This article is part of a special section on design on water as a source of creativity.
On May 3, Zeyrek Cinili Hamam, a 500-year-old public bathhouse, reopened in Istanbul after 13 years and more than $15 million in restoration work. Named for its original cobalt and turquoise cladding (cinili is the Turkish word for “tile”), Hamam is the jewel of the Zeyrek district, a historic district in Istanbul that is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Visitors can enjoy a traditional Turkish bath under a high dome pierced by star-shaped skylights that beam twinkling rays of light into the rooms. A typical one-hour bath costs 95 euros (about $101) and includes an exfoliating scrub and massage accompanied by the soothing sound of water splashing in a marble basin.
As in the Ottoman era, anyone who can afford the entrance fee is welcome, regardless of faith, class or occupation.
Restoring the baths, built between 1530 and 1540, has been Bike Gursel's self-proclaimed obsession. 14 years ago, Ms. Marmara Group, a privately held real estate investment company, was a director at Marmara Group. Gursel decided that the classic Turkish Hammam was the only way to diversify the company's offerings.
“I had been trying to buy a hamam for a long time, but when I couldn’t find one, I started collecting hamam artifacts, including embroidered bathing towels and mother-of-pearl clogs,” she recalled. “I was already thinking about a museum.”
In 2010, at Mr. Gursel's urging, the Marmara group purchased the nearly ruined Zeyrek Cinili Hamam. “The architect said it would take three years to restore,” she recalled. “Not 13.”
Restoration experts KA-BA Architecture of Ankara, Turkey, oversaw the project and a team of archaeologists, engineers, academics and artisans. The long and complex process began with an examination of the bathhouse, which had been badly damaged over centuries by earthquakes, fires and neglect.
The 30,000-square-foot building was completely unstable.
“We had to dig down 36 feet to find solid ground,” said Cengiz Kabaoglu, founder of KA-BA Architecture. An underground structure of steel and concrete was constructed to strengthen the building. This allowed the builders to repair the roof and walls, install a gas furnace to replace the previous wood-burning furnace, replace the wooden beams, and tie the dome with steel ribbons.
Antiquities brought to the surface during excavations include ancient coins, 5th-century Roman glass bottles, Byzantine oil lamps, terracotta vessels and tile fragments. They can be seen in the new museum next to the bathhouse.
What did not appear were the dazzling 16th-century Iznik tiles that once covered the walls. Mr. Gursel learned that in the 1870s, an Ottoman antique dealer had taken the tiles to Paris. Some ended up in the Louvre. Other works at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Other works from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. All have been virtually reassembled in the exhibition halls of the Hammam Museum.
Now the walls of the hamam are covered with pale gray Marmara marble. The rooms are minimalist, elegant and tranquil. The roof of the rebuilt exterior has been resurfaced with lead, and hand-blown glass “elephant eye” caps protect the skylights. The rooftop terrace offers views of the magnificent dome.
Mr. Gursel retired in 2021, handing over his seat on the Marmara Group board and responsibility for restoration to his daughter, Koza Gureli Yazgan, a graduate of the business school.
Ms Gureli Yazgan described the restoration project as thrilling but not easy. “We value cultural preservation, but this project was like opening Pandora’s box,” she said. “Every discovery led to a delay. At one point the board said, ‘Stop digging.’ But we couldn't do that. “It was that story that kept us going.”
Hamam's original patron was the Ottoman Grand Admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa, also known as Redbeard in the Italian translation of his name. Born on the island of Lesbos in the late 1400s, Barbarossa was part of a family of pirates who roamed the Mediterranean during the Spanish conquest of Grenada. As privateers, they transported Muslim immigrants forced from Spain to North Africa, captured Rhodes and Tunis, attacked Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese fleets, and briefly conquered Algiers in 1516.
Barbarossa's successful naval campaigns attracted the attention of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, who appointed him Grand Admiral in 1534.
Before his death in 1546, Barbarossa commissioned the baths from Mimar Sinan, a former slave who, in 1538, became chief imperial architect of the Ottoman Empire at the height of its political and cultural power.
The bathhouse is a rare 'double hammam' with separate spaces for men and women.
“Besides its physical and spiritual cleansing function, the hamam also provided its regulars with the opportunity to socialize, catch up on daily events, share stories and celebrate life's many important moments together,” said visiting scholar Leyla Kayhan Elbirlik. wrote: Harvard University, new book on bathhouse restoration, 『Cinili Hamam of Barbarossa: Sinan's Masterpiece』. These milestones included circumcision baths for boys, pre-wedding baths for men and women, and post-natal baths for mothers and newborns.
The bathhouse was also famous for its address in the “fifth arrondissement” of the wealthy Ottoman district where palace officials and military commanders lived. Barbarossa probably chose a spot overlooking the Bosphorus so that he could see the sultan's shipyards, which he oversaw on the opposite shore.
Now, 500 years later, Zeyrek Cinili Hamam can again become the center of a trendy area. Across the street, a massive new hotel is under construction.