One of Istanbul’s most extraordinary buildings was left to rot for decades. Now it’s been brought back to life

The Botter Apartment paved the way for many more European-style buildings in Istanbul. (Ozan Kose/AFP/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

ISTANBUL - For years, the Botter Apartment was easy to miss. On İstiklal Avenue — Istanbul’s busiest pedestrian street, where a vintage red tram rattles past music shops, cafes, and boutiques — most people never looked up. Above the shopfronts, a graceful Art Nouveau façade, once at the forefront of a city redefining itself, quietly decayed.

The building was more than a decorative façade. Commissioned by Sultan Abdülhamid II, designed by Italian architect Raimondo D’Aronco, and built for the Sultan’s Dutch tailor, Jean Botter, it was one of the structures that introduced Istanbul to modern European architecture and shaped the aesthetic of its wealthier streets.

Over the next century, however, the apartment changed hands multiple times, was neglected, and slowly faded from view.

Now the Botter Apartment — or Casa Botter — is back. A recent restoration has returned it not only to the street but to public life, reopening as a cultural center and shared workspace. It’s a reminder to both locals and visitors that Istanbul still has treasures waiting to be discovered, high above the bustle of the crowds.

Sultan Abdülhamid II, who oversaw some of the final days of the Ottoman empire from 1876 to 1909, was a man of contradictions. Politically, he is remembered for his authoritarian rule, but privately, he had a fascination with European art, music, and design. He was a fan of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, enjoyed opera and ballet and employed foreign specialists in his court.

A sultan, a tailor and an architect

Among these specialists was Jean Botter, the Sultan’s official tailor. While Abdülhamid sourced his suits from Paris, Botter handled the precise fittings and alterations in Istanbul. In 1900, the Sultan gifted him a plot of land in Pera — Istanbul’s most cosmopolitan and European-friendly district — to build a combined residence and fashion house.

To realize it, Abdülhamid turned to his chief palace architect, the Italian Raimondo D’Aronco. Completed in 1901, the Botter Apartment was Istanbul’s first Art Nouveau building.

It was distinctive for the bold elegance of its whiplash curves, delicate floral motifs, and sculpted Medusa-head details. The building was also technologically pioneering. It was the first steel-framed apartment building in Turkey and, after the Pera Palace Hotel, likely only the second in the country to include an elevator — a symbol of modernity rising above Istanbul’s crowded streets.

“The story of the Botter Apartment is an abridged history of Istanbul’s modernization,” says journalist Emrah Temizkan. “It was a representative space for a Western lifestyle, confined to the palace circle in its time. Its reopening to the public today, as a cultural center, holds a great parallel to the early Republican idea of democratizing culture and art.”

On the ground floor, Botter’s atelier quickly became a hub of Pera’s social life, hosting fashion shows and fittings for Istanbul’s elite. The upper floors housed the Botter family. The building’s connection to Botter and architect D’Aronco added to its reputation, says Merve Gedik, architect and projects manager for Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Heritage. “It was a structure born out of art and design.”

On the verge of collapse

The building’s glory, however, was short-lived. After the Balkan Wars and World War I, the cosmopolitan lifestyle of Pera dwindled. The Botter family sold the apartment in 1917 and moved to Paris. Over the decades, as Turkey emerged as a modern republic, the building was abandoned, its grand façade deteriorating.

“The building was in a very dilapidated state,” Gedik recalls. “There was no glass in the windows, the roof was in a very bad condition, and water damage had rotted the wooden floors. It was on the verge of collapsing.”

Its fate changed in 2021, when the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality launched a careful restoration.

The philosophy, Gedik says, was one of minimal intervention, preserving as much of the original texture and detail as possible. Layers of paint and plaster were removed to reveal the building’s original colors. Metalwork was cleaned and conserved rather than replaced, letting the signs of its century-long weathering remain visible.

The most profound change, however, was the building’s transition from private status symbol to public cultural beacon.

When the lower floors reopened in April 2023 as the Casa Botter Art and Design Center, the building found itself in unexpected demand. Initially, the upper floors were earmarked for use as municipal offices, but visitors had other ideas.

“People showed so much interest during the opening week that we could not use it as an office,” Gedik says. “The structure spontaneously started to gain a new function.” Students, remote workers, and creatives began using the bright, open rooms as a communal workspace and shared office space.

“This is very satisfying, as it shows that when an area becomes public, it gains its own usage habits organically. We didn’t force it.”

A living architectural museum

Visitors to Casa Botter should not miss the elliptical elevator at the heart of the building — a visual reminder of its status as both an architectural and technological pioneer — its shaft, bounded by ornate ironwork, fits perfectly into the curve of the building’s elegant main staircase.

They should also appreciate that they’re moving through a living narrative of Istanbul, from the Ottoman-era fascination with European style to modern Turkey’s reclaiming of that legacy for its citizens.

The building’s restoration has also breathed new life into the Pera district. Reborn, it stands as a testament to a time when the Ottoman Empire began to establish a new identity, fusing tradition and modernity — a sense of style that still lingers in modern-day Istanbul. This era also set the stage for Turkey’s First National Architectural Movement, led by figures such as Mimar Kemaleddin and Vedat Tek, as domestic architects responded to imported influences.

And the Botter Apartment is only one entry point into this wider architectural story. Walking between the districts of Tünel and Taksim, visitors encounter an extraordinary mix of architecture that reflects Istanbul’s late-Ottoman embrace of European design.

There’s the Mısır Apartment, or Misir Apartmanı, which displays subtle Art Nouveau flourishes and stands as one of Istanbul’s earliest reinforced-concrete buildings.

Nearby, the Ravouna 1906 Suites offers another prime example of Art Nouveau, its designer and interior architect still immortalized in the carved stone of the façade.

The Çiçek Pasajı, or Flower Passage, has Neorenaissance details that recall its origins as a fancy apartment complex, while the Grand Pera and Azaryan Apartment boast Neoclassical and Neo-Baroque façades built for the city’s elite at the turn of the century.

By Ali Halit Diker, CNN