Book-Bathing Culture of Anatolian Civilizations - Architecture, History and Imagination

ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN STUDIES
SUPPLEMENT 37
BATHING CULTURE
OF ANATOLIAN CIVILIZATIONS:
ARCHITECTURE, HISTORY, AND IMAGINATION
Edited by
Nina ERGIN
PEETERS
LEUVEN – PARIS – WALPOLE, MA.
2011
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Nina ERGIN
THE EVOLUTION OF BATHS IN AND OUTSIDE ANATOLIA
Bathing Culture of Anatolia: A Thousand Points of Light, A Thousand

Fingers of Warmth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Fikret K. YEGÜL
Baths in the Byzantine Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Albrecht BERGER
Between Balneum and Hamam: The Role of Umayyad Baths in Syria . . . 65

Lara TOHME
SELJUK BATHS IN ANATOLIA, OTTOMAN BATHS IN ISTANBUL
The Baths of Anatolian Seljuk Caravansarais . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Ay≥ıl TÜKEL YAVUZ
Bathing Business in Istanbul: A Case Study of the Çemberlita≥ Hamamı in

the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Nina ERGIN
OTTOMAN BATHHOUSES IN THE PROVINCES
Bathing as a Translocal Phenomenon? Bathhouses in the Arab Provinces of

the Ottoman Empire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Astrid MEIER
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vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
Ottoman Mineral Baths (Kaplıca) on the Balkans: A Study of Several Little-

Known Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Machiel KIEL
Ottoman Baths in Greece: A Contribution to the Study of Their History and

Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Eleni KANETAKI
HAMAMS IN THE EARLY MODERN AND MODERN ERA OUTSIDE ANATOLIA
Hamams in Mughal India and Safavid Iran: Climate and Culture in Two
Early Modern Islamic Empires . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Stephen P. BLAKE
The Turkish Bath in the West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Nebahat AVCIOGLU
HAMAMS IN THE IMAGINATION
The Ottoman Bath Through the Painter’s Eye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

Günsel RENDA
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THE TURKISH BATH IN THE WEST
Nebahat AVCIOGLU
Columbia University Global Center
4, rue de Chevreuse
75006 Paris
France
na@reidhall.com
The second half of the nineteenth century witnessed the establishment of Turkish
baths (hamam) in Europe and the United States, as part of the new era of the Indus-
trial Revolution, hygiene reforms, labor laws and urban regeneration. However, con-
trary to the public baths and washhouses which dominated the first half of the century
and which were intended specifically for the poor and the working classes, the Turkish
bath was conceived as architectural monument, technical innovation, and social
reform (Fig. 1). In particular, it owed its popularity to the elite and to overlapping
ideas of philanthropy and politics, commerce and ethnography, inscribed into the
methods of public improvement that characterized cultural practice during this period,
particularly in Britain. With these aspects in mind, the hamam in the West does not
fit into the pre-defined boundaries of Orientalism. Equally, its history is also the his-
tory of a journey through the labyrinth of cross-cultural thoughts and practices.
THE TURKISH BATH FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO LONDON
David Urquhart, a Turcophile, author and political radical, and his book The Pil-
lars of Hercules, published in 1850, played a crucial role in capturing the attention of
the medical community in Britain concerning the issue of corporeal cleanliness and
health.1 One of the earliest constructions of a Turkish bath took place in Britain in
1856, when Dr. Richard Barter, a physician from Ireland, approached Urquhart to
build one in his institution of hydrotherapy in Blarney near Cork (Fig. 2).2 Follow-
ing Barter’s initiative, the Turkish bath became a focus of debate among British,
French and Ottoman physicians in the context of new medical studies and public
health.3 In 1858, Julius van Millingen, an English doctor of Dutch origin employed
1
For a discussion of David Urquhart’s politics see Avcıoglu 2001.
2
Wilson 1861, p. 52.
3
Early-nineteenth-century debates about hydrotherapy drew the physicians’ attention not only to
Turkish baths, but also to other types of bathing, such as sea-bathing, galvanic, electric, and Russian
steam baths. See “Conversation between Mr. Urquhart and the Members of the Medical Society of
London,” published as a dialogue in Fife 1865. See also Gosse 1865; Wrottesley 1867; Colley 1887.
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268 N. AVCIOGLU
Fig. 1 Prichard P. Baly, Ground floor plan of the Model Baths and Washhouses,
Goulston Square, Whitechapel, London. Source: The Builder 9: 418 (8 February 1851), p. 90.
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THE TURKISH BATH IN THE WEST 269
Fig. 2 Interior view of the Turkish Bath at Blarney, Cork.

Source: Urquhart and Barter 1861.
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270 N. AVCIOGLU
in the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul and one of the founders of the Gazette Medical
d’Orient, published an essay, encouraged by his Ottoman colleagues, on the history
and medical properties of the Turkish bath.4 In his essay, Millingen also enthusiasti-
cally reported Urquhart’s activities and the construction of the first Turkish bath in
Cork in the following manner:
An English doctor, Haugton [sic], corresponding member of the Imperial Society of
Constantinople, has just published in the September issue of the Dublin Hospital
Gazette the observations that he was able to gather on Oriental baths during his stay in
Turkey. The young doctor undertook this trip especially with a view to study such an
interesting subject on site and learn how to repair the shortcomings of an Oriental bath
recently built nearby Cork after the plans and directions given to its owner by the
famous David Urquhart. For more than two years, Urquhart has dedicated himself to
the service of the goddess Hygeia. He travels around England as a true apostle, preach-
ing in its principal cities to people on the importance of replacing immersion baths with
oriental ones.5
Indeed, soon after the construction of the bath at Cork, Urquhart toured around
Britain, lecturing about the Turkish bath. His strategy was to convince like-minded
philanthropists and physicians of the benefits of hot bathing, as they were potentially
significant allies, in order to spread the habit of washing. He also built a bath at his
4
Julius van Millingen was the son of James van Millingen, an archaeologist and numismatist, who
wrote about the antiquities of Greece and the Ottoman Empire. The events of the Greek War of
Independence (1821–29) brought many Philhellenes to Greece and into contact with the Ottomans.
Millingen was sent by the London Greek Committee to help with the war efforts. While there, he
became personal physician to Lord Byron and was with him when he died from fever at Messolonghi in
1824. Afterwards, Millingen moved to Istanbul and became “médecin de confiance de Esma Sultan,”
the sister of Mahmud II. After Mahmud’s death in 1838, he served the succeeding sultans and remained
in Istanbul until his death in 1879. De Cadalvène 1840, p. 305. See also Mavrogeny 1891. Spiritos
Mavrogeny (Mavroyeni Bey) was himself a confidante and the personal physician to Sultan Abdülha-
mid. See Georgeon 2006, p. 175. For a detailed history of health and medicine in the Ottoman Empire,
see Yılmaz 2006. Although none of the articles in this collection specifically deals with the medical
benefits of the hamam, references to it in medical treatises or waqfs are plentiful. However, there is no
mention of the Gazette Medical d’Orient, which was published in Istanbul, or Millingen’s activities as a
foreign physician in this collection.
5
The original reads: “Un médecin anglais, le docteur Haugton, membre correspondant de la Société
impériale de Constantinople, vient de publier, dans le numéro de septembre de la Dublin Hospital
Gazette, les observations qu’il a été à même de recueillir sur les bains orientaux, lors de son séjour en
Turquie. Ce voyage fut entrepris par le jeune médecin expressément afin d’étudier sur lieux un sujet
aussi rempli d’intérêt, et d’apprendre a combler les lacunes que présentait un bain oriental construit
récemment dans le voisinage de Cork, d’après les plans et directions fournis au propriétaire par le célèbre
David Urquhart. Depuis plus de deux années, Urquhart s’est voué au service de la déesse Hygee.
Il parcourt l’Angleterre en vrai apôtre, haranguant, dans ses villes principales, le public sur l’importance
de substituer les bains orientaux aux bains d’immersion.” Mavrogeny 1891, p. 32. This is a verbatim
re-edition of Millingen’s essay “Les bains orientaux,” which appeared in the Gazette Medical d’Orient
between January and March 1858. Quotations are from the edition by Mavrogeny. Edward Haughton
had been in contact with Urquhart since 1856, through whom he in fact got in touch with Millingen
in Istanbul; he had visited him there to discuss baths. Urquhart’s letter to E. Haughton’s father,
6 November 1856, Wellcome Institute, MS 6236 letter # 4 1/3. At the end of this letter, Urquhart
writes: “I send you a letter from the Physician to the Sultan.”
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residence in Rickmansworth in England (Fig. 3), and as part of his philanthropic

activities he opened it to the poor and the working classes free of charge.6
The interest of the physicians and the curative advantages of the bath offered a
good alibi to Urquhart’s more radical ambition to foster socio-political change for
Victorian Society based on an Ottoman model. For him, the benefit of the bath was
three-fold, and the medical aspect was only one of them. He wrote in The Pillars of
Hercules that users “derive benefits in health, comfort [and] happiness, [as well as]
taste.”7 Convinced of the socio-political significance of the hamam, Urquhart even
lectured to a group of workers at the “Working Men’s Club” in Stafford.8
In an age fertile with entrepreneurs, the idea of running a public bath was quickly
picked up, so much so that between 1856 and 1862 there appeared at least one pub-
lic bath in every city in Britain, though none met Urquhart’s standard of architec-
ture.9 Urquhart’s aim was neither purely medical nor commercial. Rather, he believed
in the moral value of both architecture and the act of washing. He argued that the
bath in Turkey played a crucial role in its social and political structure.10 He claimed
that what kept the Ottomans healthy both in mind and body was their habit of wash-
ing. Clearly thinking of the notorious ale houses in Britain, he also claimed that it
was not “Islamism that prevents the use of spirituous liquors: it is the bath.”11 But
most important for him was the egalitarian character of bathhouse architecture. Argu-
ing that English edifices were founded on false principles, he claimed that “we [the
English] build our houses with reference not to the inside, but to the out,”12 which
was in his view a sign of the country’s political incompetence. He wrote:
Our apartments are regulated by no intelligible principles, and cannot be rendered sub-
servient to the social purposes of a people between whom laws have not established
broad lines of demarcation, and who, therefore, in the adjustment of the grades of soci-
ety, preserve the natural inequality of men.13
6
“We are happy to record the fact that Mr. Urquhart, who resides at Rickmansworth, has with his
accustomed liberality, thrown his beautiful baths open for the use of the public, and that many are now
taking advantage of his kindness. Amongst them are some invalids who are recovering their health and
strength by the use of these baths, which must be a great boon to the neighbourhood” (Anonymous
1860). For another note from a user see the same newspaper, 19 May 1860. Newspaper clippings col-
lected by David Urquhart, Wellcome Institute, Urquhart Papers, MS 6236.
7
Urquhart 1850, vol. 1, p. v.
8
Urquhart’s paper “On the Art of Constructing a Turkish Bath,” read at the Society of Arts in
February of 1862, and published in Fife 1895, p. 162.
9
Journals, newspaper, and novels (even the romantic novels by the publishing company Harlequin)
had started talking about the Turkish bath. Over twenty journals began to report some type of news
about the medical implications of Turkish baths almost every month. Among them were The Cornhill
Magazine, St. Paul’s Magazine, Littell’s Living Age, Galaxy, Once a Week, Journal of the Franklin Institute,
Temple Bar, Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, The Building News, and The London Illustrated News.
10
Urquhart 1838, vol. 1, p. 373.
11
Urquhart 1850, p. 80.
12
13
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272 N. AVCIOGLU
Fig. 3 David Urquhart, The Bath of Riverside, 1857.

Source: Wilson 1861, p. 121.
Fig. 4 George Somers Clarke, Section and first-floor plan of the Jermyn Street Hammam,
London, 1862. Source: Urquhart 1862.
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The open-plan type, which Urquhart interpreted as an instrument for social mixing
and hence dialogue, seemed unique to him. He perceived it to be a display of the
public character of the state, where people of all classes may come together and “where
each individual’s grade may be known by the place he occupies.”14 The architectural
rules and principles in the Ottoman Empire, he said, were fixed not in the “details
and decorations of the stone,” but in its culture, politics and religion. It is true that
Islam dictates the regular ritual cleansing of the body before worship; as a result, the
public baths in the Ottoman Empire were open to everyone, irrespective of their
social standing or even religious background. They were built as part of pious founda-
tions (waqf), endowed by sultans, members of the imperial court, or wealthy indi-
viduals. The pious foundations usually included a mosque, a madrasa (school), a soup
kitchen, a library, shops, and the like, and were considered to be places of gathering.
Although Urquhart idealized these groupings as sites of inter-class communication,
Ottoman society was as complex and hierarchical as any. To begin with, even though
the poor were often allowed to wash for free, the baths were in reality revenue-gener-
ating institutions.15 Urquhart may have idealized the bath as a place of sociability
and exaggerated its socio-economic and political benefits, but his knowledge of the
Ottomans and the Turkish language was anything but superficial.16 During his tenure
as First Secretary at the British embassy in Istanbul, he carried out “three years of
diligent statistical inquiries.”17 He conversed with many locals whose names and
offices are acknowledged throughout his books. He read and quoted extensively,
among other Ottoman authors, from Mouradgea d’Ohsson’s Tableau General de
l’Empire Othoman, which is still regarded as a reliable historical source.
Urquhart believed that the habit of washing had to be gained and maintained
through experience in order to truly reform the political character of England — and
claimed that habits can never travel disembodied from their architectural settings. This
is where he differed most from other Orientalists who tried to separate form from func-
tion, architecture from lived experience. In a meeting on 27 July 1860, he made his
proposal:18
[…] if the bath is to be introduced, we must have a model institution. The capital
must be raised, not for dividends; and there must be no pandering to the public taste
or to common notions. I should be quite prepared to undertake — on condition of not
being interfered with — not only for the architectural part, but also to instruct men in
14
15
For a discussion of the business aspects of Ottoman hamams, see Nina Ergin’s contribution to this
volume.
16
Robinson 1920. See also the section on “Turkish Literature” in Urquhart 1838, pp. 272–97.
17
Urquhart 1838, vol. 1, p. xii.
18
“First Dialogue. Heat: How useful for Man, and how used by him,” 27 July 1860. There were
about forty medical and other professionals at the meeting. It was held in the form of a question and
answer session, with Urquhart answering. Fife 1865, pp. 1–48.
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274 N. AVCIOGLU
shampooing, so that the double and heavy expense and delay would be saved of send-
ing out an architect to Constantinople, and bringing from Constantinople a staff of
shampooers, &c.19
Following this meeting, Urquhart, together with the architect George Somers
Clarke, became involved in the construction of the first genuine public bath based on
Turkish architecture in central London. Completed in July of 1862, the Jermyn Street
Hammam (Fig. 4), unlike Barter’s or Urquhart’s own bath, was open to all: the
healthy and the sick, the rich and the poor. Urquhart’s efforts in the realization of this
hamam and its subsequent impact on the development of Turkish bath culture in the
West constituted the point of departure, and very much the model, for the expansion
of bath politics elsewhere in Europe, so much so that its emulation would trigger a
cultural and intellectual rivalry between Western capitals, as we shall see.
Urquhart’s ideas constitute a trend different yet parallel to the nineteenth-century
conception of the Turkish bath as a sensual and mysterious place. Artists’ renditions
of eighteenth-century descriptions of the Turkish bath in travellers’ accounts formed
a bias towards the women and the “mysterious” harem, developing a dialectical rela-
tionship between the unseen and the imagined, with a long history ahead of it. By the
mid-nineteenth century, an Orientalist stereotype had been established in Europe.
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres and his numerous bains turcs scenes played an impor-
tant role in propagating Orientalism as an artistic license.20 And by the time the scan-
dalous Le Bains Turc was revealed to the public at the Louvre in 1861 (see Renda’s
article in this volume, Fig. 32), the discussions about the ethnographic dimension of
architecture, social well-being and public hygiene were also beginning to revolve
around the discourse of the Turkish bath. These two trends seem to have no rapport.
However, while the former became the stock-in-trade in discussions on Orientalism,
the latter has received virtually no attention from scholars. It is the aim of this study
to rectify this oversight with the examination of Urquhart’s Jermyn Street Hammam,
an important and consequential building.21
THE JERMYN STREET HAMMAM: TURKISH PUBLIC BATH, THE MODERN WAY
A few months after his call, Urquhart, together with the London and Provincial
Turkish Baths Company, secured a site from the Crown Estate on Jermyn Street, near
19
Fife 1865, pp. 1–48.
20
Almost all travellers to the Ottoman Empire had experienced the hamam, but Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu’s experience played a particularly crucial role in shaping Western ideas of it in the second half
of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, after the surreptitious publication of her letters written
from Constantinople. De Handt and Becket 1763.
21
For an earlier study of this building see Avcıoglu 1998, pp. 59–78. However, this article does not
deal with the far-reaching impact of the Jermyn Street Hammam, the topic of the current article.
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Piccadilly Circus. The Crown leased the site, formerly used as St. James’ Hotel, to the
company for 23 years, on the condition that the hotel not be demolished. Behind the
hotel was a long, thin, rectangular piece of land measuring 15 by 30 m, which had
served as backyard and stables. Owing to the dilemma of national style and the impo-
sition of the London Building Act, the bath was to be constructed without external
features, attached to the back of the hotel (Fig. 5, 6). Urquhart knew that this Eastern
model could only be implemented internally, taking it for granted that the external
aspects of the building were out of bounds. He acknowledged that “there can of
course be no architectural forms, as towards the front, the building will remain
unchanged. But internally it will be a noble edifice, the Central Hall being 50 feet
cubed and domed.”22 Writing to the Company on 9 February 1861, Urquhart
reported that “after [a] long and painful labour on the part of Mr. Somers Clarke and
myself, we have fixed upon a plan partly of construction, and partly of adaptation,
which altho’ not according to the proper forms of an Eastern Bath, still in all essen-
tials, and in a very great degree even in appearance, will represent the Bath of the
East.”23
Although this letter suggests that his ideas about the design were not yet fixed,
some features stood out as necessary. The first was the rectangular disrobing hall or
camekan, divided into low-rising bays, furnished with a shallow pool, decorated with
horseshoe-shaped timber arches and fretwork, and lit by a series of windows over the
arches on one side. Attached to this was a Greek-cross-shaped hot room or caldarium,
covered by a monumental dome pierced with star-shaped glass inserts. A rosette deco-
rated the wall of one of the iwans, providing further light. There was also a raised
marble slab, which had a shower room underneath, accessed over a staircase on the
side. The corner rooms, or halvets, were equally covered with domes. The iwan open-
ings repeated the horseshoe arches in the interior. The intermediary section between
the hot room and unheated dressing room was omitted in this design. When the Jer-
myn Street Hammam opened in 1862, the Turkish bath outside the Ottoman Empire
acquired a definitive shape.
Structurally, the traditional Ottoman public bath has three main sections designat-
ing three different temperatures (Fig. 7). The first section is the disrobing area (came-
kan, or sogukluk), often lavishly decorated with a central fountain and raised seating
areas along the periphery, covered by a monumental dome with a lantern. From this
room, a passage leads into the ılıklık, the Roman tepidarium, a transitional room that
accustoms the body to the heat. Next is the hottest area, called caldarium by the
22
Urquhart’s letter to The Bath Company, 9 February 1861, Wellcome Institute, MS 6236
letter # 2.
23
letter # 2.
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276 N. AVCIOGLU
Fig. 5 George Somers Clarke, Plan and sections of the basement and the ground floors with
foundation of flues, airpipes, &etc. the Jermyn Street Hammam, 1862. Source: Fife 1865.
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Fig. 6 George Somers Clarke, Detailed section of the half domes and the plan of the four
diagonal angles; in the small frame is the view of the caldarium of the Jermyn Street Hammam,
1862. Source: Fife 1865.
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278 N. AVCIOGLU
Fig. 7 Ottoman bath prototypes: (a) Meram Hamamı, Konya; (b) Orhanbey Hamamı,
Bursa; (c) Yeni Kaplıca Hamamı, Bursa; (d) Beyazid Hamamı, Istanbul; (e) Mihrimah
Hamamı, Istanbul; (f) Cagaloglu Hamamı, Istanbul, (g) Haseki Hamamı, Istanbul.
Source: Ünsal 1970, pp. 71, 73.
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Romans and sıcaklık by the Ottomans. This section contains the water basins, where
the actual washing of the body takes place. A large raised marble slab, placed close to
the furnace and thus very hot, is a characteristic feature of this section. On the ground
plan it often takes the form of a Greek cross, providing recessed areas called iwan on
four sides and smaller rooms in the corners (halvets). The sıcaklık is covered by a dome
with distinct glass inserts. Some public baths were built on natural springs, such as the
Eski Kaplıca in Bursa (1389–1511); these contain a pool in the sıcaklık. However, this
style of bathing was not common in the Ottoman territories. Urquhart rightly distin-
guished his accounts of the baths in Turkey from those in Ottoman North Africa (also
discussed in The Pillars of Hercules), which retain the pool feature. The Ottomans,
followers of the Hanafi rite of the Sunni branch of Islam, did not wash in stagnant
water, as it is considered impure and thus haram (forbidden).
Although Urquhart claimed authorship of the design of the Jermyn Street Ham-
mam, it was copied after the study of a bath produced by the Italian-Swiss architect
Gaspare Fossati (1809–1883) who spent twenty years of his life in Istanbul, between
1837 and 1860. Among Fossati’s papers in the family’s archives in Bellinzona, Swit-
zerland, there is the design of a public bath, entitled Bagno Turco Publico pur idée
Moderne (Turkish Public Bath, the modern way), which astonishingly resembles
Urquhart’s (Fig. 8).24 Fossati is celebrated for his restoration work in the Hagia
Sophia.25 He truly distinguished himself from many other foreign architects working
in Istanbul through his deep interest in traditional Turkish architecture, which would
have attracted Urquhart to him. Either Millingen or even Urquhart himself could eas-
ily have met Fossati and obtained the plan of a model bath from him.26 He made
several conceptual designs of traditional building types, including the bath, studying
them in great detail and trying to improve upon them.
The plan entitled Bagno Turco Publico pur idée Moderne in its principle features is
essentially the same as a traditional Turkish bath. Yet, on closer inspection, it becomes
clear that Fossati tried to translate the Turkish prototype into his contemporary con-
text. The sogukluk is unusually long, which may indicate the hamam’s increasing use
for the nuit blanche during the nineteenth century, particularly in the Galata region of
24
Scatola 12 # 899, Fondo Fossati — Morcote, Archivio do Stato, Bellinzona.
25
The archives of Gaspare Fossati and his younger brother Giuseppe, who also worked in Istanbul,
contain 900 drawings, the majority of which are about Ottoman architecture. More than fıfty drawings
and designs of Turkish baths are among them.
26
The alternative scenario would be that Fossati copied Clarke’s design later, when he was back in
Switzerland, since there is no date on the plans. Among the Scatola 12 papers, there is an undated off-
print of an article entitled “Dell’ importanza dei bagni e segnatamente dell’ utilita dei bagni turchi” by
Carlo Gola, which includes a plan and a section of the Jermyn Street Hammam. The off-print post-
dates Gaspare, but was originally published in 1871 in volume XIX of the journal Politecnico. However,
there is no doubt that Fossati’s plan is for a hamam in Turkey rather than, say, in Italy or Switzerland,
as it is found in an album containing other studies of existing Ottoman buildings in Istanbul, such as
the Çadır Kö≥k at Saadabad, before it was restored in the 1830s.
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280 N. AVCIOGLU
Fig. 8 Gaspare Fossati, Section and Plan showing the “Bagno Turco Publico pur idée
Moderne” [Turkish Public Bath, the modern way]. Source: Archivio di Stato, Bellinzona,
Switzerland, Morcote, Fondo Fossati Scatola 12/899.
Fig. 9 Plan of the Aga Hamamı, originally built in 1562, refurbished and restored in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Source: Tanman 1993–94, p. 92.
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Istanbul. The ılıklık is eliminated, thus facilitating a more compact new building type
that could easily fit into a tight urban fabric. The undefined front of the building
indeed suggests its flexible adoption to different urban contexts. It is very tempting to
suggest that the Aga Hamamı in Istanbul’s Beyoglu district, where Fossati lived and
built extensively, either served him as a model, for it is the only hamam in Istanbul
that resembles his design, or that it was actually remodelled by Fossati himself, as what
we see today is not the sixteenth-century original bath, but a mixture of nineteenth-
and twentieth-century reconstruction (Fig. 9).27
Fossati’s hamam design also provided Urquhart with three-dimensional views of
the interiors (Fig. 10, 11).28 Following Fossati’s model, the sogukluk at Jermyn Street
Hamam resembled a street scene with timber houses and their lattice decorations,
particularly the balcony over the entrance. This was in keeping with Fossati’s interest
in the basic characteristics of Turkish timber architecture, which he tried to preserve
in designs of different building types. The roof was interpreted with timber structure
and fretwork, resembling that of Islamic geometric patterns. In this sense, the Jermyn
Street Hammam is a faithful copy of Fossati’s design, with the exception that Fossati
eliminated the wash basins in the halvets in order to achieve high temperature without
steam. There was also an extra shower room under the marble slab.
We do not know how Urquhart obtained the plans from Fossati. But we do know
that Urquhart received a set of plans from Robert Crawshay, which were sent to the
latter by Millingen. Millingen suggested in a letter to Crawshay that the plans of pub-
lic and private baths existing in Istanbul would be a genuine and complete model for
the purposes of their construction in England.29 This is how he put it:
I consider of much higher value to you — the plan of a public and also of a private
bath. With these two models before his [the architect’s] eyes, it will be an easy matter
for an intelligent architect to build baths of any dimensions, and far superior to those
counterfeits, or imperfect copies that have hitherto, as far as I am aware, been made in
England.30
27
The hamam was originally built in 1562 by Kapıagasi Yakub Aga as part of his waqf. Apparently,
until 1939 the bath was kept open all night. Haskan 1995, pp. 14–17.
28
It is interesting that Clarke’s obituary, written by his pupil Edward Power, states that Urquhart
and Clarke, in order to come up with a most “genuine” design, referred to the sketches and descriptions
of bath interiors in travel literature. Besides consulting The Pillars of Hercules, which lacked sketches,
they consulted other books containing illustrations of Eastern baths. Power says that they sent him to
“the Institute Library [R.I.B.A.] in order to consult the works of Gérault de Prangey, and other writers.”
Prangey’s Essai sur l’architecture des Arabes et des Mores en Espagne, en Sicile et en Barbarie (1841) could
have been relevant, had they not had the plans and sections of Fossati (Power 1882). However, as this
anecdote shows, travel literature became an indispensable resource for British architects, almost a source
of legitimacy. Clarke, like F. B. Cockerell, J. Norton, M. Digby Wyatt, and William Burges had formed
the Foreign Architectural Books Society in 1859 (FABS), its object being to circulate among the mem-
bers architectural books published outside Britain (Newton 1930).
29
Lecture on “Why does Man Perspire?” published in the January 1861 issue of the Newcastle Jour-
nal, republished in Fife 1865, p. 216. Erasmus Wilson also writes that “Dr Millingen, Physician to the
Sultan, in a letter from Constantinople, addressed to Mr George Witt,” provided information “about
how long to stay in the bath” (Wilson 1861, p. 134).
30
Fife 1865, p. 216.
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282 N. AVCIOGLU
Fig. 10 George Somers Clarke and David Urquhart, The Calderium, looking forward
to the frigedarium, Jermyn Street Hammam, 1862. Source: The Illustrated London News
(26 July 1862), p. 96.
Fig. 11 George Somers Clarke and David Urquhart, Interior view of the Frigedarium,
looking forward to St. James’s Hotel, Jermyn Street Hammam, 1862.
Source: The Illustrated London News (26 July 1862), p. 96.
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Fig. 12 Mr. le Dr. Millingen, Description des Bains Orientaux. Copiee d’apres nature
[Description of Oriental Baths drawn from life], section through the public bath situtated at
the slope of Tekke in Pera. Source: Gazette Medical D’Orient 11 (1858), p. 185.
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284 N. AVCIOGLU
Fig. 13 Mr. le Dr. Millingen, Description des Bains Orientaux [Description of Oriental
Baths], Bain Public [Public Turkish Bath] and Bain Particulier [Private Bath].
Source: Gazette Medical D’Orient 10 (1858), p. 185.
We do not have the actual plans sent by Millingen, but they may have been similar
to the ones he published with his essay in the Gazette Medical d’Orient in 1858
(Fig. 12, 13). One of the essay’s drawings showing a section of a building was an art-
ist’s impression of a bath “situé a la descente du Tekieh de Pera,” which could be the
Aga Hamamı. If the Aga Hamamı was the model, then this essentially shows that
Urquhart’s adoption of Eastern architecture was not necessarily based on some ideal-
ized archaic model, but on the ones currently in use in Istanbul.
The Jermyn Street Hammam was completed on 26 July 1862 and shortly after-
wards opened to the public. However, economic gain became one of its primary
objectives, which displeased Urquhart and led to his withdrawal from the establish-
ment soon after its opening. Following the opening, the Company in a promotional
advertisement for its shares claimed that “the promoters have secured the services as
manager of Mr. Horatio Mohamed, whose long and well known experiences in the
conduct of a similar establishment on his own account, guaranties the efficiencies of
his superintendence.”31 Horatio Mohamed was the son of the famous Dean Mohamed
31
Newspaper clippings from David Urquhart, Wellcome Institute, MS 6236 # cuttings.
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(1784–1851), author of The Travels of Dean Mahomed: An Eighteenth-Century Journey

Through India and the popularizer of vapor baths in England.32 Horatio himself also
wrote two books on the subject of bathing — The Bath: A Concise History of Bathing
(1843), and Short Hints on Bathing (1844) — but neither were specifically on the
Turkish bath or concerned with architecture’s role in improving the standards of Brit-
ish life. By employing Horatio, the company hoped to boost its credentials. Even
though Horatio resigned the following year,33 the Jermyn Street Hammam served
more than a century without interruption until 1940. A year after its closure it was
destroyed during the London Blitz. Among its illustrious visitors were the novelist
Anthony Trollope, the Prince of Wales, and Prince Napoleon with his entourage.34 As
soon as it opened, the hamam became legendary. With all its Orientalist trappings,
The Prospectus of the Jermyn Street Hammam was quite unrestrained when it declared:
THE FINEST TURKISH BATH IN THE WORLD. — At a dinner table in Stam-
boul, we heard a French Secretary request an Arab Sheikh from the Hauran to tell him
where he could find the best Turkish Bath — whether at Cairo or at Jerusalem, at
Constantinople or Damascus? ‘God is great, and Effendis are wise,’ said the Sheikh; ‘but
if you ask your servant, he must say the best bath of all is to be found near Piccadilly,
in London.’ From many trials of the Bath, where it is of the soil, we can fully support
this saying of the bronze son of the Desert — the bath in Jermyn Street being high
above Oriental competition as to commodiousness, order, cleanliness, and ventilation.35
THE TURKISH BATH FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO NEW YORK VIA LONDON
The Jermyn Street Hammam had become so famous that every nation, from Italy
to the United States, sought to emulate it. For instance, in the year of its opening, on
the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, newspapers enthusiastically reported the future
project of a Turkish bath in New York, in several articles entitled “The Turkish Bath
in New York” published in The New York Times, the Scientific American, and Harper’s
New Monthly Magazine.36 They proudly announced that “the institution is to be man-
aged by Prof. C. Oscannyan, a native of Constantinople.”37 They all referred to Urqu-
hart’s efforts and idealized the bath he had built in London. It seems that Urquhart
32
Fisher 2000, p. 321.
33
Fisher 2000, p. 321.
34
Anthony Trollope visited the bath on several occasions before writing his short story entitled “The
Turkish Bath,” published in Saint Paul’s Magazine in October of 1869. The story mocks Urquhart’s
idea of mixing classes and refuses the idea: two high-brow editors make a trip to the bath, and on their
way they see a man with shabby gloves that give away his low social standing. For the visit of the Prince
of Wales to the bath see the Birmingham Daily Post (20 February 1865), as well as The Caledonian
Mercury (20 February 1865); for Prince Napolean’s visit see the Daily News (30 September 1863).
35
Wrottesley 1867. See also Coley 1887.
36
New York Times (2 April 1862), p. 2; Scientific American (8 February 1862), p. 89; Harper’s New
Monthly Magazine (July 1862), pp. 270–75.
37
New York Times (2 April 1862), p. 2.
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286 N. AVCIOGLU
was prophetic when he wrote to the Company in 1861, saying “[s]o soon as it [the
Jermyn Street Hammam] is opened, it will doubtless be copied, and as far as I am
myself concerned, this is what I desire.”38
Interestingly, Christopher Oscanyan’s desire to construct a Turkish bath in New
York predates both Urquhart and his Jermyn Street Hammam. As early as in May of
1855, Oscanyan wrote to the editor of the New York Observer and Chronicle, describ-
ing the benefits of the Turkish bath, which was to figure in a section of his forthcom-
ing book The Sultan and His People (published in 1857). He condemned the existing
baths in New York and urged him to appeal to the public for the construction of a
genuine Turkish bath in the city:
I am very desirous to establish a bath of this sort in New York, where there is every
facility; capital to start the enterprise, men of enlightened views to patronize, and many
others to recommend it from actual experience. If the subject should meet with your
approval, I would beg you to recommend such a project to the public. The capital req-
uisite for an establishment of this sort, commensurate with the tastes and wants of the
people in New York, could be raised by a joint stock company, in shares of $25, and I
could procure the requisite attendants, furniture, &c., from Turkey. As I have already
erected a bath on the shores of the Bosphorus, there would be no difficulty in construct-
ing one here, and I should be happy to submit plans, &c., to any person inclined to
embark in this enterprise.”39
In fact, just a year before writing to The New York Times editor in 1854, Oscanyan
was involved in ethnographic propaganda about the Ottomans in England. He was
one of the two managers employed for the Turkish Museum that opened in London
in March of 1854 and coincided with the beginning of the Crimean War, during
which England together with the Ottomans fought against the expanding Russian
Empire.40 Oscanyan, an Ottoman-Armenian educated at New York University, was a
cosmopolitan who believed in the preservation of the Ottoman Empire, particularly
around the time of the Crimean War. He placed his trust in the European alliance to
achieve it. In his book The Sultan and His People, Oscanyan glorified the ancien régime
of the Ottomans and criticized the Tanzimat, the New Order introduced under
Mahmud II, for subverting the balance of power enshrined in tolerance and peaceful
coexistence within the Ottoman Empire.41 He argued that these new reforms could
38
Urquhart’s letter to The Bath Company and Building, 9 February 1861, Wellcome Institute,
MS 6236 letter # 2.
39
Anonymous 1855..
40
Much of the museum’s success in recreating tradition and making an appeal for its preservation,
wrote an anonymous commentator, owed to the personalities involved in its conception, “two Turks
[…] C. Oscanyon and S. Aznavour.” See Oscanyan and Aznavour 1854. The museum is also mentioned
in Ziter 2003. See also Elkan 1989. However, no agency is given to the Ottomans involved in the
organization and design of the museum, or the book published by Oscanyan, which included the very
pictures published in contemporary newspapers, such as The Illustrated London News (14 August 1854),
and in the Catalogue of the Oriental & Turkish Museum (Anonymous 1854b).
41
Oscanyan 1857.
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have worked better, had there not been the Russian threat, which destabilized the old
Osmanlıs who became unnerved by the new rules and as a result returned to religious
dogmas; this was now the source of tensions within the empire, as he claimed.42
Oscanyan thought that the future of the Ottoman Empire depended on the West’s
better comprehension of the Ottomans, for “hitherto so inaccessible as well as incom-
prehensible to strangers, it is indeed, no matter of wonder that the heterogeneous
[confused] portraits of Eastern men and manners have been promulgated to the world
by travellers and bibliomanists.”43 A native like himself, Oscanyan declared, could
brush away all the prejudices and misconceptions about the Ottomans and show the
West why it was essential to save them from the Russian invasion.
Not surprisingly, the Turkish bath was “one of the first objects [to be] seen on
entering the gallery” of the Turkish Museum at Piccadilly near Hyde Park Corner
(Fig. 14).44 Urquhart in The Pillars of Hercules (1850) lamented the extinction of the
bath in Turkey and argued that one way to save the tradition of communal washing
as well as the design of the bath would be to build one in England. Like Urquhart,
Oscanyan also shared the philanthropic desire to preserve the disappearing traditions
of Turkey. The bath in the museum was “copied with great exactness from those
which are now in use at Constantinople” and had two main rooms, one with a “kind
of lantern-roof; while the other is lighted by about a dozen small, round, glazed aper-
tures in a dome ceiling: one is the saloon and the other the bath.”45 One of the most
exciting features of this bath was the waxen figures of “a janizary [an Ottoman elite
soldier whose corps had been abolished by Mahmud II in 1826] about to take a bath;
a man reposing on the cushions; a tellak, or attendant” and the like, as ornaments
showing every action in the bath.
The content of the museum was based on the notion of a traditional Turk prior to
and in ethnographic opposition to European modernity. Put plainly, the museum aimed
to show “the Ottomans at a time when the Turks were Turks, and not blue-coated,
tight-trousered, Wellington-booted, semi-Europeans, clipped of their fine, lazy, flowing
orientalisms.”46 This idea of preserving tradition and authenticity not only included
costumes, implements and furniture, but also “rooms” as well as entire “buildings.” The
layout of the museum consisted of a long corridor-like space, where both sides opened
into small rooms representing certain stereotypes of architectural settings with their
“waxen Turks.” The museum also housed a Turkish coffee-house, a shoe-bazaar, a
harem and various figures in their traditional costumes, exhibiting such types as the
42
For the later period of discontent with the “forced” Westernization in the Ottoman Empire, see
Deringil 1999.
43
Oscanyan 1857, p. 13.
44
45
46
Oscanyan uses the term “Orientalism” not in the sense we use it today. Oscanyan 1857, p. 180.
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288 N. AVCIOGLU
Fig. 14 Scenes from inside the bath built at the Turkish Museum in 1854.
Source: Oscanyan and Aznavour 1854, pp. 5–6.
janissary, the hamal (porter), the ba≥ı bozuk (irregular volunteer in the army), “two phy-
sicians, European and Turkish,” as well as a lady reclining on cushions, and a full-sized
Turkish araba (horse carriage) specially made in Constantinople for the museum.47
According to the Catalogue of the Oriental & Turkish Museum, these displays
depicted a composite of scenes of daily life in Istanbul. Three years later, Oscanyan
included these exact scenes as illustrations in his book. A year later, in 1855, when he
moved to New York, he opened a “Turkish Coffee House” on 625 Broadway, as part
of his mission to announce to the world the conviviality of Ottoman life with his
representations of the warm if not intoxicated intimacy of the Istanbuliote cafés.
Within this context, it is not surprising to learn that Oscanyan was also behind the
introduction of a “genuine” Turkish bath to the New World. He was Urquhart’s
47
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Ottoman equivalent in New York. Like Urquhart, he favored more practical subjects,
such as coffeehouses and bathhouses, the archetypical Ottoman institutions, to argue
for the utility of the Ottomans not only to Americans, but also to humanity in gen-
eral, and the necessity for worldwide support.48
The Turkish Museum was a political project in its own right. The idea of an alli-
ance was a constituent part of the museum’s program, as one commentator confirmed:
“In such times as these, when our political affairs are so much mixed up with the
destinies of Turkey, it is pleasant thus to be able to see the Turks in their homes, as it
were.”49 However, the essential message, according to the exhibition catalogue, was
“to secure to the world” “the rapidly changing character of many things in Turkey.”
“It is to be regretted,” declared the author, “by all lovers of the beautiful and the pic-
turesque, that the magnificent costumes of the Osmanlis have nearly been superseded
by the more convenient but less graceful European modes of dress.”50 This was
undoubtedly Oscanyan’s claim, as such anxieties would become commonplace in his
future book.
But the fact that despite Oscanyan’s unflinching efforts the idea of constructing a
Turkish bath in New York was not picked up before the opening of the Jermyn Street
Hammam says a great deal about the attraction exerted by the British model. America
may have been famous for its entrepreneurs, but England was clearly considered the
center of cultural authority. Thus, the most acceptable explanation for the spread of
the Turkish bath in the West, other than Orientalism, is to be found in England’s
importance to different parts of the world. Therefore, a closer examination of another
Turkish bath is in order. Indeed, as the following section will show, the first genuine
Turkish public bath built in Paris demonstrates a systematic link between England
and France.
FROM THE HAMMAM TO LE HAMMAM
As in England, in France the medical community was also a major force behind the
emergence of Turkish baths. Dr. Charles Depraz presented his hamam in Nice in
1868 as the “first establishment of its kind since the creation of the Roman baths in
France.”51 In the accompanying pamphlet Guide du Baigneur, Depraz echoed Urqu-
hart, arguing that the construction of the hamam was “to introduce to the masses the
idea and the practice of cleanliness, of politeness and decency for the detriment of the
48
This brief introduction to Oscanyan and Turkish baths in New York does not do the subject
justice; unfortunately, a more detailed account is beyond the scope of this article.
49
Oscanyan 1857.
50
Oscanyan 1857.
51
The original reads: “premier establishment de ce genre qui ait été crée en France depuis les
Thermes de l’époque gallo-romaine.” Depraz 1869, p. 6.
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290 N. AVCIOGLU
cabarets and all other bad places that were increasing day by day.”52 But Depraz,
unlike Urquhart, took his clues for the hamam not from the Ottoman Empire, but
from England, as he clearly stated in his Guide du Baigneur: “The spatial disposition
of this establishment has been done after the plans of the most perfect hammams of
England.”53 One of the baths that he referred to was in all likelihood the Jermyn
Street Hammam. By the time of Depraz’s writing it had gained the reputation of
being “the finest bath in the world.”54
We do not have any architectural information about the hamam in Nice, or the
one in Lyon that Depraz built a year later. They have both disappeared. There is also
no indication that Depraz knew Urquhart directly, but it is possible that they may
have met at St. Gervais, near Chamonix, where Urquhart had built for himself a cha-
let with a Turkish bath in it.55 Depraz was also working in the same region in the
early 1870s. However, Depraz was not alone in linking French public baths to English
prototypes. Certainly, Le Hammam, Bains Turco-Romain, which opened in Paris in
1876, eight years after the ones in Nice and Lyon, provides ample opportunity for
connecting the French to the English prototype, both architecturally and discursively
(Fig. 15, 16, 17).
The Paris correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette was amongst the first to celebrate
the opening of Le Hammam. He wrote on 21 March 1876, just a few days after the
opening, that “[h]itherto there has not been such a thing as a Turkish bath in Paris,
and the damp vapour baths were so bad that they obtained little patronage from those
who, in default of the Turkish bath, would have been glad to avail themselves of some
substitute if it had been only moderately good. But a new and really magnificent bath
has just been opened in the Rue Auber, at the corner of the Rue Neuve des Mathurins,
and close to the Grand Hotel, the New Opera, and the principal clubs.”56
This claim was not exactly true. There was already a Turkish bath designed
and built by Alfred-Nicolas Normand for the Palais Pompeien in 1868, for Jérome
Napoleon, albeit primarily for private use (Fig. 18, 19). This was equally inspired by
the Jermyn Street Hammam in London, though not in architectural terms. On
29 September 1863, the prince visited the Jermyn Street Hammam and was so pleased
with it that on his return he commissioned one for his palace in Paris.57 It was a small
52
Depraz 1869, p. 6.
53
The original reads: “[L]a distribution de cet établissement a été faite d’après les plans le plus par-
faits des nombreux hammams de L’Angleterre.” Depraz 1869, p. 7.
54
Anonymous 1862, Wrottesley 1867. See also Coley 1887.
55
Today, the chalet belongs to Balliol College, Oxford. Robinson 1920, p. 306. See also Anony-
mous 1865. The author writes that “Mr. Urquhart is, we hear, now engaged in the construction of a
Turkish Bath at his chalet on the ‘Mont Pearion’ in Savoy, 6,000 feet above sea-level.”
56
Anonymous 1876.
57
The Daily News of London reported on 30 September 1863 that “Prince Napoleon and suit vis-
ited the Hammam at 76, Jermyn-street yesterday and took a Turkish bath.” See also The Caledonian
Mercury of Edinburgh, 6 November 1863.
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Fig. 15 Wilhelm Klein and Albert Duclos, Floor Plans of Le Hammam Bains
Turco-Romains rue Neuve des Mathurins, Paris. Source: Le Recueil D’Architecture,
Architecture Civile (28 February 1877), Plate 8.
Fig. 16 Wilhelm Klein and Albert Duclos, Basement and First Floor Plans of Le Hammam
Bains Turco-Romains rue Neuve des Mathurins, Paris. Source: Le Recueil D’Architecture,
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292 N. AVCIOGLU
Fig. 17 Wilhelm Klein and Albert Duclos, Longitudinal section of Le Hammam Bains
Turco-Romains rue Neuve des Mathurins, Paris. Source: Le Recueil D’Architecture,
Fig. 18 Alfred-Nicolas Normand, Elevation of the Turkish Bath built for the Palais
Pompeien, Paris. Photograph taken in 1891. Source: French Ministry of Culture,
Médiathèque de l’architecture et du patrimoine, Diffusion RMN.
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Fig. 19 Alfred-Nicolas Normand, Section of the Turkish Bath built for

the Palais Pompeien, Paris, 1868. Source: Lévy 1868, Pl. 152.
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294 N. AVCIOGLU
structure consisting of two rooms which were covered with domes pierced by star-
shaped glass inserts. The interior was elaborately decorated with marble, arabesque
designs, and a corbelled cornice. On the exterior, it also looked Turkish enough. It
does not come as a surprise that what should have been a Roman tepidarium within
the context of a Pompeian villa turned out to be a Turkish bath. The idea that the
Turks shared a common heritage with the Romans was not unusual and shared by
most people at the time. The Turkish-ness of Normand’s bath becomes more appar-
ent if we look at Léon Parvillée’s Ottoman buildings designed for the Exposition
Universelle of 1867, which also included a bath (Fig. 20). In its overall appearance,
the bath with its twin domes sitting on square bases closely resembled the one in the
Palais Pompeien, thus reinforcing each other’s claim to authenticity of the hamam’s
Turkish-ness as well as its classical origins.
However, none could have inspired or guided Le Hammam designed by Wilhelm
Klein and Albert Duclos on 56 rue des Mathurins near the Opéra, except for the Jer-
myn Street Hammam itself. Le Hammam differed drastically from the above exam-
ples, although it kept the epithet turco-romain. It was built as a functioning bath for
the public and occupied the basement and ground floor of an apartment block, also
designed by Klein and Duclos. An article published in Le Figaro congratulated the two
architects, “one for his Parisian taste, the other for his practical American spirit.” For
them, it was clearly a business venture. During and after the construction, they leased
the apartments above individually as office spaces. For instance, the first floor was
rented to a taylor in 1875, and in 1880 to the entrepreneur Ferdinand de Lesseps, best
known for building the Suez Canal.58 Unlike Normand’s and Parvillée’s baths, it had
no external architectonic features visible from the street level. Similarly, the Jermyn
Street Hammam was tucked behind a pre-existing hotel. The ornamental North-Afri-
can façade, described in Le Figaro as a “Moorish Palace,” was in part a response to the
Haussmannian requirements for regularity and decoration of the streets. One reader
remarked in an English newspaper that “[t]he new Turkish baths in Paris are certainly
more picturesquely got up than ours in London.”59 The façade of the Jermyn Street
Hammam was not altered, owing to building regulations at the time. Urquhart wrote
to The Bath Company while working on the plans with the architect Clarke, saying
that “there can of course be no architectural forms, as towards the front, the building
will remain unchanged. But internally it will be a noble edifice, the Central Hall being
58
Contract signed between M. M. Klein & Duclos and the taylor M. M. Masquiliez on 27 July 1875.
See the archive of the notary M. Achille-Marie Delphin Corrard, Centre historique des Archives Nation-
ales, Paris, ET/CXVIII/1141 (1875, July-September). Contract signed between M. M. Klein et Duclos
and Mr de Lesseps on 13 March 1880. See Centre historique des Archives Nationales, Paris, ET/
CXVIII/1159 (1880, January-April).
59
Hapshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle etc. (2 October 1878).
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Fig. 20 Ottoman Section at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, 1867

(the bath is located to the right of the mosque).
Source: L’Illustration (2 March 1867).
Fig. 21 Felix Nadar, Le hammam: Bains Turco-Romains. Rue Neuve des Mathurins, 56, Paris.
Salles D’Inhalation & de Pulvérisation a l’eau Sulfureuse Naturelle de Cauterets (Htes-Pyrénées),
Hydrothérapie Complète – Trink-Hall de Coulos les Eaux Minérales connue. Source: Biblioteca
Nacional, Brazil, Collection Thereza Christina Maria, Iconografia FOTOS-ARM.1.1.1(13).
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296 N. AVCIOGLU
50 feet cubed and domed.”60 The author of an article published in La Semaine des
Constructeurs similarly reasoned the lack of exterior visibility of Le Hammam in Paris:
“If we may find the Arabic style unneccessary for the decoration of the façade, it was
welcome indoors and judiciously employed.”61
The layout and the general disposition of the actual bathing areas in Le Hammam
openly draw on Urquhart’s Jermyn Street Hammam. While each bath seemed to
tackle the individual demands of the given site and strive to improve upon the Turk-
ish model with additional transitional spaces — such as admissions offices, vestiaire,
additional washing areas, hairdresser, restaurant, and the like — they both adhered to
the principles of a plan sent to Urquhart from Istanbul. The iwan openings repeated
the horseshoe arch form, the only difference being the elimination of the shower room
under the marble slab in the Jermyn Street Hammam. The rest of the features, down
to the pool, can all be seen in both baths.
Le Hammam was not a simple product of the French love of the exotic. In fact,
there was virtually no mention of Turkey in any of the discussions of it, unlike in
those concerning the Jermyn Street Hammam. There were no references to its politi-
cal subtext which continued to be obvious to most people, at least in England. For
instance, an anonymous writer in the Pall Mall Gazette commented that “[t]he intro-
duction of the Turkish bath into England was partly a sanitary, partly a political
measure. The great apostle of shampooing had eulogized Turkey and deprecated Rus-
sia in books out of number, when at the time of the Crimean war, it occurred to him
that the moment had arrived for familiarizing the English with a Turkish institution.
The Hammam in fact, though situated in Jermyn-street is, morally, a corner of Tur-
key in which the rulers are more Turkish than the Turks.”62 None of this ideology
seemed relevant to Parisians.
But at the same time Le Hammam was not the natural outcome of the universal
exhibitions where the encounter with the iconographic architectures of the pre-indus-
trial, traditional and luxurious East was a precondition.63 The striking proximity of
the two baths — one in Paris, the other in London — was also more than European
undifferentiated Orientalism. Le Hammam, in fact, finds its meaning as emulation of
an English rather than a Turkish model. French elites generally considered England as
the modern nation par excellence, for it had pioneered the Industrial Revolution, and
London was its highest achievement, notably for having initiated the hygiene reforms.
60
letter # 2.
61
The original reads: “Si nous avons trouvé le style arabe peu en situation pour la décoration de la
façade, a l’intérieur il était de mise et on en a fait un emploi judicieux.” Dupuis 1876, p. 79..
62
Anonymous 1875.
63
See Çelik 1992, Mitchell 1988.
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Even Millingen in his 1858 article in the Gazette Medical d’Orient remarked how the
French were appreciative of the importance of public baths and washhouses in
England and how the French Republic sent a committee to study them in 1849, with-
out wasting any time, but that there were no immediate results.64 Indeed, it took
Baron Haussmann, who viewed London as an urban model,65 until his tenure as the
Seine prefect (1853–1870) to re-dispatch French officers to London in order to com-
pile reports on the urbanization process and suggest ways in which the French might
improve upon them for Paris. In both cities, the problem of water use and its distribu-
tion were at the core of any discussion on public health and urbanization. In his usual
radical manner, Urquhart suggested, based on statistical material collected in Istanbul,
that 900 public baths based on the Turkish model could be a possible solution to the
filth and degeneration of urban life. This is how he put it:
Constantinople, with a mixed population of 600,000 souls, has 300 large public Baths,
and 2,000 private ones. At the same rate London would have 900 public Baths, and
6,000 private ones. But the Turks go to the Bath only once week, and do not use it for
maladies. At the rate of Rome under the emperors London would certainly have 4,000
public baths.66
Haussmann, who is credited for the modernization of Paris by improving the water
supply, to a certain degree also shared Urquhart’s enthusiasm for public baths. In his
memoirs, he praised not the Turks, but the Romans, and in particular Justinian’s
epoch, its civility in habits and customs, which he measured against the quantity of
water used and the number of aqueducts consecrated to public needs. He wrote:
“According to the historian Procopius they maintained 1,352 basins or reservoirs, 815
public and private baths, 15 nymphéa, 6 naumachies, etc. etc. […] This standard
constituted the basis of my water distribution program for Paris.”67 The assumption
that Paris, after 1871, could become the New Rome through the systematic distribu-
tion of water and related public monuments was not completely unrelated to the
ambitions of the Second Empire. What Haussmann cared for was not the revival of
the past, considering what he did to old Paris, but the representation of Paris as a cité
impériale, just like London was, or Istanbul, for that matter — an ambition which, in
a way, had justified the appellation BAINS TURCO-ROMAINS above the main
entrance to Le Hammam.
64
Millingen 1858, p. 30.
65
Marchand 1993.
66
Letter from Urquhart to the Bath Company and Building, 9 February 1861, Wellcome Institute,
MS 6236, letter # 2. Also see Urquhart’s paper “On the Art of Constructing a Turkish Bath,” read at
the Society of Arts in February of 1862, published in Fife 1895, pp. 204–5.
67
The original reads: “Selon L’historien Procope, ils alimentaient 1352 bassins ou réservoirs, 815
bains publics et particuliers, 15 nymphées, 6 naumachies, etc., etc. […] Cette règle faisait la base de mon
programme de distribution des eaux de Paris.” Haussmann 1893, vol. 3, p. 266.
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298 N. AVCIOGLU
Le Hammam embodied all aspects of modernity that every sphere of life in Paris
sought to adapt: technological innovation, personal and communal hygiene, and com-
fort. The brochure published in 1878 claims that it is “the story of a great structural
and hygienic success in the French capital,” and added “[t]he Turkish Bath is the best
corrective that can be found for that defiance of all the laws of hygiene to which most
of us are condemned. We do not sleep enough; we eat too much; we do not take suf-
ficient exercise; we work at night; we pass our evenings in the overheated atmosphere
of the theatres; we deny ourselves no pleasure or enjoyment.”68 It is well-known that
the French imitated the urban features of London, such as public squares and parks,
as part of an attempt to modernize Paris. As Parrice Higonnet puts it, “the modernisa-
tion of the two capitals often involved a kind of symbiosis.”69 Therefore, the emula-
tion of the English/Turkish bath enhances the implications of this attitude. The
French found in London the hamam as a method of civilizing their capital, which had
the reputation of a “Babylon.”70
When Le Hammam opened in January of 1876, Baron Haussmann became one of
the regulars there.71 Amongst its illustrious visitors were also “M. Gambetta, the
Dukes of Aumale and Montpensier, the Prince of Wales [who also visited the Jermyn
Street Hammam in London], Baron Rothschild [the great philanthropist and early
supporter of public baths and washhouses], Prince Napoleon, the Duke of Rivoli,
Baron Vigier [who was married to the Mlle Cruvelli, a singer at the new Opera, and
a visitor to the ladies’ hamam herself], Count Potocki, Baron Seilliere [a famous colo-
nial banker], Don Carlos, The Prince of Orange, and M Batbie [an army officer who
took Shah Nasr al-Din around Paris during his first visit in 1873].”72 The Emperor of
Brazil, Dom Pedro II, also paid a visit to the famous hamam one early morning in
June of 1877, which apparently set in motion a series of events that led the manager
of Le Hammam to take legal action against the newspaper Le Monde for libel.73
However, Dom Pedro must have been particularly pleased with what he had seen, for
68
Sheppard 1879, p. 6.
69
Higonnet 2002, p. 236.
70
71
Sheppard 1879, p. 8. In February of 1873, Baron Haussmann visited Istanbul and stayed there
until June. See La Turquie (13 June 1873). He was accompanied by M. Caméré, an engineer special-
izing in roads and bridges, and M. Duparchy, a contractor. Haussmann met with the grand vizier and
then the sultan. His visit and stay was closely observed and scrutinized by the local newspapers. See
La Turquie (14 February, 19 February, 12 April and 13 June 1873).
72
73
According to the contemporary newspapers, Dom Pedro visited Le Hammam at 6 o’clock in the
morning and was courteously treated by the manager, free of charge. But the next day Le Monde claimed
that the emperor had been charged an exorbitant amount of 500 francs, instead of the mere 5 franc.
Unhappy about such distortions of reality, the manager decided to sue the newspaper and finally won
his case once the emperor’s testimony arrived back in Paris in support of the manager. See Hartford
Daily Courant (23 January 1878), p. 2; Chicago Daily Tribune (25 January 1878), p. 4.
93686_Anes_Supp37_11.indd 298 8/04/11 10:16

he commissioned the famous Parisian photographer Felix Nadar to take pictures of

the interiors (Fig. 21). They are now preserved in the photographic collection of
Dom Pedro’s wife, Thereza Christina Maria, in the Biblioteca Nacional do Brazil.74
According to Le Figaro, the Shah of Persia, Nasr al-Din, also attended the hamam.75
Although Nasr al-Din Shah did not keep a record of this trip to Paris, which was his
second, we know from his travel diaries of 1873 that visiting baths formed an impor-
tant part of his itinerary.76
Indeed, the establishment became “the rendezvous of all the life of Paris, be it
political, artistic, literary or simply refined,” as the author of an article in Le Figaro
proudly put it. Although Urquhart’s argument about mixing classes was never picked
up by Le Hammam, at least in theory it was open to everyone: republicans, capitalists,
imperialists, socialists, and Orientalists. As much as “Haussmann’s Paris was a truly
democratic enterprise in the — not insignificant — sense that everyone, rich or poor,
would enjoy the health benefits of his public projects,”77 this was even truer for Le
Hammam, in the sense that whoever could afford to pay 5 francs could also enjoy the
benefits of the bath. Reinforcing the socialist feeling of honesty and virtue of the
Third Republic, the author of the article in Le Figaro also added that this is one place
in Paris where a bribe would not work because the costume of the Turkish bath had
no pockets. The French looked to England to achieve modernity, and the Turkish
bath served as a tool for aligning new political ideas, more immediately linked to the
politics of the Second Empire. Thus, it was not a coincidence that the neighborhood
in which Le Hammam was built was predominately occupied by an anglophile and
cosmopolitan elite serving and benefiting from the young imperalist Third Republic
(which had begun in the previous year, in 1875).78
The French and the English were mutually fascinated. Edgar Sheppard, a medical
doctor, in a publication entitled The Hammam: A Rational Estimate of the Turkish
Bath, which was in fact a translation of the long article published in Le Figaro, con-
nected the Paris and London baths by way of a short introduction and a few foot-
notes. He claimed that the point of publishing it was for the “perusal of our friends
in Jermyn Street.”79 He compared and contrasted his own experiences of the hamam
in Jermyn Street with the description of Le Hammam in Paris. In a footnote, he
74
The emperor and his family were also portrayed by Nadar. The photographs are now in the pos-
session of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.
75
76
The shah visited the baths in St. Petersburg and Istanbul. See Nasir al-Din Shah 1874, pp. 27,
60, 114, 254, 374, 391.
77
78
Not surprisingly, the streets around Le Hammam were named after important imperial cities such
as Rome, Naples, Constantinople, Madrid, and Vienna.
79
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300 N. AVCIOGLU
derided the darkness of Le Hammam and criticized the little dressing boxes as the
worst features, concluding that “in this matter, our institution in Jermyn Street
Hammam is far superior to that of any other like establishment.”80 Whereas an article
in Le Figaro praised the Coiffeur Lespes, Sheppard firmly commented in a footnote
that “at our London Hammam, the Coiffeur of the establishment is not less accom-
plished than the Parisian artist.”81 In employing an argumentative form, the English
author demonstrates the ongoing rivalry between the two cities.
CONCLUSION
The history of the hamam in the West rejects a straightforward Orientalist inter-
pretation. Although the bath did become a place of leisure, and was commercialized
and used mostly by the bourgeoisie over time, it did have its origin in utilitarianism,
philanthropy and candid politics. Its introduction coincided with the ideas of moder-
nity, public health, and architectural and technological improvements. Its appropria-
tion was equated with cultural identity and imperial prowess. Perhaps its most inter-
esting feature was the way in which it played a role in the cultural rivalry between
London, Paris and New York. All of these points invite us to provide alternative per-
spectives of Orientalism.
The two persons involved in its introduction and propagation in the West, Urqu-
hart and Oscanyan, were directly linked to the Ottoman Empire. The first had a
radical political agenda, but remained very much within his own country, whereas
the second, equally radical, tried to make it in a young republic (America) mainly
consisting of immigrants. Urquhart self-consciously elevated the Ottomans and their
architectural practice in order to provide a critique of his own country. Oscanyan, on
the other hand, outside of his own native country, offered a socio-political explanation
of the Turkish bath to stress essentially the changing character of the Ottoman
polity. Urquhart’s primary purpose was to identify and explain what he regarded as
the malaise of Victorian society: architectural insensibility representing a social rift
between classes. He indicated how this might be rectified by turning to Ottoman
architecture, and particularly to the Turkish bath. Oscanyan, however, emphasized
the relative liberalism of the old Ottoman political regime with regard to non-Muslim
Armenian entrepreneurs like himself, particularly well-known in the construction
industry, in order to take advantage of his position in New York, where he once again
was a “minority,” by continuing his trade.
80
81
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Even though in the strict sense of the word both Urquhart and Oscanyan were
Orientalists — as they both inherently subscribed to the grand narratives of the
“other” and the instrumentalization of cultural knowledge — their projects were not.
The Turkish bath they described and propagated was not supposed to be simply rec-
reational or self-indulgent; its purpose was overarching. They were aware of the cor-
responding interest in the hamam in Istanbul, and the change in its use and architec-
ture. Oscanyan himself had built a new bath in Galata before leaving for the West.
Urquhart’s Jermyn Street Hammam was based on plans drawn in Istanbul by an
architect who dedicated a large portion of his life to the study of Ottoman traditional
architecture. Inevitably, their creations, and particularly Urquhart’s Jermyn Street
Hammam, attracted reactions: they were despised by xenophobes and conservatives,
debated, and emulated with all the enthusiasm derived from Orientalizing the Turks,
but they were also a resounding and enduring success. If there was a difference between
Urquhart and Oscanyan, it is most noticeable in the relationship between their respec-
tive countries, England and America. Although their interests were contemporaneous,
as we have seen, the New World waited until the construction of the Jermyn Street
Hammam — that is, until the practice of the Turkish bath in the Old World was
vindicated. This shows that, first, England was seen as the trend-setter for the rest of
the world by virtue of its age and imperialism and, second, that the appropriation of
the “other” is a marker of how Western cultural identity is negotiated through biases
and intermediaries.
The emulation of the Jermyn Street Hammam in Paris is a more classical case of
cultural rivalry and mimetic desire between England and France, which had existed
for centuries. What is interesting, however, is the way in which this mutual fascina-
tion is once again played out in relation to an intermediary, a third “neutral” party.
Although for France the Ottoman Empire was never a benign interest with the
waning power of the Ottomans, the appropriation of their architecture was increas-
ingly placed in a purely aesthetic domain, while the political discourse surrounding
Le Hammam was due solely to Britain’s perceived contribution to civilization. What
this brief history of the Turkish bath in the West shows is that Orientalism not only
takes various differing personal and communal forms, including the wish to be in
the vanguard of modernity, but also that it was one of the significant media for the
political rivalry between the Old and the New World, as well as within Europe.
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ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN STUDIES

93686_Anes_Supp37_Voorwerk.indd iii 8/04/11 08:54

THE EVOLUTION OF BATHS IN AND OUTSIDE ANATOLIA

Bathing Culture of Anatolia: A Thousand Points of Light, A Thousand

Baths in the Byzantine Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Between Balneum and Hamam: The Role of Umayyad Baths in Syria . . . 65

SELJUK BATHS IN ANATOLIA, OTTOMAN BATHS IN ISTANBUL

The Baths of Anatolian Seljuk Caravansarais . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Bathing Business in Istanbul: A Case Study of the Çemberlita≥ Hamamı in

OTTOMAN BATHHOUSES IN THE PROVINCES

Bathing as a Translocal Phenomenon? Bathhouses in the Arab Provinces of

93686_Anes_Supp37_Voorwerk.indd v 8/04/11 08:54

Ottoman Mineral Baths (Kaplıca) on the Balkans: A Study of Several Little-

Ottoman Baths in Greece: A Contribution to the Study of Their History and

HAMAMS IN THE EARLY MODERN AND MODERN ERA OUTSIDE ANATOLIA

The Turkish Bath in the West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

HAMAMS IN THE IMAGINATION

The Ottoman Bath Through the Painter’s Eye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

93686_Anes_Supp37_Voorwerk.indd vi 8/04/11 08:54

THE TURKISH BATH FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO LONDON

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Fig. 2 Interior view of the Turkish Bath at Blarney, Cork.

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residence in Rickmansworth in England (Fig. 3), and as part of his philanthropic

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Fig. 3 David Urquhart, The Bath of Riverside, 1857.

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(1784–1851), author of The Travels of Dean Mahomed: An Eighteenth-Century Journey

THE TURKISH BATH FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO NEW YORK VIA LONDON

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FROM THE HAMMAM TO LE HAMMAM

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Fig. 19 Alfred-Nicolas Normand, Section of the Turkish Bath built for

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Fig. 20 Ottoman Section at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, 1867

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he commissioned the famous Parisian photographer Felix Nadar to take pictures of

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