Find books, articles, and websites about houses and housewares in Ottoman Turkey in the 16th century. Because of the limited information from the 16th century, I have included resources covering the early 17th century as well. The mid-17th century appears to be when fashions change enough that houses definitely no longer reflect 16th-century practices, but use caution with early 17th-century sources as well.
When possible, I link to a free online copy of the resource that is hosted on a reputable site.
Essential Resources
These three resources are the must-reads, the best-of-the-bests.
History of Istanbul: From Antiquity to the 21st Century
This amazing resource began as a ten-volume anthology of scholarly articles covering everything from archaeology, to topology, to politics, religion, and language, to the architecture and social life of Istanbul. All the contents are now translated into excellent English and presented online for free. The articles listed below are some I found particularly useful, but there are many, many more.
- Düzenli, Halil İbrahim and Açık, Turan. “An Istanbul House in the Early XVIIth Century: Dimensions and Costs.”
- Yılmaz, Emre Can. “Housing Culture in Istanbul Before and After the Conquest.”
Faroqhi, Suraiya and Neumann, Christoph K. The Illuminated Table, the Prosperous House: Food and Shelter in Ottoman Material Culture. Halle (Saale): Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt, 2017.
Download by clicking the link labeled “PDF.”
Although the articles below are the ones most applicable to the topic, I also recommend the articles on food and cooking, especially the delightfully named “The Chickens of Paradise.”
- Tanyeli, Uǧur. “Norms of Domestic Comfort and Luxury in Ottoman Metropolises, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries.”
- Yérasimos, Stéphane. “Dwellings in Sixteenth-Century Istanbul.”
Faroqhi, Suraiya. Men of Modest Substance: House Owners and House Property in Seventeenth-Century Ankara and Kayseri. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
This splendid and exhaustive review of houses and their surroundings in two cities in central Turkey covers the years 1600 and 1690.
Ottoman Turkish Houses and Housewares
Behar, Cem. A Neighborhood in Ottoman Istanbul: Fruit Vendors and Civil Servants in the Kasap Ilyas Mahalle. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003.
Bertram, Carel. Imagining the Turkish House: Collective Visions of Home. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008.
Canbulat, İbrahim. “The Ottoman House: Structure and Form under the Synthesis of the Anatolia -Ottomans | Osmanlı Evi: Anadolu -Osmanlı Sentezinde Strüktür ve Form.” Symposium on Restoration and Conservation of Traditional Timber Structures 4, 2016. Pp. 61-168. In English and Turkish.
— “Travellers’ Narratives on the Ottoman House: Filling the missing links in the evolution of structure and form.” Conference: Travellers in Ottoman Lands, the Balkans, Anatolia and Beyond Sarajevo, 24-26 August 2022, at Safranbolu, Turkey.
Eldem, Sedad Hakkı. Turkish House Plan Types | Türk Evi Plan Tipleri. Istanbul: Pulman Matbaası, 1954. In Turkish with a short English section.
A detailed analysis of increasingly complex house plan types. Eldem is the father of Turkish house studies, and Türk Evi Plan Tipleri was formative for generations of scholars. Although his ideas have been revised, refined, and challenged, his work is a good introduction to the concept of the Turkish house.
— Turkish Houses, Ottoman Period. | Türk evi. Osmanli donemi. Three volumes. Istanbul: Türkiye Anit Cevre Turizm Degerlerini Koruma Vakfi, 1984, 1986, 1987. In English and Turkish.
A review of houses from each period of Ottoman history, with floor plans and discussions of decoration and construction. Especially valuable because Eldem documented older buildings that have since been destroyed. Most of the information about 16th-century houses is in volume 1, with a short section in volume 3.
Erarslan, Alev. “An Evaluation on the Turkish House with Exterior Sofa.” PRO LIGNO, Vol. 15, No. 1, 2019. Pp. 17-33.
Kelly, Tamara. “Evolution of the Traditional Turkish House.” WIT Transactions on The Built Environment, Vol. 203, 2020. Pp. 63-75.
Kuban, Doğan. The Turkish Hayat House. Muhittin Salih Eren, 1995.
Söğüt, Sibel Gürses. “Istanbul Dwellings from the 16th to the 19th Century | 16. Yüzyıldan 19. Yüzyıla İstanbul Haneleri.” Journal of the Academic Studies of Turkish-Islamic Civilization, Vol. 16, Issue 32, March 2021. Pp 311-335. In Turkish.
Images of 16th-Century Houses
Although these resources don’t focus on domestic architecture, they offer views of house exteriors and interiors as they existed in the 16th century.
Westbrook, N., Dark, K. R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9116-8068 and Van Meeuwen, R. (2010) “Constructing Melchior Lorichs’s ‘Panorama of Constantinople’.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 69 (1). pp. 62-87. ISSN 0037-9808 doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2010.69.1.62
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