Standing in the heart of Roman Constantinople, next to Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar and its open air market of secondhand books and manuscripts, the Beyazit State Library demonstrates that a 19th-century Ottoman edifice can retain its character and still serve the public on a daily basis.
The oldest public library in Turkey, the Beyazit State Library was founded by Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II in 1884 by converting a few buildings of a 16th-century complex that contained a mosque, a caravansary with stables, a hospice and a soup kitchen for the poor. The caravansary and the attached stables, with their multi-domes and a multicolored roof, were turned into the library and a wooden cabinet — made by Abdulhamid II whose skills in carpentry matched his mastery in political chessboard — was put in the main room.