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Bulgur Palas
Bulgur Palas
	Bulgur Palas in the 1990s as office building of Ottoman Bank
General information
Architectural style	First national architectural movement
Address	Aksaray, Kargı Çk. 5, 34096 Fatih, Istanbul
Coordinates	41°0′25″N 28°56′38″E / 41.00694°N 28.94389°E
Construction started	1912; 113 years ago
Renovated	2021
Owner	Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB)
Technical details
Floor count	5
Floor area	3,750 m2 (40,400 sq ft)
Design and construction
Architect(s)	Giulio Mongeri

The Bulgur Palas, originally known as the Bolulu Habip Bey Mansion, is a historical mansion located in Istanbul, Turkey. It was restored and redeveloped into a library and cultural center for public use after its acquisition by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality in 2021.

History

The Bulgur Palas is located on Kocamustafapaşa Hill, one of the seven hills of Istanbul,^[1] at Kargı Çıkmazı 5, in Aksaray in Fatih, a municipality of Istanbul in Turkey. The mansion was commissioned by Mehmet Habip Bey (1878–1926), a soldier and a deputy of Bolu from the Committee of Union and Progress in the Ottoman Parliament of the Second Constitutional era (1908–1920),^[1]^[2] and designed in 1912 by Giulio Mongeri (1873–1951), a Levantine architect of Italian descent.^[3]^[4]^[5] The construction of the house, also called the Bolulu Habip Bey Mansion, was financed by the trade in grain and bulgur, a cracked wheat foodstuff, during World War I.^[1]

Habip Bey was arrested after the Armistice of Mudros in 1918, and exiled to Malta in 1919, leaving construction unfinished.^[1]^[2]^[4] As a result of financial difficulties he encountered during that period, the house was mortgaged to the Ottoman Bank as security for a loan.^[1] After his sudden death in 1926 from a heart attack, the building was transferred to the Ottoman Bank as collateral for the family's debts. For a period of time, the mansion was used as a bank archive, and its three apartments as residences for bank employees and their families. A downstairs room was reserved as a birdhouse for hundreds of domestic canaries, which were probably raised to live in the branches of the Ottoman Bank.^[2]^[6] The building was later abandoned.^[4]

In 1955, the mansion became the target of looting during the Istanbul pogrom because of the non-Muslim families living there at that time and the non-Turkish character of the Ottoman Bank.^[2] The building remained under the ownership of the Ottoman Bank and passed in 2001 into the ownership of Garanti Bank, which had acquired the Ottoman Bank.^[1] In 2021, the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality purchased the Bulgur Palas,^[6] and began efforts to restore the building, intending to open it to the public as a document center, archive, library, exhibition hall, and café. The building was opened to visitors on 28 February 2024.^[7]

Architecture

Mongeri's design exhibits traces of the First national architectural movement.^[5] The building consists of three full floors and one half floor.^[8] According to the current owner, the building has five floors.^[9] There is also an observation terrace.^[9] The main body of the building is constructed with unplastered red brick, and only the part with the towers is plastered. There is a railing-free deck around the domed roof at the top. The mansion is surrounded by extremely high walls.^[2]

Bulgur Palas features 3,750 m² (40,400 sq ft) of covered space in 81 independent sections, a 1,750 m² (18,800 sq ft) open area, a 1,000 m² (11,000 sq ft) outbuilding, and a 9 m² (97 sq ft) ornamental pool.^[1] The newly established library section with 150-seat capacity contains about 25,000 books and documents.^[9]

Bulgur Palas (June 2015)
During Restoration (September 2023)

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g "Bulgur Palas'ta 100 yıl sonra açılış". BirGün (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 4 March 2024. Retrieved 26 April 2024.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Kaya, Önder (May 2021). "Tarihi Bulgur Palas yeniden kapılarını açıyor". Tarih Dergisi (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 4 May 2024. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
^ "İBB tarihi Bulgur Palas'ı satın aldı". Yeni Çağ Gazetesi (in Turkish). 30 April 2021. Archived from the original on 24 June 2021. Retrieved 16 June 2021.
^ ^a ^b ^c Aksu, Fatma. "Bulgur Palas'ın hazin hikâyesi". Hürriyet (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 15 May 2021. Retrieved 16 June 2021.
^ ^a ^b Çinici, Damla (10 April 2015). "Başkent Ankara'nın İnşasında Etkin Bir Mimar: Giulio Mongeri ve Yaşam Öyküsü" [The Biography of Giulio Mongeri, an Architect Active in Building the Capital City Ankara] (PDF). Ankara Araştırmaları Dergis (in Turkish). Archived (PDF) from the original on 20 May 2024. Retrieved 26 April 2024.
^ ^a ^b ""Bulgur Palas'ı satın aldık; kültür mekânına dönüştüreceğiz"". TV5 (in Turkish). 1 May 2021. Archived from the original on 24 May 2024. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
^ "Bulgur Palas nerede, İstanbul'un hangi ilçesinde?". NTV (in Turkish). 1 March 2024. Archived from the original on 26 April 2024. Retrieved 26 April 2024.
^ Kaya, Önder (3 June 2014). "Bulgur Palas". Gezgin Dergi (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 17 August 2013. Retrieved 16 June 2021.
^ ^a ^b ^c "İBB Bulgur Palas Kütüphanesi - Atatürk Kitaplığı" (in Turkish). İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi. Archived from the original on 26 April 2024. Retrieved 26 April 2024.