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Istanbul, Turkey – On a hill near the center of Istanbul’s UNESCO World Heritage-listed Zeyrek district stands Cinili Hamam, a 500-year-old Turkish bathhouse whose unbroken historical past stretches again to the heights of the Ottoman Empire and the time of its legendary naval commander, Hayreddin Barbarossa.
Commissioned by the Grand Admiral and constructed by famend architect Mimar Sinan round 1530, the so-called “Tiled Bathhouse” was a pinnacle of architectural splendour and class within the metropolis, well-known for its distinctive blue and white Iznik tiles.
The intervening centuries had not been variety to the long-forgotten marvel. Because the Ottoman Empire gave option to the more and more Westernised Turkey of the 18th and nineteenth centuries, sensibilities moved away from older traditions, resembling hammams, inflicting many – together with Cinili Hamam – to fall into disrepair.
Lots of its fixtures – together with its eponymous tiles – had been stripped away to be offered to worldwide museums and personal collectors, abandoning a hole shell.
Now, after a protracted and impressive 13-year restoration effort, this misplaced treasure has been revitalised via the efforts of the Marmara Group and is as soon as extra a spot of cleaning and rest, but additionally one which displays a lot of Turkey’s hidden historical past.
What was initially supposed to be simply one other luxurious bathhouse has developed considerably, embracing Turkey’s quickly increasing creative scene as a brand new arts venue, together with an on-site museum furnished with artefacts uncovered through the reconstruction effort.
“We didn’t know any of the tales as we began the excavations and the renovation course of,” founding director, Koza Yazgan, instructed Al Jazeera. “We discovered the Byzantine cisterns beneath. All of the objects that we discovered – all of the tile fragments, and different Byzantine and Roman artefacts, a few of which date again to the fifth century – take us via 1,500 years.”
To mark the conclusion of the restoration work, Marmara Group and curator Anlam de Coster have created a particular, one-off artwork present, hosted inside the bathing areas of the complicated. Titled Therapeutic Ruins, it options works by 22 native and worldwide artists round themes of private and societal transformation.
The phrase “therapeutic ruins” carries a number of meanings, suggesting that purification, creation and restore can solely be achieved via a difficult course of, very similar to the cleaning rituals of the hammam. Not solely are these ruins therapeutic themselves; the act of rebuilding – each right here and elsewhere – can have a transformative impact upon these endeavor the duty.
For de Coster, simply getting into the hammam was sufficient to set off a launch of the senses, permitting every to merge with the opposite.
“All these components – hearth, earth, air and water – exist inside this sanctuary. We expect first that water have to be the important aspect – for purification and cleaning – however, with out hearth, hammams can not exist. Hearth could be harmful, however one also can construct issues with hearth. It takes away the previous and ushers within the new.”
“There are a selection of mediums used within the exhibition that relate to the 4 components,” she continued. “On high of that, there may be the extra esoteric, extra alchemical reference of the 4 components which have existed because the daybreak of time. The artists within the ladies’s part particularly refer lots to these rituals of alchemical transformation.”
The ladies’s part of the hammam is dominated by three towering pillars from the French sculptor Marion Verboom’s Tectonie collection. That includes components and symbols representing totally different cultures from throughout historical past – the Greek Omphalos, a caryatid, a honeycomb sample from the capital of Rome, an Etruscan illustration of the uterus – the columns function an ideal anchor for a group reflecting the burden of time.
“My studio apply will get me very concerned with glass, plaster, resins, concrete, ceramic; all supplies that go from delicate or liquid to hardness with catalysis or firing,” stated Verboom. “Matter has its personal schedule, which I’m devoted to … Matter additionally offers me a way of time and historical past,” she added.
“This sense may be very vivid within the Cinili Hamam. All creations of time by layers accrued are a supply of astonishment and provides me the need to create. I need to analysis and assemble, reasonably than create a type from nowhere.”
The exhibition additionally contains 12 new site-specific commissions, every created in response to the hammam. These embody sculptures, work, drawings, pictures and installations; every a continuation of their creator’s distinctive methodology and perspective and impressed by their very own visits to Cinili Hamam.
Turkish designer Ezgi Turksoy’s ceramic set up piece, entitled A Ground Talisman, takes the type of a hoop of shiny white, porcelain seashells organized on the flagstones. By tapping into components of classical mysticism, she goals to mirror the hammam’s nature as a spot of private refuge and renewal.
“The circle has a variety of which means and symbolic worth in esoteric cultures and traditions,” defined Turksoy. “There is no such thing as a starting. There’s no finish. It represents delivery and continuity. It represents divinity. For me, all that basically got here along with the historical past of this constructing, as a result of this constructing went via lots.”
“A circle also can symbolize a portal, or a protected boundary,” she added. “In esoteric traditions, you construct a circle round your self, and that creates a boundary that you just set between your self and what’s exterior; a protected realm that you just create for your self, wherein to heal. I’m additionally obsessive about seashells; one factor that I actually like about them – when it comes to the symbolic worth – is that it’s a factor that this little creature creates to guard itself. It’s arduous, but it surely’s fragile.”
As soon as Cinili Hamam resumes operation as a completely functioning bathhouse – presently deliberate for March 2024 – the complicated will proceed to host a programme of artwork occasions, cementing it as a cultural hub, with its rooftop backyard and the repaired underground Byzantine cisterns making for a novel exhibition house inside the historic metropolis.
On the identical time, nice pains have been taken to make sure that the historic particulars of the hammam stay preserved and visual. Fragmented layers of plaster have been cleaned up however in any other case left intact, exposing the totally different generations of historic murals.
Components of the unique flooring tiles have been left in situ and integrated into new flooring. A whole underground help construction has been excavated to make room for the trendy gear for the hammam’s water provide to maintain the Byzantine cisterns free of recent equipment.
Guests can view the archaeological artefacts on show on the hammam’s in-house museum, designed by Atelier Bruckner, the centrepiece of which is a group of about 3,000 Iznik tile fragments, representing the 37 distinctive designs that after embellished the interior partitions.
The museum additionally supplies an perception into the baths’ extremely refined water and heating techniques together with interactive experiences that permit visitors to discover a digital reconstruction of Cinili Hamam, because it was at its top within the sixteenth century, together with an enormous assortment of objects related to Turkish hammam tradition.
“With the excavations in and across the bathtub, we discovered so many tile fragments and different artefacts,” defined development and tasks director, Yavuz Suyolcu. “Usually, while you discover an artefact it simply goes to the federal government. However – because it was a tile mattress and we discovered so many tile fragments – we started serious about exhibiting them in place.
“We determined to construct a museum subsequent to the hammam to exhibit all these artefacts, in addition to to provide a deeper understanding to individuals in regards to the historical past of bathing tradition,” stated Yazgan. “We’re additionally working with archaeology museums. They management what we do, how we doc and the place we put the whole lot, however our in-house archaeologists do the work.”
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