Tulip Period architecture
The term “Baroque” is sometimes applied more widely to Ottoman art and architecture across the 18th century including the Tulip Period.
[4][5] The first signs heralding the new decorative style of the early 18th century can be seen in the yalı (waterside mansion) of Amcazade Hüseyin Köprülü Pasha on the shores of the Bosphorus, completed around 1698.
[6] The wooden mansion, which has since suffered from decay over time, contains painted panels featuring flower vases, possibly inspired from the motifs of tile decoration like that inside the Sultan Ahmed I Mosque.
[8] The beginning of Ahmed III's reign in 1703 saw the royal court return to Istanbul after a long period of residence in Edirne in the late 17th century.
It also inaugurated a new era of growing cross-cultural exchange and curiosity between the Ottoman Empire and Western Europe.
[10] In 1720 an Ottoman embassy led by Yirmisekiz Çelebi Mehmed Efendi was sent to Paris and when it returned in 1721 it brought back reports and illustrations of the French Baroque style which made a strong impression in the sultan's court.
Ahmed III's grand vizier, Nevşehirli Damat Ibrahim Pasha, was in large part responsible for stimulating this construction and restoration activity.
[16] During the Tulip Period, the Library of Ahmed III in the Third Court of Topkapı Palace (inside the Enderun School) was completed in 1719, right before Yirmisekiz's embassy to Paris.
While floral motifs and imagery were well-established in Ottoman art and decoration before this, these paintings distinguish themselves from earlier examples by their naturalism.
Ünver Rüstem states that the Fruit Room demonstrates how the Tulip Period style was already in existence during the early reign of Ahmed III (before 1718) and how it owed some of its elements to even earlier trends.
[26][25] It was located at Kâğıthane, a rural area on the outskirts of the city with small rivers that flow into the Golden Horn inlet.
[25] This was a new practice in Ottoman culture that brought the public within close proximity of the ruler's abode for the first time and it was noted by contemporary art and literature such as in the poems of Nedîm and in the Zenanname (Book of Women") by Enderûnlu Fâzıl.
[3][11] These low-cost materials characterized many constructions of this period and made it easier to carry out the state's new program of rapid and widespread architectural activity.
[29] Aside from the sultan's main palace, one of the most notable pavilions at Sadâbâd was the Kasr-ı Cinan, a cruciform kiosk with thirty columns and a central fountain, standing next to a large pool along the course of the canal.
[34] During the Patrona Halil revolts of 1730 the pavilions and gardens of the upper elites were destroyed by mobs, but the sultan's palace itself survived.
[35] It was repaired by Selim III (r. 1789–1807) and rebuilt by Mahmud II (r. 1808–1839), before being demolished by Abdülaziz (r. 1861–1876) and replaced with the Çağlayan Palace.
[38] The culmination of the Tulip Period style is represented by a series of monumental stand-alone fountains that were mostly built between 1728 and 1732.
In the first half of the 18th century, Istanbul's water supply infrastructure, including the aqueducts in Belgrad Forest, were renovated and expanded.
Previously, fountains and sebils only existed as minor elements of larger charitable complexes or as shadirvans inside mosque courtyards.
The interior of the mosque is light and decorated with tiles from the Tekfursaray kilns, which were of lesser quality than those of the earlier Iznik period.
One group of tiles is painted with an illustration of the Great Mosque of Mecca, a decorative feature of which there were multiple examples in this period.
[52]In military architecture, the Niš Fortress, located in what was a strategic city for the Ottoman Balkan provinces, dates in its current form to 1719–1723.
