Social Lathering

In 2010, real estate company the Marmara Group bought the Zeyrek Çinili Hamam site with a view  to restore and open it within three years. It quickly became clear that this deadline wouldn’t be possible. ‘It became like an excavation as we discovered all these layers, all these stories,’ founding director Koza Güreli Yazgan tells me over video call from the hamam, as it finally approaches its opening date over a decade later. ‘The hamam pulled us into its history, and we could not dare to just start operating without sharing that.’

Zeyrek Çinili Hamam stands within Istanbul’s Fatih district, old Constantinople, in the neighbourhood of Zeyrek, an Unesco World Heritage Site. The historic bathhouse was commissioned by Hayreddin Barbarossa, the Grand Admiral of the Ottoman navy, and built by Ottoman chief architect Mimar Sinan in the mid 16th century. Çinili translates as ‘tiled’ – an understated reference to the hamam’s interior, decorated in the elaborate iznik variety that combines traditional Ottoman patterns in cobalt blue and turquoise with the influence of the blue-and-white porcelain of Ming-dynasty China. They adorned the imperial buildings designed by Sinan, a contemporary of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, and the Zeyrek Çinili Hamam was the first example of iznik tiles being applied to a public, communal space; 10,000 of them, in 37 unique patterns, would have lined the walls.

When restoration began, however, there were no tiles left. ‘During excavation, we found only fragments,’ says Koza. ‘We traced them, and through working with experts and historians, we were led to European museums who had our tiles in their collections — the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Louvre, the British Museum. We contacted them to find out more about them; we will show the patterns through 3D mapping on tile fragments, so people will be able to see how the tiles would have looked in the 16th century.’ The tile pieces themselves, Koza enthuses, are to be shown on a dedicated floor of the museum, in a display designed by Atelier Brückner. 

These fragments are part of a process of discovery that has uncovered paintings, carvings, Byzantine cisterns and many more objects besides. What had begun as a hamam restoration project has since evolved into the development of a whole compound. ‘The hamam is only one third of the site,’ Koza tells me. ‘We didn’t plan to build a museum, or have an arts and culture programme, but it turned into this as we discovered everything.’

The museum is set to display artefacts associated with the hamam ritual, including Ottoman wooden shoes decorated with precious metals and mother-of-pearl, bowls and towels. Visitors will be able to witness the advanced water and heating system of the hamam, as well as the complex’s cisterns and its naval carvings, thought to have been created back when it was originally built. Bringing it all to life, too, are a series of contemporary audio-visual installations, which will draw on the project itself: its process of gentle mending.

The hamam however, is still on course to be returned to full functionality: it will be heated and re-open as a bath house next year. But, as a celebration of both the site’s history and its future as a convivial, communal environment, Güreli Yazgan decided to herald the place’s renewed purpose with an exhibition in the bathhouse rooms. She approached curator Anlam de Coster for help; she, in turn, leapt at the chance. ‘Once I began to understand the secrets and myths that were unravelled through the process of restoration, I was hooked,’ says De Coster.

‘It’s a place charged with history, with symbolism, with incredible characters that carried it until today.’ Güreli Yazgan made clear that her main goal was to share the hamam with as broad an audience as possible – De Coster’s exhibition design, accordingly, draws on present voices as well as past ones to help tell its story. ‘When you experience the traditional hamam ritual,’ she reflects, ‘it is more of an inward journey. The exhibition will invite people to experience the site, and to understand the layers of history that were unearthed through the lens of contemporary art.’ 

In Healing Ruins, works are exhibited throughout the building, ‘exploring the possibilities for transformation at an individual and societal level’, both through the act of repairing ruins, and experiencing them as inherently healing in and of themselves. ‘It is an intuitive, indirect way of travelling through time. It can be an almost spiritual way of engaging with the hamam.’ Twelve artists were invited to make new, site-specific works responding to the history, mythology, and architecture of the site, including Lara Ögel, Zoë Paul and Francesco Albano, which are shown alongside works by Hera Büyüktaşcıyan, Ayça Telgeren, and Marion Verboom. 

‘During the restoration process, they found poems written in Farsi on the walls,’ says Anlam. ‘One of the artists is creating a sound installation based on the poems, and interpretations of their meaning. They also found materials from Byzantine crypts and holy sites — the central stone in the men’s section has a cross on its reverse side — and one of the artists is responding to these spolia, both those that were found at the hamam, and imaginary examples that draw from the multiple civilisations built on top of each other in Turkey, using each other’s ruins, fragments, and materials. This work is a beautiful example of how nothing falls from the sky: we are each building on each other’s experiences.’

Hamams are traditionally divided into three sections: a cold room with daybeds and a fountain, a warm stone room, and a hot room with a heated stone, complete with either a single or double bath. Rooms are set up in this way to allow for relaxation, so bathers might slowly adjust to the heat as the skin softens, ready for laying on the stone for a full body scrub and massage. They have high domes – mirroring the architecture of religious buildings – with dappled light casting shadows that dance over the walls from a constellation of skylights scattered over the ceiling.

Sinan’s hamams are known for their symmetry and acoustics, informed palpably by his approach to designing mosques. The architect’s knowledge of Byzantine architecture and engineering meant that, as well as being beautiful, elaborate structures, his buildings were reinforced for earthquakes, and were equipped with intricate water systems that allowed the hamam to be self-sustaining. ‘He used every water source, from rain water to the cisterns,’ Koza explains. ‘Because he was commissioned by Hayreddin Barbarossa, Sinan had special water permits; he used a network called Forty Fountains.’

 It’s a technical feat she wanted to build upon invisibly in the restoration; duly, architectural design duo Kaba made use of modern technology to bolster what was there already, any traces hidden underneath the hamam or in neighbouring buildings. ‘In the historic parts, you can’t see anything contemporary,’ Koza says. The closest thing to a decisive modern intervention in the hamam is the woodwork that lines the dressing rooms, a practice that was introduced in the 18th century.

Hamams have historically been integral to communal life: a place where people would gather for important events and celebrations. It was especially true for women, who ‘would get together here to eat, share, and gossip,’ says Koza. ‘Hamams have lost this role, and become touristic spaces. We hope that, through things like our arts and culture programme, we can regain this sense of community and belonging.’

For more information about Zeyrek Çinili Hamam, visit zeyrekcinilihamam.com or Instagram @zeyrekcinilihamam