The Grand Bazaar is the public place of the Istanbul and even all the country since 400 years. It existed with the conquest of the Istanbul and witnessed all the changes that occurred in the city, in the country.

The Grand Bazaar: From Past to the Present

We meet everyday building a new shopping mall in anywhere in our country. The malls are increasing in number and begin to take a place in our lives. They gather all the trade, entertainment and social interactions under their roofs and become the public spaces of the modern times. The social, political and economical changes have affected the public places and public activity. The spaces provided by malls don’t have the representation of our culture, history, traditions but it replaces this values. Thus, we forget our oldest public place, center of society once upon a time: The Grand Bazaar.

The Grand Bazaar, “an adventure of sights, sounds, and smells brought on by the people who reflect the East-West mix, by the merchandise with its varying color and complexity, and heightened by architectonic forms”(Wolfe, 28.) lives the heart of the Istanbul since 400 years. It has existed as the trade center of Istanbul against cultural, economical, social changes within country from Ottoman Empire to Turkish Republic. Even though it seems like an ordinary oriental, Eastern Bazaar, an assembly of shops, it is an eyewitness of the history that began with the conquest of the Istanbul and continues to the present.

Even there are some legends about that Grand Bazaar were exists since Byzantine Empire, we don’t have enough records to prove this idea. We don’t even know whether Byzantines have this type of covered bazaars, trade centers. We also don’t know what was in this place before the bazaar. So, according to accurate historical records Grand Bazaar had built in 1641 with the order of Fatih the Conqueror. After the conquest of the Istanbul, Fatih gave the order of building mosques, baths, bazaars to turkicize and islamicise Constantinople, to adjust the city to Ottoman culture. Iç Bedesten or Inner Bedesten had been completed firstly and then the Sandal Bedesten had been added. 61 streets, more than 3600 shops and hans within these two Bedestens, the Grand Bazaar spread on a 30.7 hectare area. As Gulersoy indicated, this world of streets is not symmetric and geometric. There are not in such a plan like cheese which observed in West cities and bazaars (Gulersoy, 15.) The dome structure of Bedestens reflects the main architectural characteristic Ottomans.

The hans were factories, behind the shops. The merchants produced their handicraft goods in these hans and then present and offer them to the customer in shops. Multiplicity of those shops, the specialization of each and the clustering of similar or related groups give the Grand Bazaar the old and biggest trade center in the world which has ever existed. The foreign traders and journeyers admired this plan of bazaar and defined it too rational to meet customer needs and provide an organized trade.

This is a preview of the whole essay

The Grand Bazaar was also famous with its assortment of occupational groups and variety of products produced by those groups or came from different side of the empire. In bazaar there were very interesting branches of occupation like miniaturist, gilder, relief-maker, furrier, mirror-maker, embroiderer, shawl-maker, cordwainer, antiquarian, bookbinder, staphylea-maker, cutler, spoon maker, and quilt maker and so on. Those handicraftsmen deployed to bazaar in an arrangement. In different Bedesten they were different handicraftsmen’s shops. In the Inner Bedesten, the most valuable and expensive products, the jewelry, diamonds and antiques have sold. The Sandal Bedesten was the center of cloth embroiders silk and thread which produced in Anatolia. The location of Bedestens also determined according to what was sold in them. For example the gate of the Sandal Bedesten looked to the Bursa side from which the silk came. The Bazaar also located in the neighborhood of the Golden Horn, the popular Harbor of those. So, the Bedestens were the meeting point of the products and goods, and they were also the meeting point of traders and journeyers.

The bazaar was not such a place within sold the home productions, it also had all the remained from Byzantine, Greeks and whichever civilization lived in Istanbul. As Berry indicated that, the bazaar had a chest of Byzantine solids, Ancient Greek coins, and old silvers (Berry, 28.) All these heritage of the history was sold in the antique shops in bazaar and had got attention of everyone.

Not just like a trade center, the bazaar functioned like a bank and a stock exchange. The merchants made function of a cash box by keeping people’s money or jewelry with a little fee. They also lend money to other merchants and some people with interest. The prices in the bazaar determined the prices around the country. The Grand Bazaar had with closed economy like the Ottoman Empire had. The money circulated within the bazaar and usually didn’t go away, the bazaar was self-sufficient.

Although the most important point of the bazaar was trade and production, the bazaar was also the public space of the Ottoman Empire. As Onay suppose that, trade which is one of the most important components of the public activities always plays a vital role by shaping and reflecting the social identity (Onay, 8.) The Grand Bazaar as the center of trade for the Ottomans was the meeting point of the all the public and reflection of the multiethnic, multicultural, multilingual structure of the being empire. You could encounter a person from anywhere of the country. Armenians, Rums, Jews, Persians, Turks were neighbor and shoulder-to-shoulder in bazaar as in the empire. Although these people had different cultures, traditions and belief, as a merchant or as a customer, they have a midpoint that is Grand Bazaar.

Banding together the people from empire, the bazaar teaches them its own traditions and beliefs. The competition was forbidden in the bazaar. The prices were same in every shop and determined with the consensus of the artisans. The story of “the first sale of the day” was most famous example of bazaar’s trade tradition. If the neighbor did not make the first sale of the day, leading the customer to your neighbor was a custom. Even though there was not a security system in bazaar, there didn’t happened any theft, fight or argument. There was a peaceful ambiance within the merchants and customer. The bazaar had opened with the sunrise and closed with sundown (Tınç, 2.) The bazaar was also closed Friday at prayer times and noontime of the days. Even the nonmuslim hosts of the bazaar did not attend to prayer; they did close their shops at that time. Besides these unwritten, soft laws, government also governed the bazaar. The handicraftsmen were governed by craft guild to which they were belonging. And the craft guilds were governed by the “kethüda” the chamberlain of the Ottoman Empire.

Since its construction, the bazaar had a lot of troubles, dangers, threats of destruction. Bazaar experienced a lot of things what the others bazaars, the capital Istanbul, the empire maybe the whole world experienced. It had seen all the economic, political, social, cultural changes within the country and around the world.

The most threats which bazaar encountered were fires. In that time, as the most of the buildings were wooden, the fires were troubles of the Istanbul. The bazaar also affected from this troubles in city. According the records in Kapali Çarşinin Romani, the first big fire in bazaar was in 1546. Then in 1589, 1618, 1652, 1660, 1695,1701,1750,1791 and 1826 faced the bazaar with blazes. (12-14, Gülersoy) Grand Bazaar suffered a lot of damaged from this fires but it had been restored again and again. The one other trouble which damaged bazaar was the earthquakes in Istanbul. First earthquake was in 1766 and which was not so detrimental. But in the earthquake of 1894, the Grand Bazaar had the most powerful damage. In 1894, Istanbul quakes 45 days long. After this earthquake, almost all the minarets had been destroyed. The Grand Bazaar could not stand up from this disaster. The biggest full-scale restoration of bazaar was after this earthquake.

In addition to being biggest full-scale restoration, the restoration in 1894 was also different from others. In these times, the Istanbul also was under the effect of Westernization. So, the affect of this trend also affected the reconstruction of the bazaar. Modification of bazaar was made in respect to West. Actually, the Westernization affected the bazaar before the earthquake, but the effect after earthquake was just on its structure and architecture. The westernization had also influenced the bazaar economically. The rising trend of industrialization in Western countries came into the picture in Ottoman Empire in the second half of the nineteenth century. The new products which products in factories have began to be imported and appeared in the bazaar. The mostly imported good was cloth and this imported clothes interrupted the hand woven cloth trade in bedestens. The import products were sold more cheaply in bazaar and found more favor by people who tried to westernize.The westernization also affected the other functions of the Grand Bazaar. In the nineteenth century, the banking began to appear in Ottoman Empire. Thus, the bazaar lost its bank function either. The Sandal Bedesten was gone out of business in 1914.

In the early years of Turkish Republic, the country had industrialized entirely everywhere and in every sector. By this way, the bazaar lost its title about selling handcraft goods. From now on, the goods in bazaar were standard, uniform, not labor oriented but machine oriented. The neither Western nor Eastern conformation of the country had also reflected to bazaar. The diversity in occupational branches had decreased. Most of the old brand became just in the names of the streets. The new sectors were entered to bazaar and they still exist. So, the bazaar lost its power and affect as an old trade center of the country.

In the twentieth century, with the effect of capitalism the consumption began to make for fun and self-reflection rather than need. This new trend revealed the idea of “shopping center” the covered places to shop and entertain. The world in 1956(Northland Shopping Center) and the Turkey in 1987(Galleria) met their new trade centers, the malls (Vural and Yücel, 102.) These malls began to new public spaces of the world in the twenty-first century. The Grand Bazaar, “the oldest and largest supermarket in the world”, was the earliest example of this shopping center. Nevertheless, the bazaar could not compete with shopping center number of which increasing all the time. The only customers of the bazaar are tourists because domestic customers don’t come to Grand Bazaar anymore.

The Assembly of the Grand Bazaar Merchants Hasan Fırat complained that “the Grand Bazaar cannot keep up with the modern times, it is behind of time and they will do whatever they can to revitalize the bazaar.” (ntvmsnbc.com) The bazaar must change to catch the era. It must be open in nights and official holidays. And the bazaar must be promoted and not be leaved alone in the competitive world of shopping malls.

The Grand Bazaar is the public place of the Istanbul and even all the country since 400 years. It existed with the conquest of the Istanbul and witnessed all the changes that occurred in the city, in the country. At one time the bazaar gathered all the traders and trade goods of the empire, it hosted all the production of empire under its dome, and it reflects all the beauty of our culture in that hand made production. The bazaar had own whatever we own and represented our country to us, to journeyers. The bazaar represents our visual richness as all our historical places do. The Grand Bazaar is even not only a heritage to us; it is a heritage to the entire world, because it ages gracefully as the oldest shopping and trade center of the world. So, the bazaar cannot be compare with the modern malls which are similar to each other and don’t have a meaning for cultural values, identity of social identity. Even they displace trade activity in the country; they can’t replace the value of bazaar within the hearts. “The bazaar expresses the Istanbul. It may be told about the Beauty of the Istanbul that it is a treasury, a wedding chest or a bureau of a bride” (Gulersoy, 4.)

-References-

Berry,Burton. Out of the Past: The Istanbul Grand Bazaar. (1977)

Gülersoy,Çelik. Kapalı Çarşının Romanı.

Onay,Nilüfer Sağlar. “Kamusal Iç Mekan ve Toplumsal Kimlik.”

The Offical Website of the Grand Bazaar

www.kapalicarsi.org.tr

Tınç,Lütfü. “Çarşı: Osmanlı kentinin hayat damarı.” Popüler Tarih. Vol. 78(Şubat 2007)

Vural, Tülin;Atilla Yücel. “Çağımızın yeni kamusal mekanları olan alışveriş merkezlerine eleştirel bir bakış.” Itüdergisi/a. Vol.5, 97-106 (Eylül 2006)

Wolfe,M.W. “The Bazaar at Istanbul.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. Vol.22, No.1 (1963) 24-28.

, 9 November 2008