Strolling through İstanbul, you will notice some very beautiful buildings such as Pera Palace and Union Fransaise in Tepebaşı, Ottoman Bank in Sirkeci and Archaeology Museum in Sultanahmet wondering how these buildings with a European aura could be a part of an oriental city like İstanbul. The answer lies in Alexandre Vallaury who was a architect who was born in 1850 to a half French, half Italian family in İstanbul.
His father was a very famous pastry chef of his time in Nice and had immigrated to İstanbul, well respected in the palace circles. Vallaury later studied in Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts in France. After his return to İstanbul, he befriended the leading intellectual of his time Osman Hamdi Bey. Vallaury taught at the first Fine Arts School in the Ottoman Empire for 25 years and built one of the most beautiful buildings in the city that are still with us today. In 1894, he was appointed as the chief architect of the city by the Sultan. Our city would never be the same if Vallaury had not crowned it with such beautiful buildings.
I recently learnt that his style is called Orientalist Eclectic. It is such a beautiful name which remind me of Istanbul that thrives on eclecticism. Vallaury drew his inspiration from Ottoman architecture, Islam as well as from neoclassism. He was also keen on using neo-baroque and art nouveau details. His workshop was at Saint Pierre Han in Galata which is currently being restored.
Please take a moment to look at these beautiful buildings across the city built by Vallaury and make sure that you spend a day visiting them scattered around Istanbul and tribute to the grand master for making İstanbul what it is today!
He was also the only architect who built the biggest wooden mansion in the world. The building is located in Büyükada (the biggest of the Princes Islands) and belonged to the Greek community during the Ottoman era. The building was used as an orphanage at the time. It is such as pity to see its current condition but I hope that it will also be revived like the rest of historical monuments in Istanbul by our municipality.
