ÇIRAĞAN PALACE

Description

Essentials about Çirağan Palace in brief

Those looking for extraordinarily luxurious accommodation in Istanbul will find it at Çirağan Palace. Located on the Bosphorus, the former Sultan’s Palace is now a 5-star luxury hotel. Of course, this was not always the case, as Çirağan Palace has had a very checkered history.

The history of Çirağan Palace

In the 16th century, the waterfront property on which today’s Palace Hotel stands belonged to Admiral Kilic Ali Pasha. Called Kazancioğlu Garden, the land stretched from the Beşiktaş district to Ortaköy. Sultan Ahmet III gave the Kazancioğlu Garden to his son-in-law, Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha of Nevsehir, who built the first yali (a waterfront villa) there. Together with his wife Fatma Sultan, he organized torch-lit festivities there, which were soon called Çırağan Şenlikleri (Çırağan Light Festivals) and gave the later palace its name.

From the 19th century onwards, the history of the Çirağan Palace was determined by a series of changes in ownership, demolitions and new buildings. At the beginning of the 19th century, the property was purchased by the Grand Vizier of Sultan Selim III, who had the building demolished and a new palace built as a gift for the ruler. The latter, in turn, gave the estate to his sister Beyhan, who, however, refused to accept the gift.

Subsequently, Sultan Mahmud II used the complex as a summer residence. He had the palace demolished again in order to rebuild it in a magnificent style. In 1855, Sultan Abdülmecid I decided to move his official residence to Dolmabahçe Palace. This caused a new demolition and reconstruction. Under Sultan Abdülaziz, the palace underwent a change in architectural style to Arabic, for which artists were sent to North Africa and Spain to make copies of famous buildings there. According to legend, the plans of the construction were redone twenty times due to the changing wishes of the ruler.

In 1910, the palace was finally destroyed in a fire. Only the outer walls were preserved. In 1946, the ruined building was handed over to the city of Istanbul, which used the ruins on the Bosphorus somewhat unconventionally as a building materials depot and sports field. In 1987, the palace was finally taken over by a group of investors and developed as a palace hotel of the Kempinski hotel group. The interior was designed in the Mediterranean style.