Istanbul reopens 500-year-old hammam as cultural and wellness centre

One-off art exhibition at Zeyrek Cinili Hamam aims to teach the public about its historic significance

Mehtap Baydu, The Distance Between Me And Everything Else, 2017, exhibited as part of Healing Ruins at Zeyrek Cinili Hamam. Photo: Hadiye Cangokce

Standing inside the newly restored Zeyrek Cinili Hamam, it’s hard to believe the historic bathhouse in Istanbul is more than 500 years old.

But a closer look shows fragments of original marble flooring, precious Iznik tiles and original ornate fountains dating back to the 1530s.

After a monumental 13-year restoration project by The Marmara Group, the hammam is once more a place of wellness, community and culture, ready to be experienced by the public. What started as a simple renovation project became an investigative archeological endeavour, when Byzantine cisterns were discovered while digging to build a storage space and thousands of pieces of blue Iznik tiles and other artifacts were uncovered during further excavations.

“This hammam was built by legendary Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan, and it was commissioned by the Great Admiral Barbarossa,” founding director Koza Gureli Yazgan tells The National. “When it was first built, it was covered with Iznik tiles usually only found in royal palaces and mosques. The name Cinili Hamam means 'tiled bathhouse'.

The exterior of the Zeyrek Cinili Hamam. Photo: Murat Germen

“But we don't see any of these tiles today. In the 18th century, they were removed and sold in Europe to private collections and museums, and you see them in the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Louvre, the British Museum and here as well in the Topkapi Palace,” she adds.

“When we bought the hammam as Marmara Group in 2010, we didn't know any of these stories, and as we started the excavation and renovation process, we found all these tile fragments, as well as other Byzantine and Roman artifacts, which date back to the 5th century.”

The hammam was still partially functional until 2010, but in near-derelict conditions, with mold and peeling plaster, missing flooring and cracked walls plaguing the grand building.

Whilst removing the modern plaster that had been slapped onto the walls, the conservation team uncovered stunning 18th and 19th century wall murals on the hammam’s walls, painted over where the Iznik tiles would have once been. The different decorative layers have been left in the restored hammam, rather than completely being stripped back to its original state.

Maude Maris, Antique, 2016, exhibited as part of Healing Ruins. Photo: Hadiye Cangokce

“After the tiles were removed, the walls were empty, and you'll see these old paintings that were made over about 100 years by each new owner. They're also very valuable to us,” Gureli Yazgan says. “We found them during the excavations as well, and although the tiles are really important I think these wall paintings are also special and are part of the hammam's story over time.”

A garden and museum designed by Atelier Bruckner has been added to the bathhouse to showcase these findings and share the fascinating history of this unique hammam.

The cisterns will be used for artistic exhibitions – about 3,000 fragments have been recovered and their research shows that more than 10,000 tiles with 37 unique designs once adorned their inner walls.

Through clever projections, the designs have been digitally recreated using the existing fragments, allowing visitors to see them complete. A 360-degree virtual tour also shows the hammam’s design as it would have been in the 16th century.

Women's cold room at Zeyrek Cinili Hamam. Photo: Ibrahim Ozbunar

To mark the hammam’s reopening on September 30, a one-off art exhibit titled Healing Ruins is taking over the whole complex. Curated by Anlam de Coster, it will showcase the works of 22 local and international artists, all exploring themes of transformation, mythology, rituals and community. The show is to allow the public to see the whole hammam for free, before it’s heated to become a functional bathhouse once more.

I think it's also interesting that the audience relates to the hammam in a more visceral way than just reading through texts," de Coster tells The National.

“The exhibition is looking into how discovering and restoring palimpsest layers of history might have a transformative effect on us, both on an individual level and as a society. You might think the show title refers to ruins being healing, but what we wanted to open to discussion is the act of healing the ruins themselves, and how as a society, by looking into the ruins of our previous civilisations and having a dialogue with them, we can find ways of healing ourselves on all levels.”

Hera Buyuktasciyan, The Labyrinth of the World Paradise of the Heart, 2022, exhibited as part of Healing Ruins. Photo: Hadiye Cangokce

Turkish artist Elif Uras’s artwork Cosplay presents a set of modern Iznik tiles, a medium the artist has been working with for more than a decade. Displayed in the women’s section of the hammam, which no longer has a single piece of original tile left, she chose to tackle this historic abcense by offering her own tiles.

“It tells the story of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu who provided the first ever written account of the women’s section of a Turkish bath in her Embassy Letters, published in late 18th century,” Uras tells The National.

“Lady Montagu’s writing upends the traditional western attitude towards the East as oppressive towards women and provides an account of the relative freedoms that Turkish women had at the time, especially in the hammam, where they could socialise freely, drink coffee, converse, bath and gossip."

Elif Uras's Cosplay iznik tiles. Photo: Maghie Ghali

“Her descriptions of the hammam she visited led to an entire ‘bath genre’ in orientalist painting in the West,” she adds. “It was also fascinating that she loved to dress and pose in Turkish dress and had several portraits of herself painted dressed in the Ottoman style.”

These stories have been immortalised in Uras’s tiles, showing comical scenes of Lady Montagu in her western undergarments, or dressed up in Ottoman garb, spending time at the hammam.

Other interesting artworks include Asaroton, an installation of handmade brass shapes and symbols laid on a bed of volcanic basalt poured into one of the fountains, by Turkish artists Lara Ogel.

Zeyrek Cinili Hamam Museum. Photo: Giovanni Emilio Galanello

"Hammams are important to me because every year on my birthday I come to a hammam to shed the skin of my previous 365 days, so that I can be reborn again. You sweat, sometimes you have tears and you just pour everything out that the world gave you that year,” Ogel says.

Following the exhibition, which runs until November 5, the baths will open for public use from March, allowing visitors to enjoy a traditional bathing experience in this historic hammam. The male and female sides will periodically switch, so both sides of the architecture can be experienced regardless of gender.