The “cosmopolitan” districts of Galata and Pera in Istanbul, with embassies built since the beginning of the 16^th century, can be seen as one of the first environments in world history where diplomacy constructed a peculiar urban space and landscape.

In this lecture, Paolo Girardelli argues that, beginning in the mid 18^th century, each phase of the so-called Eastern Question – a geo-political contention over the place and destiny of the Ottoman lands in a changing world order – created a particular visual and urban environment at Pera, Istanbul.

While until the 1760s the embassies of the European powers were integrated in the local architectural and material culture, with ambassadors and their retinues residing in wooden mansions of the Ottoman type, the reversal of power balances following the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774) encouraged France (1775), Venice (1780) and England (1801) to recast the image and the structure of their embassies in substantially western styles.

However, much of the materials, technology and human resources employed to create these new landmarks remained largely local. The conclusion of the Russian-Ottoman conflict in 1829 (Peace of Edirne), followed by the catastrophic fire of 1831 in Pera, marked an entirely new development in this process of landscape formation. The embassies destroyed by the fire were rebuilt in sizes, materials and styles that proclaimed an overwhelming dominance over the surrounding urban environment.

Comparing this history with examples of parallel but different processes in Rome and Alexandria, Girardelli shows how space and landscape should be seen not simply as a reflection, but as a constitutive agency in the making of international and intercultural relations.

About the speakers

Paolo Girardelli is Professor of Art and Architectural History at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul. He works on visual and spatial history of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levantine/European presence in the late Ottoman world.

The talk will be moderated by Enno Maessen, assistant professor of Political History at Utrecht University and member of TSN.