Haseki Hürrem Sultan Hamamı
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The Hagia Sophia Hurrem Sultan Bathhouse ( tr, Ayasofya Hürrem Sultan Hamamı, aka Hagia Sophia Haseki Bathhouse () and Haseki Hurrem Sultan Bathhouse ()), is a sixteenth-century
Turkish bath A hammam ( ar, حمّام, translit=ḥammām, tr, hamam) or Turkish bath is a type of steam bath or a place of public bathing associated with the Islamic world. It is a prominent feature in the culture of the Muslim world and was inherited ...
(''hamam'') in
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 was commissioned by
Hurrem Sultan Hurrem Sultan (, ota, خُرّم سلطان, translit=Ḫurrem Sulṭān, tr, Hürrem Sultan, label= Modern Turkish; 1500 – 15 April 1558), also known as Roxelana ( uk, Роксолана}; ), was the chief consort and legal wife of the Ottom ...
(also known as Roxelana), consort and wife of the
Ottoman sultan The sultans of the Ottoman Empire ( tr, Osmanlı padişahları), who were all members of the Ottoman dynasty (House of Osman), ruled over the transcontinental empire from its perceived inception in 1299 to its dissolution in 1922. At its hei ...
Süleyman the Magnificent Suleiman I ( ota, سليمان اول, Süleyman-ı Evvel; tr, I. Süleyman; 6 November 14946 September 1566), commonly known as Suleiman the Magnificent in the West and Suleiman the Lawgiver ( ota, قانونى سلطان سليمان, Ḳ ...
. It was designed by
Mimar Sinan Mimar Sinan ( ota, معمار سينان, translit=Mi'mâr Sinân, , ) ( 1488–1490 – 17 July 1588) also known as Koca Mi'mâr Sinân Âğâ, ("Sinan Agha (title), Agha the Grand Architect" or "Grand Sinan") was the chief Ottoman Empir ...
on the site of the historical
Baths of Zeuxippus The Baths of Zeuxippus were popular public baths in the city of Constantinople. They took their name because they were built on a site previously occupied by a temple of Zeus,Gilles, P. p. 70 on the earlier Greek Acropolis in Byzantion. Constructe ...
for the religious community of the nearby
Hagia Sophia Hagia Sophia ( 'Holy Wisdom'; ; ; ), officially the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque ( tr, Ayasofya-i Kebir Cami-i Şerifi), is a mosque and major cultural and historical site in Istanbul, Turkey. The cathedral was originally built as a Greek Ortho ...
.


Architecture

The public bath-house was constructed as a charity building by architect Mimar Sinan in 1556. The long structure is designed in the style of classical Ottoman baths, having two symmetrical separate sections for males and females. Both sections, situated in a north-south direction, are on the same axis that was a novelty in Turkish bath architecture. The men's section is to the north while the women's part is to the south. The exterior walls are built in courses of one
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 two
brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...
s. The changing room of the men's section has four pointed-arch stained-glass windows above in the facade whiel the women's changing room has three windows. The entrance to the men's section is in the north and the women's in the west. Unlike in the architecture of other Turkish baths, there is a
stoa A stoa (; plural, stoas,"stoa", ''Oxford English Dictionary'', 2nd Ed., 1989 stoai, or stoae ), in ancient Greek architecture, is a covered walkway or portico, commonly for public use. Early stoas were open at the entrance with columns, usually ...
with a dome in the center of the men's section's front side. The roofs of the dome and the stoa are decorated with bricks, and covered by
lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...
sheeting. A red and a white
palmette The palmette is a motif in decorative art which, in its most characteristic expression, resembles the fan-shaped leaves of a palm tree. It has a far-reaching history, originating in ancient Egypt with a subsequent development through the art o ...
with a golden epigraph on green ground ornament the pointed arch of the monumental entrance door. Each section consists of three basic, interconnected rooms, namely the changing room (''soyunmalık''), the intermediate cool room (''soğukluk'',
frigidarium A frigidarium is one of the three main bath chambers of a Roman bath or ''thermae'', namely the cold room. It often contains a swimming pool. The succession of bathing activities in the ''thermae'' is not known with certainty, but it is thought ...
) and the hot room (''sıcaklık'',
caldarium 230px, Caldarium from the Roman Baths at Bath, England. The floor has been removed to reveal the empty space where the hot air flowed through to heat the floor. A caldarium (also called a calidarium, cella caldaria or cella coctilium) was a room ...
). The hot rooms of the two sections are adjacent while the changing rooms are situated at both ends of the axis. The sequence of the rooms proceeds through the changing room, cool room and hot room of the men's section, followed by the hot room, cool room and the changing room of the women's section. The men's changing room is rectangular and covered with a dome, which is surrounded by a
frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...
of zigzag-shaped leaves in the
ablaq Ablaq ( ar, أبلق; particolored; literally 'piebald') is an architectural technique involving alternating or fluctuating rows of light and dark stone. Records trace the beginnings of this type of masonry technique to the southern parts of S ...
decorative technique. There are pointed-arch
niche Niche may refer to: Science *Developmental niche, a concept for understanding the cultural context of child development *Ecological niche, a term describing the relational position of an organism's species *Niche differentiation, in ecology, the ...
s on each side of the room. There are toilets, roofed with three domes, on one side of the cool room, with a shaving room on the other side A door leads into the cross-shaped hot room, which has four
loggia In architecture, a loggia ( , usually , ) is a covered exterior gallery or corridor, usually on an upper level, but sometimes on the ground level of a building. The outer wall is open to the elements, usually supported by a series of columns ...
s with fountains in the corners, and four self-contained cubicles for privacy ('' halvet'') under a small dome. In the centre of the hot room is a large
octagon In geometry, an octagon (from the Greek ὀκτάγωνον ''oktágōnon'', "eight angles") is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A '' regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, whi ...
al
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 ...
table called a ''göbektaşı'' (literally: navel stone), which bathers can lie on. It was formerly decorated with mosaics. The large dome of the hot room, which sits on the octagonal-shaped walls, has small glass windows to create a half-light from the top. The women's section has the same architectural plan as the men's side, although its changing room is slightly smaller.


Restoration

The building was closed for a long time, then was used as a warehouse before undergoing restoration in 1957–1958. For many years it served as a government-run carpet showroom. In 2007, the Istanbul city authorities decided to return the hamam to its original use after a 105-year hiatus and a tourism development group won the tender for its restoration. After a three-year-long restoration project that began in 2008 and cost US$11 million, the bathhouse reopened in May 2011. It is now operated by Haseki Tourism Group.


References


Literature

* *Kocaeli University Faculty of Architecture In 2008-2011 Instructor Re-Bath of Architects Tevfik İlter Executed For Use Hamam (Bath)


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hagia Sophia Hurrem Sultan Bathhouse Infrastructure completed in 1556 Buildings and structures in Istanbul Mimar Sinan buildings Ottoman baths Ottoman architecture in Istanbul Fatih 1556 establishments in the Ottoman Empire Public baths in Turkey