The Balyans: an imperial architect family in the Ottoman Empire

[richard...@gmail.com]

http://www.todayszaman.com/arts-culture_the-balyans-an-imperial-architect-family-in-the-ottoman-empire_377338.html

The Balyans: an imperial architect family in the Ottoman Empire

Picture: People walk in front of the gate of the Dolmabahçe Palace, one of numerous structures in Istanbul designed by the Balyan family. (Photo: Today's Zaman)

A new book by art historian Alyson Wharton focuses on an Ottoman-Armenian family and its fate in an era of transformation.

Published by I.B. Tauris, "The Architects of Ottoman Constantinople: The Balyan Family and the history of Ottoman Architecture" presents detailed information on the family and the contexts the family worked in using various archives.

Author Wharton explains in the introduction to the book that the Balyan family was engaged in constructing buildings for three generations in the Ottoman Empire during the 18th and 19th centuries. It was a time of building new structures such as government buildings, factories and schools, and The Balyans planned and constructed a significant number of these imperial buildings, she writes. The aim of the book is to find a common point in existing Ottoman and Armenian cultural memories and discourse. It is also to locate the role of the Balyan family as imperial architects, while delving into how the building trade in the empire was transformed by social developments and bureaucratic improvements, and how the Balyan family responded to these changes.

The Balyans were "a talented family of builders who moved from Anatolia to the Ottoman capital of Constantinople and became the sultan's favorite subjects. Krikor Amira, his son Karapet Amira and his sons Nigogos Bey, Serkis Bey and Agop Bey's ability at construction enabled them to excel in their field and they served consecutive sultans during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries," writes Wharton. "The Balyan family were among the earliest Ottomans to attend Parisian educational institutions and to take part in important Ottoman industrialization projects, such as the construction of mines and railways, which enabled them to play a crucial role in the modernization of the Ottoman Empire. At the same time, they were benevolent towards their own community and encouraged the expansion of Armenian religious life and cultural expression."

The introduction elaborates on historical, artistic and social contexts such as the Westernization process through reforms, evolving Ottoman architecture and the position of the Armenian community in the empire. In the first chapter, Wharton gives a summary of the historiography of the family while documenting information about them based on primary sources in the next chapter. During the rest of the book, Wharton investigates the Balyan family's position in the Armenian community, their Parisian education and architectural style.

"The study of the Balyan family allows for a reassessment of many of the issues central to the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century. The Tanzimat-period reforms can be viewed through the lens of the building sector, a case which reiterates the point that many of the attempted changes were not workable, and how non-Muslim architects without strong ties to the bureaucratic apparatus, led by the Balyan family, came to dominate the market. The image of the westernization of this period can be amended, but also the rise of nationalism can be adjusted, by viewing how the members of the Balyan family carefully refashioned their Parisian education to the service of the Empire," she writes.

Without a doubt, the identity of the Balyan family also determined their fate in the empire despite their achievements. "In some ways, the Balyan Family mirrored the downward spiraling situation of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire: the final member of the family to be employed extensively by the sultan (Abdülhamid II), Serkis Bey, was after allegations of embezzlement charged in the 1890s as a mischief maker and his property was confiscated. The historiography of the Balyan family, as well as the popular perception of their works, is bound up with the political events of the time and their subsequent retellings," Wharton points out.

After summarizing various literature on the Armenian architects and the Balyan family, the author explains the conflicting views about the family in different sources. "Late Ottoman critiques blamed the Armenian kalfas for the decline of Ottoman architecture," she writes, while other records written by people who knew the family presented them as geniuses. She concludes the book with a detailed account of which sources she used during her research.

Wharton got her PhD in art and architecture at The School of Oriental and African Studies and is currently working as an assistant professor of the history of art at Mardin Artuklu University in Turkey. She previously wrote "Armenian Architects of Istanbul in the Era of Westernization," which was translated into Turkish by Hasan Kuruyazici.

[richard...@gmail.com]

Another Ottoman Armenian architect (15 April 1489 - 17 July 1588) was the chief Ottoman architect and civil engineer for sultans Suleiman I, Selim II, and Murad III. He was, during a period of fifty years, responsible for the construction or the supervision of every major building in the Ottoman Empire. More than three hundred structures are credited to his name, not including some more modest projects, such as his Koran schools (sibyan mekteb).

Joseph (Mimar Sinan, the son of an Eastern Orthodox Christian Armenian or a Greek, or even an Albanian, but most likely Armenian) was another Ottoman enslaved subject. Joseph did not voluntarily choose to serve his slave master, Ottoman ruler. He was forcefully abducted from his parents at a young age just like all the other Ottoman pashas, governors, mayors, soldiers, sailors, etc. forced to convert to his Ottoman master's version of Islam. Certainly, his forceful abduction and conversion to extreme, jihadist Islam did not make him a Turk, a member of the most oppressed nation under Ottoman yoke, nobody identified himself with, neither an Ottoman. Joseph was a great architect but not a Turk; he role-played as an Ottoman and a Moslem on the surface to save his neck, but never forgot his religion and real race and nation.

[choro]

"The Burp" is obviously ashamed of his Ottoman past even to the extent
of denying that the Ottoman Empire was basically a Turkish empire. This
is like denying the existence of Americans because Obama is black.

Wakey wake up! Your ancestors were Ottomans of Turkic ancestry. Unless
of course your ancestry is a bit of a mystery, what they say in Turkish
that you are a "gunduz tohumu!"
--
choro
*****