Beykoz Mecidiye Pavilion, also known as the Beykoz Kasrı, stands on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus by the landing of Hünkâr İskelesi in the Yalıköy quarter of Beykoz, among trees at the top of a park that rises from the water in terraces. It predates both Dolmabahçe and Beylerbeyi palaces, and the Directorate of National Palaces describes it as the first building on the Bosphorus to be built in masonry and in the new style.
It was a gift, and an awkward one. Mehmed Ali Pasha of Kavala, the governor of Egypt, began building it for Sultan Abdülmecid in 1845; after his death his son Said Pasha completed it in 1854 and presented it to the sultan. Because the pavilion stood as a reminder of the Egyptian Question, which had caused the empire considerable trouble, Abdülmecid showed it little favour — the Directorate offers that as the likely reason. In its early years the sultan used it as a riding pavilion for day stays; later it served for receiving foreign statesmen and ambassadors.
It is a building of the Westernising period: two storeys, half masonry, symmetrical and laid out on the central-hall plan, with a neoclassical front. The facing uses stone imported from Italy alongside Turkish white marble, and the interior is finished with coloured porphyry. Photographs from the reign of Abdülhamid II show it richly furnished with gilded suites, Hereke fabrics for upholstery and curtains, Baccarat vases and large crystal chandeliers and candelabra. Archive documents record that rooms for the sultan's officials and servants, a kitchen, a bathhouse with a small pavilion opposite, a water cistern, an orangery, a henhouse, an aviary and a dovecote were built alongside; most of these are gone.
The garden covers 70 dönüms, around seven hectares, laid out in terraces. In it stands a small retreat known as the mountain bath, its interior walls set with oyster shells, built to stay cool on hot summer days.
One occasion gives the measure of the place. On Saturday 15 October 1869 Abdülaziz gave one of his grand banquets here for the Empress Eugenie of France and had the army parade past for her. İstanbul came out to Beykoz by land and sea to watch; troops lined the main roads, decked with Turkish and French flags, and an ornate pavilion in Arab style was put up on the meadow, its centre for the sultan and his guest and its wings for state officials and ambassadors. Abdülaziz used the pavilion often in summer, watching the Bosphorus, having wrestling matches held on the Beykoz meadow and hunting in the game preserve at Tokat village.
What happened afterwards is the unexpected part of the story. Because the pavilion stood outside the city in clean air, it was given over to public service: first as an orphanage, then in the 1920s for patients with trachoma, and from 1953 as a preventorium. When that closed in 1963 it became the Beykoz children's chest diseases hospital, and its interior was altered along the way. It passed to the National Palaces on 23 December 1997 and was handed over empty in 1999; after a full restoration carried out under the site architect İ. Umut Kukaracı with experienced craftsmen, it opened as a museum on 11 April 2017.
Entry fee
- Beykoz Mecidiye Kasrı · Local
- 120 ₺
- Beykoz Mecidiye Kasrı · Foreign
- 300 ₺
- Beykoz Mecidiye Kasrı · Reduced
- 60 ₺
Visiting hours
- Visiting hours
- 09:00 - 17:00
When to go
- Climate
- Across İstanbul as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 6.8 °C in January to 24.7 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in December (99 mm) and lightest in July (22 mm). Long-term means for 1950-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
