This mansion in Kahramanmaraş, also known as the governor's residence, was built in 1904 by Mahmut Arif Pasha, the sanjak governor of Maraş, and served as the provincial governor's building in the republican period. It follows the plan known in Turkish domestic architecture as the central sofa type.
The building has two storeys, and the two are built quite differently, in the way traditional Maraş houses were: the ground floor is masonry stone wall with timber tie beams, and the upper floor is bagdadi, timber framing with infill, projecting in oriels to the south and west. The features to look at are those projections — the oriel on the south front of the upper floor supported by wooden brackets, and the overhangs carried on wooden brackets that run along the whole of the western front. The mansion is on Gazi Mustafa Kuşçu Caddesi in the Yörük Selim quarter.
Getting there
- Access
- City dolmuş, public buses and taxis reach it.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Kahramanmaraş as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 4.9 °C in January to 28.5 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in April, May, June, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in December (131 mm) and lightest in August (2 mm). Long-term means for 1930-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
