Dolmabahçe Clock Tower () is a

clock tower Clock towers are a specific type of structure that house a turret clock and have one or more clock faces on the upper exterior walls. Many clock towers are freestanding structures but they can also adjoin or be located on top of another building ...

situated outside

Dolmabahçe Palace Dolmabahçe Palace ( ) is a 19th-century imperial palace located in Istanbul, Turkey, along the European shore of the Bosporus, which served as the main administrative center of the Ottoman Empire from 1856 to 1887 and from 1909 to 1922. Histor ...

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. Its construction was ordered by Ottoman

sultan Sultan (; ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be use ...

Abdülhamid II Abdulhamid II or Abdul Hamid II (; ; 21 September 184210 February 1918) was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1876 to 1909, and the last sultan to exert effective control over the fracturing state. He oversaw a period of decline wit ...

(1842–1918) and designed by the court architect Sarkis Balyan between 1890 and 1895. The clock tower was added to Dolmabahçe Palace, and stands in front of its Treasury Gate on a square along the

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

an waterfront of

Bosphorus The Bosporus or Bosphorus Strait ( ; , colloquially ) is a natural strait and an internationally significant waterway located in Istanbul, Turkey. The Bosporus connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara and forms one of the continental bo ...

next to Dolmabahçe Mosque. Designed in Ottoman

neo-baroque Neo-Baroque may refer to: * Neo-Baroque music * Neo-Baroque painting, a painting style used by Christo Coetzee and others *Baroque Revival architecture * Neo-Baroque film *the Organ reform movement The Organ Reform Movement or ''Orgelbewegung'' ...

style, the four-sided, four-story tower stands on a floor area of at a height of . Its clock was manufactured by the renowned French

clockmaker A clockmaker is an artisan who makes and/or repairs clocks. Since almost all clocks are now factory-made, most modern clockmakers only repair clocks. Modern clockmakers may be employed by jewellers, antique shops, and places devoted strictly t ...

house of Jean-Paul Garnier, and installed by the court clock master Johann Mayer. Its face features highly stylised

Eastern Arabic numerals The Eastern Arabic numerals, also called Indo-Arabic numerals or Arabic-Indic numerals as known by Unicode, are the symbols used to represent numerical digits in conjunction with the Arabic alphabet in the countries of the Mashriq (the east o ...

. In 1979, the original mechanical

clock A clock or chronometer is a device that measures and displays time. The clock is one of the oldest Invention, human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month, a ...

was converted partly to an electrical one. Two opposing sides of the tower bear the

tughra A tughra (; ) is a calligraphy, calligraphic monogram, Seal (emblem), seal or signature of a sultan that was affixed to all official documents and correspondence. Inspired by the Tamga, tamgha, it was also carved on his seal and stamped on the co ...

of Sultan Abdul Hamid II.

References

External links

* Towers completed in 1895 Sarkis Balyan buildings Towers in Istanbul Clock towers in Turkey Bosphorus Ottoman architecture in Istanbul Baroque Revival architecture in Turkey Beşiktaş Tourist attractions in Istanbul Ottoman clock towers 1895 establishments in the Ottoman Empire {{Turkey-struct-stub

See also

References

External links