As the city's most popular summertime outdoor venue, the theatre primarily hosts music concerts in various genres of local and international performers.

[1][2][3][4] The construction of the open-air theatre was proposed by French urban planner Henri Prost (1874–1959), who developed a project for Istanbul in the 1930s.

Designed by Turkish architects Nihad Yücel and Nahid Uysal, the groundbreaking took place in July 1946, in the office time of Lütfi Kırdar (1887–1961), governor and mayor of Istanbul.

[5] In 1958, the venue was named after Cemil Topuzlu (1866–1958), mayor of Istanbul in the era of Ottoman Second Constitutional Monarchy.

The outdoor theatre is designed in the form of ancient amphitheatres with tiered seating for spectators, semicircular in shape, around a flat performance space.