The Istanbul 4th Vakıf Han is a historical large office building located in the

Sirkeci Sirkeci () is a neighborhood in the Eminönü quarter of the Fatih district in Istanbul, Turkey. The neighborhood borders to the north the mouth of the Golden Horn, to the west the neighborhood of Bahçekapı, to the east the Topkapı Palace a ...

neighbourhood of the

Eminönü Eminönü is a predominantly commercial waterfront area of Istanbul within the Fatih district near the confluence of the Golden Horn with the southern entrance of the Bosphorus strait and the Sea of Marmara. It is connected to Karaköy (historic G ...

quarter within the

Fatih Fatih () is a district of and a municipality (''belediye'') in Istanbul, Turkey, and home to almost all of the provincial authorities (including the governor's office, police headquarters, metropolitan municipality and tax office) but not the co ...

district of

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. It is owned by the Foundations Administration ( tr, Vakıflar Genel Müdürlüğü). Currently, it is used as a

five star hotel Hotel ratings are often used to classify hotels according to their quality. From the initial purpose of informing travellers on basic facilities that can be expected, the objectives of hotel rating have expanded into a focus on the hotel experie ...

of the World Park Hotel chain named Legacy Ottoman.

History

The building was designed in 1911 by architect Kemaleddin Bey (1870–1927), director of the Construction and Restoration Department at the Ottoman Ministry of Foundations (

Ottoman Turkish Ottoman Turkish ( ota, لِسانِ عُثمانى, Lisân-ı Osmânî, ; tr, Osmanlı Türkçesi) was the standardized register of the Turkish language used by the citizens of the Ottoman Empire (14th to 20th centuries CE). It borrowed extens ...

: ''Evkaf Nezareti''). It is styled in First Turkish National architecture, also called Ottoman Revivalism. It was constructed between 1916 and 1926 in the place of "Hamidiye

Külliye A külliye ( ota, كلية) is a complex of buildings associated with Turkish architecture centered on a mosque and managed within a single institution, often based on a waqf (charitable foundation) and composed of a madrasa, a Dar al-Shifa ("c ...

si", the religious buildings complex which belonged to Sultan

Abdul Hamid I Abdülhamid or Abdul Hamid I ( ota, عبد الحميد اول, ''`Abdü’l-Ḥamīd-i evvel''; tr, Birinci Abdülhamid; 20 March 1725 – 7 April 1789) was the 27th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, reigning over the Ottoman Empire from 1774 to ...

(reigned 1774–1789). It was built to meet the high demand for office blocks at the area in the early years of the 20th century. The completion of the construction took many years due to the participation of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

in the

Balkan Wars The Balkan Wars refers to a series of two conflicts that took place in the Balkan States in 1912 and 1913. In the First Balkan War, the four Balkan States of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria declared war upon the Ottoman Empire and defe ...

and

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. During the

occupation of Istanbul The occupation of Istanbul ( tr, İstanbul'un İşgali; 12 November 1918 – 4 October 1923), the capital of the Ottoman Empire, by British, French, Italian, and Greek forces, took place in accordance with the Armistice of Mudros, which ended O ...

by the

Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

following

, French troops, which were stationed in the old city zone, used the (at that time incomplete) building from 1920 to 1923 as

barracks Barracks are usually a group of long buildings built to house military personnel or laborers. The English word originates from the 17th century via French and Italian from an old Spanish word "barraca" ("soldier's tent"), but today barracks are u ...

, calling it ''Caserne Victor''. In the last decades of the 20th century, the building housed the

Istanbul Stock Exchange The Borsa İstanbul (abbreviated as BIST) is the sole exchange entity of Turkey combining the former Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) ( tr, İstanbul Menkul Kıymetler Borsası, IMKB), the Istanbul Gold Exchange ( tr, İstanbul Altın Borsası, İA ...

, as well as the offices of bankers and financiers. In 1995 the Istanbul Stock Exchange moved to its current building in the

İstinye İstinye is a neighbourhood in Istanbul, Turkey, on the European side of the city. It is located in the district of Sarıyer, between the neighbourhoods of Emirgan and Yeniköy, on the northwestern shore of the Bosporus strait. It is one of the f ...

neighbourhood, near

Maslak Maslak is one of the main business districts of Sarıyer, Istanbul, Turkey, located on the European side of the city. It was formerly an exclave of the municipality of Şişli, though being far north and actually closer to the municipalities ...

business district.

Architecture

The building, constructed with a steel skeleton frame, has seven floors including the basement. It is on the entrance side in Hamidiye Avenue long, and rises high while its maximum width is . It has an atrium with the dimensions . The facades in the west, south and east are covered by

cut stone Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

and

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite. Marble is typically not Foliation (geology), foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the ...

, while the rear facade in the north is covered by

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...

applied bricks. The building, flanked by two

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * Mi ...

s, originally had two symmetrically placed entrances in between 24 shops with a

mezzanine A mezzanine (; or in Italian language, Italian, a ''mezzanino'') is an intermediate floor in a building which is partly open to the double-height ceilinged floor below, or which does not extend over the whole floorspace of the building, a loft ...

. The entrances open up to both corners of a U-shaped passage. In the above four floors, there were a total of 148 office rooms of equal size for rent, 37 at each floor. At the end of the passage, two stairways and elevators enable to reach the upper floors. The distance between the two stairways is with respect to the fire precaution regulation of that time. There exists also a service stairway in the middle of the backside running from the ground floor to the mansard, which was unusual compared to other Ottoman business buildings of that period.

Redevelopment

In 2000, the building was emptied with the intention to be used as a court. After standing vacant for four years, the Istanbul 4th Vakıf Han was leased to the company Gap-San Eserler for a lease term of 25 years and monthly payment of 44,000 (approx. US$29,350 as of August 2006) for redevelopment and conversion into a five-star hotel. The restoration work, which lasted twelve months and cost 30 million (approx. US$20 million as of August 2006), was completed in 2006. After four years of development phase, the annual lease was increased to 148,000 (approx. US$94,300 as of 2009), and its value will be updated every four years. In order to place the hotel entrance with the reception area in a central position, the two original entrances were cancelled and the shop in the middle position was restructured as the main entrance. Beside arranging the

mansard roof A mansard or mansard roof (also called a French roof or curb roof) is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope, punctured by dormer windows, at a steeper angle than the upper. The ...

as a restaurant, no other significant changes were made in the historical building.

Legacy Ottoman Hotel

The Legacy Ottoman Hotel opened on July 2, 2006 as the only five-star hotel in Eminönü. The hotel consists of 153 luxury rooms and 19 suites in total.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Istanbul 4th Vakif Han First Turkish National architecture Office buildings completed in 1926 Office buildings in Turkey Fatih Hotels in Istanbul Redevelopment projects in Istanbul Hotels established in 2006 2006 establishments in Turkey Mimar Kemaleddin buildings