Establishment and development of hotels in nineteenth century Istanbul

ESTABLISHMENT A N D DEVELOPMENT

OF HOTELS

IN NINETEENTH CENTURY ISTANBUL

A L İ ESAT GÖKSEL

SİNAN KUNERALP

19. YÜZYILDA İSTANBUL'DAKİ OTELLERİ ELE ALAN BU BİLDİRİDE, İSTANBUL'DA ÖZELLİKLE PERA'DAKİ OTEL­ LER (Kİ BUGÜN PERA PALAS DIŞINDAKİLER YOK OLMUŞ­ LARDIR) İLE BOĞAZİÇİ VE ADALAR'DAKİ SAYFİYE OTEL­ LERİ ELE ALINMIŞLARDIR. DAHA GENİŞ BİR ÇALIŞMANIN ÖZETİ OLAN BU BİLDİRİ SOSYAL YAŞAMIMIZA BATI KÜL­ TÜRÜNDEN NAKLEDİLEN BİR KURUMUN "HOTEL'İN", AYNI ZAMANDA TÜRK MİMARİ YAŞAMINA NASIL BİR SEDAYLA GİRDİĞİNE DİKKATİ ÇEKME ARZUSUNDADIR.

AE/SK

PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE "ISTANBUL OTELCÎLİK/TURİZM VE TİCARET AŞ" AND ITS MANAGING DIRECTOR MR. HASAN SÜZER FROM THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE 1. INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON THE HISTORY OF TURKISH - ISLAMIC SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY HELD

I . INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON THE

HISTORY OF TURKISH-ISLAMIC SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY tTO 14-18 September 1981

ESTABLISHMENT AND DEVELOPMENT OF HOTELS IN 19tb. CENTURY İSTANBUL

A li Esat Göksel,Arcb.M,A. İstanbul D.M,M.A. I'aeulty of Architecture Department of A rcüitectural Design Methods Sinan Hüneralp Historian İs t anb ul-Turkey Sysop's!»

Hcftels in the contemporary sense were establish ed in Istanbul in the la t e 1830’ s . This paper examines the f a c i l i t i e s a v a ila b le to t ra v e lle r s p rio r to th a t'd ate and studies the reasons leading to the opening o f the f i r s t h otels in that decade. Hotels were b a s ic a lly a concept a lie n to the Ottoman society o f that day and they were opened by foreign ers fo r the b e n e fit o'f other fo reig n ers. The paper examines location,management and standarts o f the h otels and there i s a b r ie f p r o f i le o f the a c t iv it ie s o f M ig ird iç Tokatlian an en terprisin g businessman who estab lish ed a small scale h otel empire. There follow s an archytectural an alysis o f the main hotel? b r ie f descriptions o f h otels both down town in Pera and in re s o rt-p la c e s on the Bosphorus and the P rin ce s’ Is la n d s .

The i n i t i a l aim of this paper was to study the arch itectu ral and so c ia l impact o f the appearance during the f i r s t h a lf o f then XIXth. century o f hotels in Istanbul. However as we set out gath­ ering data we soon discovered how scant the a v a ila b le information was. We therefore had to put up with a le ss ambitious programm by lim itin g ourselves to r a is e a few tentative Questions on a h ith e r­ to neglected aspect of the urban trasformation o f Istanbul during the past centu ry.(1 )

Hotels provide on a temporary basis lodgings, n ou rrishment and occasionally entertainment. They are therefore in ev itab ly asso­ ciated with one or another aspect o f tra v e l and t r a v e lle r s . This may be one o f the reasons why such establishments were so la te in appearing in Ottoman Turkey and why they experienced so much hardship in strik in g ro o ts. Indeed, tra v e llin g was u n til very r e ­ cently a concept a lie n to the average Turk who usually contempla­ ted the very idea of moving around from one place to another with abhorence. O f f ic i a ls sent out on missions to the provinces were able to take advantage of an in t r ic a te system o f corvée, in ­ h erited from the Byzantine whereby the lo c a l notables were to pro­ vide fre e accomodation to touring representatives o f the central and provin cial adm inistration. (Kudumiye/Tesrifiye) The g e n ttle - man of le isu re who tra v e lle d for pleasure o r _self-improvement was a very rare species and traders bringing th eir wares to the la rg er market-places were catered fo r in the kervansaray or the han. The Western t ra v e lle r s who ventured into the Ottoman East had the choice of eith er with th e ir own nationals who had se ttled lo c a lly or of asking the h o s p ita lity of Orthodox convents or monasteries. Greek monks provided lodgings for t r a v e lle r s w ell up to the 1870's A French guide-book notes that the Greek monks had no excessive pretentions to a u sterity and that they welcomed t r a v e lle r s . Tie monks did not supply food to their guests but on the other hand they were profusely generous with th e ir wine. (2 )

Much has been w ritten on the kervansaray and the han. Let us simply r e c a ll b r ie f ly that a han was .a la rg e , square building usually of stone with a spacious inner court around which store-houses for merchandise were lin ed up. On the upper flo o rs were_to be found sparcely furnished rooms along a vaulted passage b u ilt on columns, th is c irc u la r g a lle r y opened on the inner court. The c lie n t e le of the hans were usually traders and merchants who took a room for themselves on the flo o rs and a depot on the court for their goods. Business was conducted in the han i t s e l f where a l l kinds of com- merci a l transaction took place. Most of the Istanbul hans were d i ­ vided on national lin e s and traders belonging to the same nationa­ l i t y would congregate in one p a rtic u la r han. The XIXth Century French w riter Gerard de Nerval , for instance, gives an account of one such han frequented mostly by Persian fur merchants. (3) I i s in te re stin g to note that a Greek form o f the Ottoman word, "khani" has come by extention to be used in the sense of a com­ mon v i lla g e inn. A guide-book gives a v iv id though uninviting des­ c rip tio n of the amenities o ffe re d by the average Greek Khann in the 18 7 0 's s

Le Khani est un batiment où l ’ on n e trouve que le t o it et le s quatre murs. I l se compose d'une chambre unique® le s f e n e t r e s quant i l yen en a sont à peine fermées par un v o let de b o is, quelquefois un plancher une espèce de l i t de camps, rarement une natte en forment l'ameublement. Les tab le s et surtout le s chaises y sont presque i n ­ connues Le voyageur d o it apporter avec lu i son l i t , ses provisions de bouche. Le landemain on paie au khanci un p rix assez eleve pour un g ît e aussi m auvais"(4). Let us a lso point out that the f i r s t

hotel opened in Edirne in the la te 1860's, the "Auberge de l'E t o i l e was in fact b u ilt on the lin e s o f a tra d itio n a l one-storeyed han with rooms for t r a v e lle r s on the upper flo o r overlooking a square yard with a fountain in the middle. As usual rooms were hardly furnished at a l l and food was not served in the hotel (5 ).

One can therefore assume that h otels are a foreign accretion engraft upon the lo c a l texture. Indeed a travelbook published in 1839 warns the t r a v e lle r s to Istanbul not to expect much as fa r as m aterial comfort goes but adds "to u te fo is l ’ in d ustrie des nations c iv ilis é e s s 'y est largement in s t a llé e s depuis quelques années pour assurer toutes les commodités de l'e x is t e n c e m a te r ie lle . " (6 ) The w riter proceeds to state that among those imported^"commodites" there are several moderately priced and w ell appointed h otels.

Hotels seem to have appeared in Istanbul in the 18JO'S as a re ­ s u lt both o f the increased m obility caused by the extention of steam navigation and o f the opening up o f the Ottoman Empire to foreiqn trade and finance which resulted in an in flu x of wouldTbe entrepreneurs v is it in g the-Ottoman c a p ita l and provinces. Indeed, during the follow ing decades most of the major c it ie s got endowed with one or more establishments providing "ce comfort r e l a t i f que l'o n est bien heureux de rencontrer dans le s p e tite s v i lle s d 'O r- ien t après de longues journées à cheval et le s stations dans les hans ou chez le s pa y san s".(7 )

That these establishments were foreign both in th eir in sp iration and their .inception i s t e s t i f ie d by several fa c to rs, the f i r s t being of a semantic nature. Bianchi’ s French-Turkish Dictionary published in 1846 gives a corrupted form o f an It a lia n word, lo sta riy é as a Turkish equivalent for h otel. The well-known Tur- kish lexicographer, Şemsettin Sami Bey, in h is Kamus-u Türkı published f i f t y years la t e r defines a lo^arrye a s b e in g a small lokanta, another word o f It a lia n o rig in which again according to the Kamus is a place " where foreign ers and t r a v e lle r s may lodqe and obtain n ou rrishment". In h is French-Turkısh D ictiona- rypublished in the same years Şemsettin Sami tran slated hotel with the word m isafirhane. As a second choice he gives a phoneti- cal tra n slite ra tio n in Ottoman of the word h o tel. The Kamu^ de^ _ nes a misafirhane as being an a li a franca bu ilding equipped with a!? the pre-requTsite for comfort and r e s t . I t i s in te re stin g to note that Şemsettin Sami who had adopted the axiom o f Messrs n it tré and Larousse that a diction ary without examples is not a d ic ­ tionary, chose h is with a d e fin ite didactic view. In the en ry for lokanta one can find a statement to the e ffe c t that w e s t a - Ved in a c l ean 1 .” . S im ila rly the example used to i llu s t r a t e the verb konmak , (to stay in a place, to lodge) is a sentence remini- seing strongly o f the kudumiye/teşri fiy e taxess passing through there we stayed at the house o f one o f the lo c a l g en try.'

But enough of lin g u is t ic s . Glancing trough the various l i s t s of h otels that opened in Istanbul and the provinces during the n i ­ neteenth century one fin ds out quickly that these establishments caterinq for Europeans were, owned and run by Europeans. There was also the occasional non-moslem Ottoman. But one has to wait t i l l the 1880's to find a Moslem Ottoman and a Hacı at that, run ning a h otel, one Hacı Ahmet Nun Efendi who owned the Hotel-Res taurant de Roumelie at S irk e c i. One can only speculate in our pre sent state of knowledge that the Hacı may have been a refugee immigre

or an immigrant from one o f the Roumelie Provinces ceded to Aus­ tria,Romania or Bulgaria and that he may have observed before h is departure the b e n efits o f such establism ents. S t i l l this i s mere speculation as he may a lte rn a tiv e ly chosen the name o f h is hotel because o f the proximity o f the newly opened railw ay station of the Chemins de Fer de Roumelie.

Hotels catering as we have s a ir mainly fo r foreigners were e s t a b li ­ shed in those parts o f Istanbul where these were more numerous. Fera with i t s la rg e community o f resid en t foreign ers and non-moslems had n a tu ra lly pride o f p la c e . in the e a r lie r years some h otels w were a lso established around G alata, The business quarter but th these establishments soon turned seedy and the better c la ss of customers deserted them in favour of the Pera h otels. Likewise t the two v illa g e s on the Bosphorus, BUylikdare and Tarabya with a la rg e and distinguished foreign community were soon to boast o f not a few h o te ls. Hotels were a lso established in the Moda penin­ sula on the Asian shore where an important English colony had s e ttle d . The English were a lso instrumental in the opening of h otels on the P rin ce s’ Islands when these islan d s were turned into fashionable summer resorts during the 1880's. With the inauguration o f the Sirkeci railw ay sta tio n , several hotels were established close to the station though one does not witness a sim ilar phenomenon with theo opening of the Haydarpaşa station , sta rtin g point o f the Anatolian Railway.

The Pera h otels were u sually to-be found in the proximity o f the foreign embassies and th e ir names bear testimony to the nationa­ l i t y or the alleg ia n c e o f their owners « Grand-Hotel Français, The Prince o f Wales, Hotel de Breslau, Hotel d'A n g le te rre , de Ro­ me, d 'Athènes etc. The in e v ita b le Hotel Du Terminus or Hotel de la Gare does not unfortunately appear,among the Sirkeci h o te ls, th eir owners being more imaginative or geographically minded with such names as Hotel d'Europe,de S o fia , d'andrinople though a French widow run a H otel-R estaurant-Brasserie deschemins de Fers Orientaux ju st opposite the sta tio n .

These h otels were la t e r a lly small foreign enclaves where n ation als o f one country wouflid gather to partake o f th e ir own food,wine and most important read th eir newspaper in the cabinet de lecture put at the disposal o f th e ir customers by most h o te ls. Germans, Ausfe tria n s , Hungarians It a lia n s and the French had th eir own h o tels. There was even one h otel fo r Central European Jews which adver­ tise d in the Beadeker that Yiddish was spoken. Advertisements re fle c te d nation al preferences with French-owned hotels putting emphasis on the cuisin e fra n ç a ise , bon v in " theme. Though many h otels were establish ed a fte r the 1840's these were u sually small a f f a i r s in converted private houses with a room capacity averaging 20-30 per establishment and f a i r l y poor stan - darts. There are two c o n flic tin g statements which seem to in d ic a ­ te that eith er a certain d e terioration did take place as the num­ ber o f h otels increased in the 1860's or that the customers have learned to be more demanding. Lacroix wrote in 1839 that the Pera h otels are reasonably priced and that they o f f e r adequate se rvic e .

On the other hand Isambert w ritin g some 35 years la te rs i s more severe or more discrim inate i he complains o f the predatoryness o f h otel owners whom he accuses o f over-charging th eir rooms. He goes as fa r as suggesting to the would-be t r a v e lle r to take up

rooms with private in d iv id u a ls as being both cheaper and more convenient. The same Isambert a lso reg re ts that there are no h otels i n the old part o f Istanbul and suggests that Ottoman kon- aks be turned into h o ste ls fo r to u ris ts as i t had su c ce sfu lly be­ en done in Damascus. ( I t i s refre sh in g to see that there i s no­ thing new under the sky when one reads o f the e f fo r t s o f the present day Turkish M in istry o f Tourism in the same d ire c tio n . As a matter o f fa c t one has to w ait t i l l the 1880’ s and the 1890's to see comparatively la rg e h otels opening in Istanbul a fte r the great f i r e o f 1870 and the earthquake o f 1894 which de­ vastated a great portion o f the wboden part o f Pera. Houses and bu ildin gs were reconstructed in stone a ft e r these two calam ities»

(Heretofore a l l the guidebooks were unanimous in advising t r a v e lle r s to take up residence in preference in stone b u ild in g s. The réglement o f the Hotel d ’ Angleterre , one o f the oldest in the c ity expressly porbad smoking in the rooms.)

The Pera Palace with 150 rooms, run by the Société des W agons-lits Internationaux, the to k a tlia n with 100 rooms, the B r is t o l, the Kroeker and tha Hotel de Londres each with 80 rooms werev e s t a b li­ shed at various dates in the 1880's and 1890’ s . But standarts must s t i l l not have improved much as by 1910 only one h otel in Istanbul, the Grand Hotel Continental e t Français was recommended by the Touring Club de France, with the reorgan isation o f the Istanbul m unicipality in the 1860’ s control o f the h otels had been given to the municipal services but th is supervision seems to have been f a i r l y light-handed. In the 1890's h otels were asked to commu­ nicate re g u la rly to the p o lice l i s t s o f th e ir patrons.

The H istory o f the Tokatlian i s comparatively the best documented one among the Istanbul h o te ls. We s h a ll g iv e a b r i e f account o f i t as i t i s a nice story o f a succesful business venture sta rtin g with M igirdiç Tokatlian, an Armenian restaurateur owning a restau ­ rant near the Grand Bazaar sp ec ia lize d in Turkish cuisin e with a chosen c lie n t e le from among the senior bureaucrats o f the near-by Sublime Porte, deciding to expand h is business by opening a branch on the fashionable Grand-Rue de Pera. with h is new branch inaugu­ rated in 1892 under the name o f Splendide, Tokatlian d e lib e r a t ly changed h is sty le from tra d itio n a l Ottoman to the vanguard o f t e ­ chnology. The Splendide with i t s plate-warm ers, i t menus hand­ w ritten in Erench on paper with golden frames soon became the ’’in " place where fashionable people had to be seen in good company. T Turkish Pashas and Beyy from the Sublime Porte followed Tokatlian to *-his side o f the Golden Horn and introduced new ways and habits to Turkish society. Soon th is was not enough fo r the en treprisin g Tokatlian who opened in 1894 again on the Goand Rue a la rg e hotel second only to the Pera Palace with l i f t s and a l l modern convenien­ ces He further expended h is empire by taking over in 1894 a c a fé - concertt at Kalender on the Bosphorus. F in a lly in 1905 he opened at Tarabya a summer annex to h is h otel whose Inauguration was the so c ia l event o f the year. A poster fo r the annex was designed by the famous It a lia n painter Zonaro.

Another in terestin g venture was the one run by a French doctor, Dr. Dujardin on the Moda peninsula which according to a f u l l page advert in the Annuaire Cervati fo r the year 1883 appears to be s some so rt o f a health farm with hydrotherapy and dynamotherapy■ o ffe re d as cures fo r a long l i s t o f a f flic t io n s ranging from ne* vous disorders to sexual d iseases. The h otel had grounds over

35.000 square meters and a private dairy. According to the advert service was f i r s t r a t e , "digne des etablissements le plus comfor­ table de l'E u rop e". A sp ec ia l allowance was made for lo c a l cus­ toms as a private sitting-room was reserved for la d ie s.

We s h a ll now b r ie f ly discuss the arch itectu ral implications of the establishment o f h otels in Istanbul. The follow ing w i l l only provide a theoratical framework for the discussion and d e t a ils w i l l be discussed over the projection of s lid e s .

XIXth century Ottoman architecture was confronted with the d i f ­ fic u lt y of having to cope with issues hitherto unknown. Answers had to be found to problems stretching fa r beyond the c la s s ic a l requirements o f r e lig io u s ,m ilita r y and c iv i li a n a rc h itetectu re. Demands in new spheres of a c t iv it ie s had to be met. Pre-indus­ t r i a l Ottoman society had perhaps no other choise than trying to bring an e c le c tic solution to these new issu es. Though i t must be said that some Ottoman architects carried th eir enthu­ siasm for eclecticism s lig h t ly too f a r . The famous remark o f the French poet Théophile Gautier bears testimony to these excesses! "the Dolmabahçe Palace i s neither Greek nor L itin .n e ith e r Gothic nor Renaissance, neitherArab nor Turkish". The combined e ffo r t s towards eclecticism o f expatriate European arch itects (often not the more prominent members o f the profession ) and o f th eir lo c a l hon-muslem colleagues were not enough to bring about a Greek r e ­ v iv a l in Ottoman architecture as i t had happened in.West European architecture at the same time. Islamic and O riental forms and con­ cepts had also to be taken into account. (8 )

Hotels constitute a good example o f tne new type of issues Otto­ man arch itects were asked to solve. There have been cases where they opted fo r an easy way out by allow ing themselves to be f r e e ­ ly in sp ired by sim ilar examples e x istin g in Europe. For instance, the neo-renaissance façade o f the Pera Palace i s strongly rem inis­ cent o f the B erlin Kaiserhof with i t s k olossal undertones. The Kaiserhof was also managed by the w a g o n s-lits. The arch itect o f the Pera Palace, lo c a lly born and trained Valaury has to h is c re ­ d it more o r ig in a l works such as the Ottoman Public Debt bu ilding or the Ottoman Bank headquarters. The f i r s t bu ildin g i s considered to be a manifesto fo r modern Turkish arch itectu re. Despite the general aspect o f i t s façade of i t s façade, the Pera Palace i s nevertheless sui qeneris because o f i t s s t y li s t i c references in bothi in t e rio r space and decorative adjustments. The Grand H all

(see plan - 24) with i t s Morisco arches and cupolas has a d e f in i­ te ly O rien tal character. The Salon Turc and the t ile d f i r e place in the Grand Salon ( 22 ) emphasize t h is . On the other hand the Toscan columns in the Dégagement, the brazero in the Bar present a pecu liar contrast with the rococco and a rt deco fu rn itu re . On the whole the physical planning o f the bu ildin g adeguatly meets the requirements o f today's h otel management.

ihe Hotel B r is to l i s a sm aller h otel designed on the same e c le c ­ t ic lin e s , the Hotel d 'A n g le te rre is,from the point o f arch itec­ ture o f la te Ottoman vintage. It s façade on the Meşrutiyet Cadde­ si i s a good example o f the receding zigzag in c la s s ic a l Ottoman arch itectu re. One finds complex references to eclecticism in the other important Pera h o te l, the Tokatliyan.

town h o tels, the Pera Palace and the Tokatlian, the Bosphorus hotels had rather simpler plans which allowed them to blend smoothly with the environment. The Summer Palace in Tarabya i s a delic a te structure b u ilt over the grounds of a former country house. As may be seen on the photograph, the architect managed to keep the terraces and the p in e -tre e s. The Bellevue in Biiyukdere i s a former private house converted into a hotel by means of adding a wing. I t i s also of la te Ottoman vintage. The T o k a tlia n 's wooden summer annex in Tarabya which stood in the p la ­ ce o f the present day Tarabya Oteli has a comparatively more complicated aspect but i s in balanced harmony with i t s background The h otels in the P rin ces' islan ds r e f le c t the a rch itectu ral mood proper to these Islan ds. The Splendide with i t s domes, tne Yatch Club with i t s blend of neo-clacissism , the R oyal'at Heybeli with i t s references to Greek lin e ar concepts o ffe r a disparate yet attaching fe e lin g of eerin ess.

As a conclusion one may ponrder on the m u ltifariou s reasons why, the Istanbul hotel industry never did , a fte r a promising s t a rt , r e a lly take o f f . Absence o f a la rg e lo ca l c lie n t e le , the fact that Istanbul was never an actual part of the to u rist c ir c u it ranging from Venice to the Upper N ile , the unwillingness o f the lo c a l c a p ita l holders to invest in a sector which did not y ie ld return compatible with the i n i t i a l investment may account for this It is in te re stin g to note that sim ilar conclusions may be arrived at in a study of the present state o f Turkish h o tels.

Notes

( 1 ) - Our thanks are due to P rof. Sedad Hakkı Eldem, Mr. Taha Toros and Hasan Süzer who have kindly helped us with information and documents.

( 2 ) - E. Isambert, Orient P aris 1873, P 49

( 3 ) - Gerard de Nerval, Voyage en Orient I I P aris 1869, p 185 ( 4 ) - E. Isambert, o p .c it .

(5 ) - ib id p 1045

( 6 ) - F. Lacroix, Guide du Voyageur en Orient P aris 1839 p 1 ( 7 ) - Isambert, opt. c i t . p 1012

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