Hurrem Sultan Hamam

The Haseki Hürrem Sultan Hamamı in Istanbul is a 75-meter-long bathhouse designed in 1556 by architect Mimar Sinan on ancient Roman bath grounds. Commissioned by Hürrem Sultan, wife of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, the structure introduced a novel symmetrical layout for male and female sections. After serving as prison housing and a carpet bazaar, it underwent an eleven million dollar restoration and reopened in May 2011.

Istanbul · from the walk “Sultans, Spices & Hidden Streets” · audio ~4 min · Generated

Hürrem Sultan Hamamı, Ayasofya Meydanı No:2, Sultanahmet, Fatih, İstanbul

Who designed the Haseki Hürrem Sultan Hamamı in Istanbul?

You are standing on ground that has been dedicated to bathing for nearly two Thousand years. This is the Hürrem Sultan Hamami... and behind its elegant walls lies one of the most extraordinary stories of power, love, and reinvention in Ottoman history.......... The woman who commissioned this place was born around fifteen oh five in a small town called Rohatyn, in what is now western Ukraine. Her birth name was likely Aleksandra Lisovska. She was kidnapped as a young girl by Crimean Tatar raiders... sold in the slave markets of Constantinople... and delivered into the imperial harem. Just another captive among hundreds. But she was Not like the others.......... She caught the eye of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, and something remarkable happened. He didn't just favor her. He Freed her. And then he did what no sultan had done in nearly a century... he married her. A Genoese ambassador wrote at the time that this was "a most extraordinary event, one absolutely unprecedented in the history of the Sultans."

...... She bore him Five sons, shattering the Ottoman custom that each concubine could produce only one heir. She refused to leave the capital when her sons were sent to govern distant provinces, as tradition demanded. She moved into Topkapi Palace itself, right next to the sultan's own chambers. And she became the first woman in Ottoman history to hold the title Haseki Sultan.......... And This hammam? It was part of her legacy of public works. Designed by the legendary architect Mimar Sinan in fifteen fifty six, it sits on the exact site of the ancient Baths of Zeuksippos, Roman baths that dated back to the second century and were destroyed in the catastrophic Nika Revolt of five thirty two! Sinan built the structure seventy five meters long, with two perfectly symmetrical sections for men and women placed on the same axis... a design that was completely new for Turkish bath architecture at the time.......... But here's a detail most people walk right past. After operating for centuries, the hammam was shut down around nineteen ten. And what became of this masterpiece? It was used as overflow housing for convicts from the nearby Sultanahmet prison... then as a storage facility for paper and oil... and Then it became a government carpet bazaar, its marble halls stuffed with rugs and the sounds of haggling. For over a hundred years, no water flowed through these ancient pipes.......... It took an eleven million dollar restoration beginning in two thousand eight, and in May two thousand eleven, the hammam finally reopened. The water flows again, just as Hürrem intended... in a place where people have come to bathe since the days of the Roman Empire.

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