encouraging further musealization. While the notion of cultural heritage always involves some form of selection, musealization adds yet another level of interpretation due to the way in which it utilizes signification to highlight certain aspects of urban form in the face of changing ideologies and cultural policies. Therefore, musealization is an ongoing process that expands its sphere of influence within the urban context in three ways: first, through the physical transformation of historic buildings and sites; second, by changing our conceptions of built heritage in response to conservation theories and shifting ideologies; and third, by interacting socially with the everyday lives of inhabitants.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
This article is based on my doctoral thesis at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. I thank Murray Fraser, my primary supervisor, and Sophia Psarra, my secondary supervisor, for their immense contribution and generous help at every stage of my thesis. I was fortunate to be given a Junior Fellowship at Koç University’s Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations and to receive a writing-up grant from the Foundation for Urban and Regional Studies, and so am very grateful to them as well.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.