Alay Köşkü & the Sublime Porte
Why is it significant?
Stand on the street where two buildings face each other across a few metres of asphalt. On one side, a grand gate with a deep, curving roof of carved wood and a gilded inscription. On the other, set into the corner of the palace wall, a many-windowed pavilion looking down on the street.
Key Facts
| Place | Alay Köşkü & the Sublime Porte |
|---|---|
| Address | Alemdar, Alemdar Caddesi, Bab-ı Âli, 34110 Fatih/İstanbul, Türkiye |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.01130, 28.97800 |
| Part of Walk | Sultans' Gates: Topkapı, Gülhane & the Sublime Porte in Istanbul |
| Generated | Generated |
Stand on the street where two buildings face each other across a few metres of asphalt. On one side, a grand gate with a deep, curving roof of carved wood and a gilded inscription. On the other, set into the corner of the palace wall, a many-windowed pavilion looking down on the street. Between them ran the line where the sultan watched his government.
The gate is Bab-ı Âli, the High Gate, known in the languages of Europe as the Sublime Porte. It was the entrance to the palace and offices of the grand vizier, and from the seventeenth century onwards the government of the empire worked here rather than inside Topkapı. So completely did the gate stand for that government that ambassadors wrote they had been received by the Porte, and treaties were signed with the Sublime Porte, not with the sultan's palace. Today the building houses the Governorship of Istanbul.
Across the street is the Alay Köşkü, the Parade Pavilion, rebuilt in its present form under Mahmud the Second. From its windows the sultan watched the great processions of the guilds and the army pass along this street, and, behind latticed windows, he could keep an eye on who came and went through his vizier's gate.
On the 23rd of January 1913, in the middle of the Balkan Wars, a group of officers of the Committee of Union and Progress led by Enver Bey burst into the building. The minister of war, Nazım Paşa, was shot dead, and the grand vizier was forced to resign. The raid on the Sublime Porte opened the way to the rule of a small group of Unionist leaders who would take the empire into the First World War.
Today the pavilion is a quieter place, a literature museum and library named after the writer Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar. From here, walk along the outer wall of the palace and turn up the narrow cobbled lane to your right, which climbs between the wall and a row of painted wooden houses.