Ihlamur Pavilion

Overview

Guide

The Ihlamur Pavilion stands in the Ihlamur grounds, in the valley between Beşiktaş and Nişantaşı. Abdülmecid had two pavilions built here by Nigoğos Balyan, known as the Ceremonial Pavilion and the Retinue Pavilion; the first of these is the Ihlamur Pavilion proper. Rectangular in plan and of a single storey raised on a high basement, it is built of cut stone.

The Retinue Pavilion, a little beyond it, is a plainer building of two floors, with a double flight of steps on its entrance front. Inside are a hall and stairs at the centre of the entrance and four rooms at the corners. Its outside ornament is simpler than that of the other pavilion, though in the same spirit, and the interior decoration is likewise plain.

The two buildings stand within a place of recreation long known as the Ihlamur grounds, which the pavilion now shields from the noise and confusion around it behind high walls. The grounds were made up of three parts: the linden ground with its pool, the garden of affection, and the vineyard of Hacı Hüseyin. They are known to have been turned into an imperial garden in the reign of Ahmed III, to have been laid out again under Abdülhamid I and Selim III, and to have caught the interest of Abdülmecid in the first half of the nineteenth century.

The sultan would often come to rest at a plain vineyard house here and received some of his guests in it, among them the French poet Lamartine. Later, between 1849 and 1855, he had the present buildings put up in place of that small, plain house. One of them was used for ceremonies and the other for the sultan's retinue and at times for his household, and the two together were given the name Ihlamur Pavilion.

After Abdülmecid's early death his brother Abdülaziz took some interest, though not a great deal, in the buildings and the grounds he had loved, and held some of the cockfights, ram fights and wrestling matches he was fond of in this garden. Mehmed V came here often to rest, and during his reign the kings of Bulgaria and Serbia, visiting İstanbul in 1910, were received here.

Visit status for this record: open to visitors.