Perform Your Prayers in Mosques!: Changing Spatial and Political Relations in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Istanbul

Abstract

An article published on May 29, 1852, in the Journal de Constantinople reported a new environmental planning project for Istanbul’s Tophane district. A range of shops would be demolished so that the main street could be widened and transformed into a square that ended at the flamboyant main door of the Nusretiye Mosque (1823–26).Tophane Fountain and certain other neighboring fountains would be renovated, and trees would be planted between the boundaries of the Artillery Barracks and the widened mainstreet, to make the Tophane district ‘the most beautiful, pleasant and healthiest promenade of the city. This reported endeavor was only a small aspect of a larger project that began in the 1840s, after the proclamation of the Gülhane Rescript (November 3, 1839), and it was considered a physical extension of Ottoman modernization. Throughout the long nineteenth century, while the urban fabric of the capital was regularized and adjusted to the expectations and needs of the ongoing modernization efforts, novel building types, such as barracks,schools, and railway stations, and new social spaces, such as parks, theaters, and promenades, emerged. Many existing building types and thus the daily routines shaped by them were also affected.