All you ever wanted to know about Istanbul’s Hippodrome
While the Hippodrome was central to Byzantine social life, the Hippodrome continued to exist after the 1453 conquest because the Ottomans also saw the square as a perfect place to hold their own unique horse-related games. Thanks to a recent exhibition and accompanying book, people can see what the Hippodrome may have looked like in ancient times, along with its development in subsequent eras.
Anyone who has traipsed around Istanbul’s historic peninsula on the way to the Hagia Sophia or the Blue Mosque cannot have failed to come across the large, rectangular stretch of land that constitutes the Hippodrome.
For decades this space was nothing more than a dusty plain with a few decorative, almost nondescript pillars devoid of explanation. It was known as the Hippodrome where the ancient Romans and Byzantines used to have horse races (in modern times made famous by Charlton Heston in the movie “Ben Hur,” an adaptation from the book written by Lew Wallace, the United States’ ambassador to the Ottomans in the 19th century) and gladiatorial games of varying sorts. The square was also renowned for its political riots that nearly unseated Emperor Justinian, builder of the Hagia Sophia.
The square survived after the Ottoman conquest of 1453 because the new rulers saw the value of using the space for their own games, usually played on horseback. As a result, the square acquired the name Atmeydanı, or Horse Square. In addition, parades and festivities, such as those depicted in the miniatures of the 1582 Surname-i Murat III, were also held there. The space further played a part in political actions taken against later sultans because it was a convenient place for rebels to gather.
Now, thanks to the generosity of the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation, the Istanbul Research Institute and the Pera Museum, people can see what the Hippodrome may have looked like in its heyday and its progression through the various eras thereafter.
"Hippodrome/Atmeydanı: A Stage for Istanbul's History" is an exhibition that opened this week at the museum and will provide a start-to-finish pictorial tour of the space until April 18.
In tandem with the exhibition, a splendid, two-volume set of books has also been published in both Turkish and English under the same name as the exhibition. The set includes a number of articles related to the Hippodrome, as well as a catalog for the exhibition. The book certainly ranks among the most outstanding, comprehensive publications ever published for an exhibition and is one of those collections of material that provide all the information you ever wanted to know about the Hippodrome and likely much more that you have not even thought about.
In the foreword to the set, Suna, İnan and İpek Kıraç pay tribute to the Istanbul Research Institute whose research departments for the Ottoman and Republican periods facilitated the work. “We are happy to honor this very special and colorful square of Istanbul, which has hosted a variety of consequential incidents during the foundation of the Republic, with this exhibition that opens in 2010, the year Istanbul becomes the Culture Capital of Europe.”
The material has been collected under the general editorship of Brigitte Pitarakis, a researcher and writer on the Byzantine period. Because one can only see the masonry obelisk – whose origin is unknown – the Serpent Column and the Egyptian obelisk today, she says few can imagine the splendor and size of the original Hippodrome.
Throughout the Byzantine period, the Hippodrome was used for horse races between factions although this practice was discontinued under the Ottomans, who preferred to play cirit (a form of polo).
Volume one of the research deals particularly with the Byzantine period and reconstructions of what the Hippodrome might have resembled.
Pitarakis says much of the Hippodrome was still standing when the Ottomans conquered the city – apart from many metal statues and other ornamentation that had been melted down during the conquest of the city by 13th century Crusaders.
The books divides the Byzantine period into five sections: Imperial Power and the Arena of the New Rome, Entertainment at the Hippodrome; The Architecture and Archaeology of the Hippodrome; Ancient Myths and Urban Legends: the Statues of the Euripos; and Rediscovering the Hippodrome. The last section deals with the accounts of Western travelers between the 15th and 17th centuries.
Regarding the Istanbul Research Institute and Pera Museum, Pitarakis says, “[The institutes] seek to undertake exhibitions that highlight the major buildings, monuments and spaces of Istanbul that span the Byzantine and Ottoman periods and continue to make a significant contribution to the cultural richness of the Republic of Turkey.”
Meanwhile, part of the book’s visual material was provided by A. Tayfun Öner through 3-D representations of what the Hippodrome might have resembled in its former brilliance based on remains from the area found at the Istanbul Archaeology Museum and the garden of the Blue Mosque.
Öner worked with available archaeological reports, recent surveys, visual records, and the literary contributions of Byzantine writers and historians and travelers to ancient Istanbul.
His representations are so realistic that one could almost imagine being right in the middle of the Hippodrome – requiring only a few charioteers and a roaring crowd to whisk one back in time.
In fact, there are small statutes that represent some of the people that might have performed in the arena, as well as frescoes depicting charioteers in a church in Kiev.
If one thus fails to see the exhibition, there is always the two-volume set and with outstanding reproductions of colored miniatures and photographs.
The only problem is that each of the two is heavy and the thought of taking them around the exhibition is rather daunting. Nonetheless, the tomes are marvelous reference books that will stir up many memories of Istanbul’s historic peninsula.
(Hurriyet Daily News Friday, February 19, 2010)
Visiting Hours
Tuesday - Saturday 10.00 - 19.00
Sunday 12.00 - 18.00
Museum is closed on Mondays.
Special Days
Museum, with sugar and on the first day of Kurban bayram is closed on New Year's holiday
Address
Meşrutiyet Caddesi No.65
34443 Tepebaşı - Beyoğlu - İstanbul
Tel. + 90 212 334 99 00
Fax. + 90 212 245 95 11
Şunu daha büyük bir haritada görüntüle: Pera Museum (Pera Müzesi)
Hammam Rejuvenation – Istanbul’s Booming Spa Culture Is Revisiting Old Turkish Bathhouse Rituals
A 300-year-old Cagaloglu hammam on Istanbul's European side.
For centuries, pleasure combined with practicality in the hammams, or bathhouses, of Istanbul, where everyone from the humblest worker to the sultan himself regularly kept clean by indulging in the local tradition of a steam bath and professional body scrub. With the rise of modern bathrooms during the past 50 years, the tradition threatened to die out. Private bathing facilities replaced public hammams, and private hammams in the city's great houses became too expensive to maintain. Many of the city's most treasured hammam buildings, often important works of Ottoman architecture, have been converted into everything from cafes to warehouses.
Today, the hammam tradition is coming back in a new form, as the old rituals of steaming and scrubbing take pride of place in Istanbul's booming spa culture. Five-star hotels and upmarket health clubs automatically include strikingly designed hammam facilities in their spa complexes, and a new generation of Istanbul residents are reinterpreting the tradition to suit contemporary needs.
Classic hammams -- often attached to mosques, and built out of traditional white marble from Turkey's Marmara region -- developed an elaborate regimen, with every phase of gradual warming leading up to an intensive body scrub and a final soap massage. The center of a typical bathhouse was a domed room with a large heated stone slab, usually surrounded by cisterns of flowing water. Visitors would lounge on the hot stone, while keeping cool by pouring water over themselves, in preparation for the scrub. Although strictly divided by gender, Istanbul's hammams were also an alternative public space, where the city's vast array of religions, classes, and ethnicities mingled.
A washroom designed by architect Zeynep Fadillioglu features an antique stone kurna (basin) and a mirror from a traditional Turkish hammam.
The new designer hammams, in which the architect often playfully alludes to Ottoman decorative traditions, still offer the traditional scrub, but are refuges of privacy -- tiny by traditional standards, and usually reserved for one person or a couple. Some of the most popular of the new hammams are those in the four-year-old Hotel Les Ottomans, housed in a refurbished Bosphorus mansion; the Swissôtel The Bosphorus, which recently redesigned its hammam in a nontraditional style; and the Four Seasons Hotel Istanbul at the Bosphorus, arguably the most luxurious, which opened in 2008.
Today's hammams are seen as "detox treatments," says Viviana Quesada, spa manager at the Four Seasons, who notes that the hammam method of heating and scrubbing now serves as a consummate spa treatment. "It's a whole experience," more complete than a mere sauna and a massage, she says. Ms. Quesada is quick to point out the difference between the rather rough centuries-old massage method, still on offer in Istanbul's surviving public baths, and what the Four Seasons provides in its 2,100 square meter spa. "Outside, the traditional massage is very strong, almost like hitting. Here our concept is more about pampering: long -- not deep -- strokes."
A hammam designed by Sinan Kafader for the Swissôtel The Bosphorus.
Ms. Quesada says that the Four Seasons hammam caters to Istanbul natives, who make up to three-quarters of the spa's customers in the off-season, as well as to the city's visitors. Foreigners, she notices, "are not used to being in a hot treatment for 45 minutes," the usual time for a completed scrub on the elaborate heated stone, while "the locals request even more steam."
A hammam at the Four Seasons Hotel Istanbul at the Bosphorus.
Another difference, she says, is the new mixing of genders. "Guests can choose male or female scrubbers," she says -- a dramatic contrast to traditional hammams, where the scrubbers and the scrubbed were always the same sex. Also, a man and a woman can now share a session. "We have a lot of couples requesting to be together," she says. "Even the local Turkish people."
The need to cater to both a Turkish and non-Turkish clientele led the spa's designer, Istanbul architect Sinan Kafadar, to combine a range of styles throughout the spa's spacious rooms. "There are Turkish figures and patterns, but they're hidden," he says, explaining that the spa's domed swimming pool contains a Byzantine-style mosaic. However, once you walk into the actual hammam room, he says, "it's completely Turkish."
Mr. Kafadar, who is the co-director of the Turkish-Italian firm Metex Design Group, also recently redesigned Istanbul's Swissotel spa by getting rid of recognizable Turkish elements in its hammam rooms. By dispensing with the space's traditional octagonal design and substituting a sleek modernist sink design, Mr. Kafadar, preserves the hammam's traditional functions but achieves a radically different, distinctly contemporary atmosphere.
A detail inside the hammam at the Four Seasons
Mr. Kafadar and his firm are responsible for many of the city's leading hammams, and are currently working on the spa and hammam for the spring re-opening of the Pera Palace, Istanbul's legendary belle-epoque hotel. However, he isn't an enthusiastic hammam-goer, limiting himself to a few visits a year. "I like it," he says, "but not regularly."
The same cannot be said of architect Zeynep Fadillioglu, another leading Istanbul hammam designer, who grew up in a yali, or Bosphorus mansion, on Istanbul's European shore, where her family maintained a private hammam. Now a regular customer at the spa and hammam at the Hotel Les Ottomans, which she designed, she describes the whole process as a "a body facial."
"In my childhood, hammams were part of daily life," she says, speaking in the office of her Istanbul firm, ZF Design. "It was the way we cleaned ourselves."
"The main idea is that the middle stone has to be hot," she says, noting that the private hammams often were heated with wood and required monitoring by a vigilant staff of servants. "The hot atmosphere makes you mildly relaxed, so you are ready for the scrub."
Ms. Fadillioglu, now 54 years old, says that good scrubbers are as sought after as good hairdressers, and that, in the Istanbul of her youth, an exfoliated look was a sign of prestige. "The ladies all used to have pink skin," she says.
Ms. Fadillioglu also designs new domestic hammams for a select group of private clients, in which she makes modifications that reflect the tremendous cost and bother of maintaining the heated room. The hammams she now designs, she says, are "mostly with a twist," describing one hammam that features heatable marble benches rather than a more traditional, more cumbersome central stone.
Ms. Fadillioglu, who helped revive the eclectic Ottoman style in the 1990s, also uses traditional hammam interiors as an inspiration for bathroom design, as well as design details elsewhere in the home. She uses hammam-style bathroom sinks, in both antique and newly produced versions, in many commissions, and is especially fond of pestemals, the traditional wraps used instead of bathrobes. "The old ones are fantastic," she says, and she regularly looks for antique hammam textiles, which can be made of either silk or cotton, in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar. "I use them for cushions," she says.
A twist on traditional hammam culture is also behind the success of Jayda Uras, a Welsh-Turkish aroma therapist who opened her own apothecary shop, Vie en Rose, in Istanbul's hip Cihangir district two years ago. "We work like a bakery," she says, of her business, which features products like organic Turkish-coffee-and-rose facial scrub and custom-mixed herbal honeys, all made on site. Ms. Uras, a trained architect, currently works closely with hammams in Bursa, a three-hour drive from Istanbul and home to some of Turkey's best hot springs, and an eco-resort in Bodrum in southern Turkey. Both complexes use her products in conjunction with hammam treatments. "Because of the way essential oils work," she says, it's "important to use a heated environment" for the oils to penetrate the skin.
Istanbul's spa-like hammams have spread their influence to more traditional hammam settings, says Mary Senyuz, an American-born Istanbul resident and avid hammam-goer. Ms. Senyuz, an English teacher, regularly goes to a 300-year-old hammam, located on the city's Asian side, which is still connected to a mosque. Marked by an atmosphere that she calls "faded elegance" her local hammam costs her no more than 58 lira (€28), about a quarter of what visitors pay at the Four Seasons.
"It's set up very traditionally," she says, laughing out loud at the suggestion that there might be male scrubbers working on days when the bathhouse is reserved for women. But lately, she has noticed a change. Hammam-going, she says, has become "the healthy thing to do among a lot of the younger generation who have never been to a hammam before." She says that her local hammam began to offer oil massages about a year ago -- something she had never seen before in her decades of hammam-going; she chalks this up to the influence of the upscale hotel hammam-spas.
The cumulative effect of monthly exfoliation treatments has kept her skin remarkably soft, she says: "My skin is used to the hammam. Once you start going regularly, then you kind of need to go. You're trapped."
Bazaar bargaining for beginners
“How much did you end up paying for that?” is a common question among tourists and residents alike in İstanbul. No one, it seems, wants to pay full price for anything in the bazaars.
The good news is that bargaining is expected, so the initial asking price reflects that fact. Woe to the person who does not take time to haggle, because they will most assuredly pay an inflated price.
After seeing the many historic sites, most tourists then head for the Kapalı Çarşı (Grand Bazaar) with dreams of finding that special something to remind them of their visit to Turkey once they are back home. However, for many tourists and newly arrived expats as well, the bazaars can be intimidating places since prices are generally not marked, and even if there are prices posted, most first time visitors are at a loss as to when and how the bargaining game is played.
It is important to remember that bargaining is a game and is best undertaken with a good bit of humor. Good bargaining requires skill and patience. Your final goal is to be able to walk away from the sale feeling as if you have paid a fair price for your purchase. I grew up in a part of the United States where bargaining is an acceptable practice. However, for many North Americans, learning to bargain is uncomfortable at first because they are so used to having prices clearly marked and there are no further negotiations needed. However, in many countries, the original price that is marked or quoted for an item is simply the starting point for further negotiations. Many visitors to the bazaars of İstanbul do not realize just how much money they could save if they tried their hand at bargaining.
Before making an offer, though, it is best to look around the bazaar and compare prices of items that you are interested in buying. Do not settle on the first merchant you find who is selling what you are looking for. You want to collect information so that you have some leverage when bargaining. Keep in mind what you feel is a fair price, and have that as your goal when you do decide to start bargaining. Once you have a good idea of what the items you want are going for, you have a basis to begin negotiations.
Some people are embarrassed if they give a counter-offer and the merchant acts as if he has been personally insulted to receive a lower suggested price for one of his items. This is just one of the opening moves in the game of bargaining, and it should be taken in good fun. When you begin the bargaining process, do not gush over an item, or say that it is just what you have been searching for. One of the keys to effective bargaining is to act somewhat aloof, secure in the knowledge that if one merchant does not haggle down to a lower, more acceptable price, you will most likely find another version of the same thing elsewhere. The merchant knows this too, and will keep this in mind once the bargaining begins in earnest.
After deciding on the item you are interested in purchasing, you should carefully examine it for any flaws. If you find any dents, tears, scratches or other damage, point them out to the merchant. You should ask him to find similar, but undamaged items. If the flaw is something that you can live with, use this as a bargaining tool, asking for a lower price since the item is definitely not in pristine condition. I have purchased several old kilims, flat woven carpets, at greatly reduced prices due, in part, to the fact that I found small holes in them. Even though the merchants and I knew that these flaws were easily and quickly repairable, the price began dropping immediately. One creative carpet dealer tried to jokingly convince me that kilims with such “air conditioning” vents were actually more valuable. As we laughed over his sales pitch, the price continued to drop.
If you and the merchant cannot arrive at a price that is mutually agreeable to both of you, there are two ways to deal with the impasse. If the price is close to the amount you have budgeted for the item, but still a little on the high side, ask for an additional item that you like to be thrown into the deal. Just by asking for a little something extra added to sweeten the deal, you may end up with a price for two or more items that is acceptable to you both.
If it seems that no further negotiations will take place and the price is still too high for you, your final option is to politely thank the merchant for their time and walk away. If the vendor is determined to make a sale, he may make one final, lower offer as you leave their store. There is, however, the chance that the vendor will not want to further discount the item you were interested in and he may let you walk away from the sale. If this happens, keep looking for the same or similar item elsewhere in the bazaar. There are numerous dealers to choose from.
A rule of thumb is to follow your gut instinct. If you feel as if you are being taken advantage of, then you probably are. If you are happy with your purchase and the price you paid, then for you it was a good deal. Rest assured that merchants know the real value of their goods and they will make sure that they sell at a price that will allow them to make a profit.
Bargaining is a game, to be sure, but it is also a social interaction. The process can take anywhere from a few minutes, to hours or even days. It all depends on how much you want a particular item, how much the merchant wants to sell it and how long you both are willing to spar about the price. I bought one of my favorite carpets in Konya, in Central Anatolia. Negotiations took three days and endless cups of tea. The result was that I came away with a large carpet and a small one for a price the carpet dealer and I both were happy with. In addition, when I am in Konya with my family, we make a point to stop by and have tea with the carpet dealer and his family. A long-term friendship ended up as part of the bargain.
(Today's Zaman 04 February 2010, Thursday KATHY HAMILTON )
