Galata Tower

Background, construction, and the Genoese period

In 1267, the Genoese, who were allied with the Byzantine Empire, established a colony called "Pera" in Galata, north of the Golden Horn. The Genoese expanded their sphere of control toward the hill northeast of the area without authorization and, between 1335 and 1349, built fortification walls and towers surrounded by moats on the slopes of the hill. The structure now known as the Galata Tower was built in 1348. In addition to serving as a watchtower, it was the principal tower of the fortifications intended to protect the colony's coastal section on the flat ground against a possible land-based siege. In front of the tower stood a barbican that projected in a semicircle from the straight line of the walls and was attached to the structure on both sides. This area, where four lines of walls converged and the main entrance to Pera was located, was the last fortification built before Pera came under the control of the Ottoman Empire. According to the plaque there, its construction was completed on 1 April 1452. During this period, the tower was known as "Turris S. [Sancte] Crucis" ("Tower of the Holy Cross"), after the cross at its summit.

In August 1348, a war broke out between the Byzantines and the Genoese as a result of commercial disputes. After the war ended in 1349 with a Byzantine victory, peace was established, and that same year a decree issued by Byzantine Emperor John VI transferred control of the hill on which the Galata Tower stood to the Genoese.

Ottoman period

Following the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople on 29 May 1453, the Genoese in Pera surrendered the colony to Ottoman control without resistance. During this period, the damage inflicted on the tower's summit was halted following an edict issued by Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II concerning Pera. As part of restoration work led by Zağanos Pasha, the tower was raised again, and the cross at its summit was replaced with the Flag of the Ottoman Empire.

The earthquake of 1509 caused damage to the fortifications in Galata, including the Galata Tower. Repairs led by Mimar Hayreddin were completed in mid-1510, and the tower was raised again. Two brick bands on the tower's shaft, at heights of 13.20 m (the beginning of the second floor) and 17.17 m (the beginning of the third floor), are considered evidence of repairs made after this earthquake. Sources differ regarding the extent of these repairs.

In the 16th century, the Galata Tower and the other towers along the Walls of Galata were used as accommodation and a dungeon for Christian prisoners of war working at the shipyards in Kasımpaşa. In his 17th-century work Seyahatnâme, Evliya Çelebi wrote that the tower had formerly served as a dungeon and, in his time, as a supply warehouse for the shipyard. Taqi al-Din also carried out some work in the tower before the construction of his observatory. From the 18th century onward, the tower was used as a fire lookout tower by the Mehterhane corps and fire watchers.

Due to damage caused by a fire on 27 July 1794, the tower was shortened and its design altered. As part of the work, rooms projecting from each side of the uppermost floor, corridors, and a reception hall were added, and this section was converted into a coffeehouse. A large drum was installed to announce fires, while the attic was used as a dovecote. A fire on 2–3 August 1831 caused further damage. The upper section was repaired according to an earlier design, giving the tower its present-day appearance, apart from the roof that would collapse in the storm of 1875.

The tower's roof was repaired in either 1853 or 1854. During construction of the building to be used by the Sixth Municipal District, which was established in December 1857 to administer Galata and Pera, the courtyard surrounding the tower, the gates in the walls, and the sections of wall extending toward the shore began to be demolished under a decision adopted on 30 November 1863. The surrounding moats were also filled in. These works took place during the construction of the municipal building in 1864.

After the roof collapsed in a storm in 1875, a two-story timber structure with masonry elements was built above the top floor, with one room on each floor. The summit began to serve as a fire-reporting station for the fire brigade established in the city in 1874 and as a communications center for the Ottoman Navy.

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  Depiction in a 1794 work by Comidas Cosimo
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  Engraving in a 1819 work by Antoine Ignace Melling
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  Engraving by François Lemaitre in an 1840 work by Joseph Jouannin and Jules van Gaver
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  Drawing in a work published by Eugène Flandin in 1853
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  The tower and its surroundings in a drawing made around 1855 by Montague B. Dunn, who visited the city during the Crimean War (1853–1856)
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  Photograph of the tower taken by Pascal Sébah (after 1875)
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  A photograph of the tower dated 1901

Republican era

The 1999–2000 restoration and transfer to the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality

At a meeting of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipal Council in October 1996, a decision was made to convert the tower into a museum and transfer its ownership to the Municipality's Directorate of Libraries and Museums. Pekerler İnşaat won the tender issued that year to restore the tower and convert it into a museum. A lawsuit filed that year to evict the Ünal Kardeşler company, which continued to operate the tower, was dismissed. In December 1997, however, an order was issued to halt the project because such a change could not be made without the Ministry of Culture's permission, and the proposed museum use was deemed unsuitable. Although the Municipality attempted to establish a library in the tower in 1998, the proposal was rejected by the Conservation Board for Immovable Cultural and Natural Assets.

Following an authorization decision issued by the Istanbul No. 1 Conservation Board for Cultural and Natural Assets on 7 May 1999, restoration of the exterior was completed by Peker İnşaat, which had won the 1996 tender, in June 2000. The tower reopened on 13 November 2000. Pekerler İnşaat also won the tender issued by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality in 2000 for the interior restoration. However, the Municipality's proposed interior restoration project, which envisaged converting the tower into a museum, was rejected by the Board because the Ministry of Culture, which was responsible for granting permission to establish a museum, had not issued the necessary authorization. Later that year, a new project featuring an exhibition hall, a souvenir shop, and a café was prepared and submitted to the Board. In February 2004, the Board approved a proposal to arrange the top two floors as a Turkish coffeehouse and the remaining floors for souvenir shops and other tourist facilities.

Under a Council of Ministers decision published in the T.C. Resmî Gazete on 28 March 2006, Galata Tower and Its Surroundings was designated a "renewal area." A further Council of Ministers decision published in the T.C. Resmî Gazete on 6 July 2006 stipulated that the Beyoğlu Municipality would expropriate the area as part of the renewal-area project. Although the area lay within parts of Beyoğlu designated an urban conservation area by a decision of the Istanbul No. 1 Conservation Board for Cultural and Natural Assets dated 7 July 1993, it was one of seven areas outside the planning area.

Legal efforts to evict the tower's operators, ongoing since 1996, came to an end after the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality declined to renew the lease with the Kardeşler family, who operated the tower. On 16 April 2013, operation of the tower was transferred to BELTUR, a company affiliated with the Municipality. Following renovations to the top two floors carried out by the Municipality, the eighth floor became a restaurant and the seventh a café.

At the 37th session of the World Heritage Committee, a decision adopted on 21 June 2013 included the Galata Tower among the architectural works in the series entitled "Trade Posts and Fortifications on Genoese Trade Routes from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea" on UNESCO's Tentative World Heritage List for Turkey.

General Directorate of Foundations period and the 2020 restoration

In a letter dated 17 April 2019, the Directorate General of Foundations, invoking Article 30 of the Foundations Law, applied for ownership of the tower to be transferred to it on behalf of the Kule-i Zemin Foundation. As of 13 May 2019, ownership of the tower was transferred to the General Directorate of Foundations on behalf of the Kule-i Zemin Foundation, while the Municipality remained a tenant. Legal action initiated by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality against the transfer was unsuccessful, and the lease agreement issued to BELTUR expired on 31 December 2019.

On 18 January 2020, Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy announced that expropriation work would be carried out around the tower and a public square would be created as part of the tourism, culture, and arts project known as the "Beyoğlu Culture Route," which included the Galata Tower. In April 2020, the process of evicting the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality from the tower began. The Municipality's legal challenge was unsuccessful, and as of 16 May 2020, ownership of the tower passed to the Istanbul Regional Directorate of Foundations No. 1 on behalf of the Kule-i Zemin Foundation.

ES Yapı, which won the tender for the restoration work, began work on 30 June 2020. All elements and decorations added to the interior during the work of the 1960s and afterward were removed, and restoration and renovation work was carried out on both the interior and exterior. The tower was redesigned as an exhibition center and museum and reopened on 6 October 2020, the anniversary of the Liberation of Istanbul, under the name Galata Tower Museum.

As part of the work, a ticket booth designed to resemble the nostalgic Taksim–Tünel tramcars of the Taksim–Tünel tram line was installed in the square outside the tower. The ground floor was arranged as a ticket-control and security area, with the entrance to the elevator reaching the sixth floor also located there. The first floor became a museum shop. The second floor was arranged as a simulation area featuring a screen showing an animation of Hezârfen Ahmed Çelebi gliding from the Galata Tower, as well as an exhibition area covering the period when the tower was used as an observatory. The third floor was renovated as a permanent exhibition space for photographs from the Turkish War of Independence, the fourth for information and artifacts relating to the Galata Tower and its walls, and the fifth for exhibits concerning the Galata Tower and Istanbul. On the seventh floor, reached after the sixth-floor transitional area, a temporary exhibition space was created with a scale model depicting part of Istanbul and viewing telescopes positioned by the windows. The eighth floor was arranged as an observation terrace.

Restoration work on the tower's roof began on 1 November 2023, carried out by Galata Restorasyon.

Location, exterior architecture, and structure

Views of the tower and its surroundings from the Golden Horn (top, February 2020) and from the air (July 2011)

The Galata Tower is building number 2 on Büyük Hendek Street, located in the Bereketzade neighbourhood of the Beyoğlu district of Istanbul. It stands in the Galata neighbourhood, which gave it its name, on a hill at an elevation of 35 m. The tower is a cylindrical masonry structure in the Romanesque style, with a height of 62.59 m from ground level to the tip of its roof. Situated on rocky, clay-rich schist ground, the building has a solid stone foundation. The entrance door, located above ground level on the southern axis, is reached by marble staircases on either side. Above the tower's marble entrance door, which has jambs in the Empire style, is an inscription commemorating the repair and restoration works carried out in 1831–1832. The inscription bears a poem by Poet Pertev. The text, carved into the marble in relief by Nuri Dede and written in the jali style of ta'liq calligraphy, consists of 16 verses arranged in four lines across four panels, framed by cartouches with serrated borders. Three elliptical cartouches above the text read, respectively, "Ya Hafiz", "Maşallah", and "Ya Rafi". The tughra of Mahmud II, which had previously appeared on the inscription, was chiselled away after the proclamation of the republic. On the southern-facing facade, at ground-floor level, a plaque prepared by Emin Barın was installed in 1953, following an initiative by the Istanbul Conquest Society, to mark the 500th anniversary of the Fall of Constantinople. The plaque bears the following text in capital letters:

On the morning of Tuesday, 29 May 1453, the Genoese colony of Galata presented its keys to Fatih Sultan Mehmed, and the surrender of Galata was completed on Friday, 1 June.
Istanbul Conquest Society. 1953
EB

In the square outside the tower is a ticket booth designed in the style of the Taksim–Tünel nostalgic tram. Adjacent to the surviving sections of the walls surrounding the tower, with its front facing the tower square, stands the Bereketzade Fountain, which was dismantled from its former location and moved here in 1957.

The ground floor has an area of 208 m², an internal diameter of 8.95 m, and an external diameter of 16.45 m. The wall thickness, which is 3.75 m up to the fourth floor, decreases to 3 m from that floor upward because the tower was built with an outward slope. Although a 5 m section of the external walls at entrance-door level loses its circular shape, this irregularity diminishes up to the first cornice, after which the building resumes its circular form. At a height of 4.2 m, on the entrance axis, there is a channel opening measuring 72 × 150 cm, topped by a brick vault. Anadol suggests that these channels may once have extended outside the tower and continued beneath the walls, providing connections between the fortifications.

The interior architecture of the tower and the materials used in its walls remain consistent up to the fourth floor. Irregular embrasures in the floor plans and the flattened profile of the southern facade continue uninterrupted from the ground floor to the fourth floor. Above this level, the embrasures become regular and the shaft assumes a fully cylindrical shape. Two horizontal brick bands run around the tower's shaft, at elevations of 13.20 m (the beginning of the second floor) and 17.17 m (the beginning of the third floor). The section below the first band consists of roughly dressed, square-shaped stone blocks of various types, in irregular arrangements and in dark yellow, light brown, dark grey, and dark blue hues, with fragments of brick inserted between them. Above this band, the stones are comparatively smaller, more finely dressed, generally horizontally rectangular, and arranged more regularly; there are no brick fragments between the stones. Limestone is the most commonly used stone in this section. Yellow and brown tones are almost entirely absent, while dark grey and bluish colours remain prevalent.

Based on these observations, Sağlam states that "it is not possible to say that either the first band or the second band alone represents the level separating the Genoese and Ottoman periods". He argues that the collapse caused by the 1509 earthquake was not level, as "previous researchers had assumed", but irregular, with the inner section reaching a higher level. Based on the change in stonework above the first band, he concludes that damage and material loss to the exterior extended as far as the second floor, while the thick-walled section of the shaft and its internal vaulted gallery were preserved "to a large extent" up to the fourth floor. Damage to the exterior from the second floor upward was also repaired. From the fourth floor onward, the entire level was flattened, marking the beginning of a new section with thinner walls and a different staircase system. He further suggests that the brick bands served as hatıl (bonding courses), helping distribute weight evenly between the repaired sections and the original shaft walls.

On the southern-facing section of the second brick band is an Ottoman-style decorative motif made of bricks. Diagonal cracks at the joints in this section have created a distinct pattern. According to Sağlam, this indicates that "the section assumed to date from the Genoese period actually contains at least two phases, rather than just one".

The top of the tower is covered by a conical, lead-clad reinforced-concrete roof. The roof has four windows, each facing one of the cardinal directions, with their upper limits reaching an elevation of 50.29 m. At the summit is a gold-plated bronze finial, measuring 7.41 m according to Anadol and 6.75 m according to Şevket Usta, who manufactured it. A 50 cm lantern is installed at the top of the finial. It has a flashing red light that makes the tower visible and also serves as a lightning rod.

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  Entrance staircase
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  The surrounding Bereketzade Fountain (March 2020)
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  A view of the surroundings (August 2008)
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  The inscription above the entrance door, added during the 1831–1832 restoration
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  The plaque installed to mark the 500th anniversary of the Fall of Constantinople

Interior architecture

The building has eleven floors in total, including a basement, a ground floor, and a mezzanine. The first four floors are connected by a gallery passage with stone stairs protected by wood coated in epoxy. The stairs are set directly into the shaft walls, and the passage is covered by brick vaults. During excavation work carried out as part of the restoration in the 1960s, no floor surface was found down to an elevation of −4.3 m. The area was excavated to reinforce the foundations, creating a basement at −3.8 m. From here, a reinforced-concrete staircase concealed beneath a circular floor panel leads to the ground floor. The staircase connecting the ground floor to the upper floors has 22 steps and is located 42 cm from the tower's inner wall. It is 80 cm wide and 150 cm high. On the entrance floor, whose ceiling is covered with hexagonal natural stone, two lifts, each accommodating eight people, are positioned opposite the entrance door along its axis, against the wall. They extend to the sixth floor. The lifts use video-wall technology to display footage filmed from the tower on screens installed on their walls and ceilings. Above the reinforced-concrete mezzanine, which stands at an elevation of 4.45 m and has balustrades with Empire-style profiles, is the first floor, at 8.97 m. The first-floor window openings measure 20 × 45 cm on the exterior and 200 × 180 cm on the interior. The second floor, at 13.20 m, shares the same architectural characteristics as the first floor, except that its internal diameter decreases to 8.85 m.

Within the niches in the third-floor walls, at an elevation of 17.17 m, are chimneys that Anadol considered "similar" to those of Zağanos Pasha Tower at Rumeli Fortress. The fourth floor, at 20.80 m, contains 14 rectangular windows. Because the brickwork gallery reduces the thickness of the shaft wall, it is positioned only on the southern side, the safer direction facing the colonial settlement. This arrangement ensures that the wall remains at its full thickness on the side most exposed to potential attacks from outside. As a result of this reduction in wall thickness, the internal diameter increases to 10.4 m. The average dimensions of the bricks used in the vaulted galleries of the first four floors resemble those of bricks found in other fourteenth-century fortifications in Galata and in late Byzantine structures elsewhere in the city. Sağlam considers the use of locally sourced materials in the tower's construction "a reasonable possibility". At this floor, the number of windows increases to seven.

The fifth floor begins at an elevation of 24.35 m and has 14 windows. Seven of these, installed for firing cannons, are circular and 35 cm in diameter; the other seven measure 115 × 180 cm and have pointed arches. All the windows on this floor are set into niches within masonry piers whose arches are constructed of brick. The sixth floor, at 27.90 m, is the last of the wooden half-storeys. It has 14 pointed-arch windows similar to those on the floor below, but smaller. Above this is the seventh-floor lookout pavilion, beginning at an elevation of 32.60 m. The sixth, seventh, and eighth floors are connected by steel staircases. The 14 windows on the seventh floor are formed by 13 masonry piers, each measuring 120 × 225 cm in cross-section, spaced 150 cm apart and connected by arches. The eighth floor, at an elevation of 40.04 m, has an internal width of 12.40 m and extends up to an elevation of 50.5 m. Its 14 windows are formed by piers measuring 110 × 100 cm in cross-section, spaced 170 cm apart and connected by arches. These piers are aligned with those on the seventh floor. Outside the eighth floor is a terrace 1.20 m wide, created by the difference in cross-section between the two floors. Each of the 14 masonry posts positioned along the axes of the interior piers supports a stone sphere 35 cm in diameter, secured with anchors as a precaution against falling. The 110 cm-high iron railings between the posts feature Empire-style ornamentation.

Following the 2020 restoration, the interior walls and ceilings were coated with plaster. Exhibits related to the tower are displayed on the second floor, which serves as a museum shop, and on the third, fourth, fifth, and seventh floors, which serve as exhibition spaces and a museum. On the seventh floor, there is a 1:2,500-scale model depicting part of Istanbul, along with viewing telescopes positioned in front of the windows. Benches are provided on the eighth floor, which is used as an observation terrace.

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  A view from the seventh floor (October 2021)
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  Interior of the lifts, showing video footage displayed on the wall and ceiling screens using video-wall technology
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  View of the lift entrance on the ground floor (January 2021)
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  A view of the museum section
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  The ground-floor lift entrance
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  One of the windows on the fifth floor
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  An inscription taken from the Galata Walls and displayed on the fourth floor
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  An inscription taken from the Galata Walls and displayed on the fourth floor
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  Some of the exhibits displayed in the tower

Architectural differences in earlier periods

1348–1509

Depictions in copies of Liber insularum Archipelagi held by the Biblioteca Marciana (left, 1420s–1430s) and the University and State Library Düsseldorf (1485–1490), considered the closest representations of the tower during the Genoese period

When construction was completed, the tower served as the principal tower of the Galata Walls, of which it formed a part. In front of the tower was a barbican that projected in a semicircle from the straight line of the walls and adjoined the tower on both sides. Because the outer side of the walls was surrounded by a moat, the space between the tower and the barbican formed a courtyard. Some remains of this structure survive today. During the Genoese period, a cross stood atop the tower. Traces also indicate that the tower had a wooden bridge, now lost, that could be removed when necessary and provided passage between the city and the area outside the moats.

In the various surviving versions of Cristoforo Buondelmonti's Liber insularum Archipelagi, now held in different archives, the tower is depicted in several different ways, with inconsistencies among the illustrations. The cylindrical depictions are considered the closest to the original. On a map of Constantinople in the copy held by the Biblioteca Marciana, dated to around the 1420s–1430s, the tower is shown as taller than the other towers, with a conical roof, a cylindrical body, and an upper storey projecting outward beneath a series of blind arches. In a map in the copy of the same work dated to 1485–1490 and held by the University and State Library Düsseldorf, a Genoese flag appears at the top of the tower. Comparing the two depictions, Sağlam notes that in the first, the tower's "narrow and relatively tall" conical roof is surrounded by a battlemented parapet, whereas in the second, the roof is "much flatter and wider", with its eaves extending beyond the battlements. Sağlam also points out that the second copy shows "a single band dividing the tower's body wall horizontally right through the middle, as if marking a repair", suggesting, as a hypothesis, that this may corroborate the damage and repairs carried out in 1453.

Following the Ottoman conquest of the area in 1453, the tower suffered damage that, according to anonymous Ottoman sources cited by Ahmed Vefik Pasha, reduced its height by approximately 7.5 m. After an imperial decree concerning Pera was issued, the destruction was halted, the tower was raised again, and the cross at its summit was replaced with an Ottoman flag.

Some depictions of the tower from its early period in various copies of Cristoforo Buondelmonti's Liber insularum Archipelagi (from left to right): the copy held by the National Maritime Museum and dated to the 1420s; the copy held by the Vatican Library and dated to 1465; the copy held by the National Library of France and dated to 1465–1475; the copy held by the National Central Library of Florence and dated to around 1470; the copy held by the Walters Art Museum and dated to around 1475; the copy held by the Bodleian Library and dated to the fifteenth century; and the version in Henricus Martellus Germanus's Insularium Illustratum, dated to 1495.

1509–1794

Following the 1509 Constantinople earthquake, the tower sustained damage. Repairs were completed in mid-1510, and the tower was raised again. The two brick bands around the tower's shaft, at elevations of 13.20 m (the beginning of the second floor) and 17.17 m (the beginning of the third floor), are considered evidence of alterations made after the earthquake. Köksal Anadol and Ersin Arıoğlu state that these bands indicate that the tower was rebuilt from these levels upward. Semavi Eyice, on the other hand, notes that the brick motifs have "the typical character of Ottoman ornamentation". He argues that the relatively "plain" first band indicates a superficial repair to the exterior of the tower, while the section above the second band was built entirely during the Ottoman period. In a miniature depicting the Galata Tower in a work by Matrakçı Nasuh dated to 1537, the lookout pavilion and the storey above it are shown in a 1:2 proportion, with approximately eight arched openings on the pavilion floor.

Some depictions of the tower from 1509 to 1794 (from left to right): a miniature in Matrakçı Nasuh's work published in 1537; a sixteenth-century engraving by Giovanni Andrea Vavassore; a miniature by Mustafa bin Mehmed Cündî in a 1629 copy of Piri Reis's Kitab-ı Bahriye; an engraving by Jaspar Isaac dated to 1650–1659; and an engraving by Paul Lucas dated to 1720.

1965–2020

During the restoration in 1965, the area around the tower was closed to traffic and reserved exclusively for pedestrians. It was also redesigned to accommodate several souvenir shops. The stairs leading into the tower and the terrace in front of the entrance were enclosed by iron railings between marble posts. The entrance door was renovated with detailing intended to be "close to the characteristics of the period". The wooden floors were replaced with reinforced-concrete floors and were generally covered with natural stone. The stone stair treads were also clad in natural stone, and the staircases were illuminated.

The wooden staircase in the centre of the seventh floor, which had been converted into a restaurant, was removed and replaced by steel staircases connecting the sixth, seventh, and eighth floors. These were fitted with wooden handrails and steps proportioned in the Empire style. The window frames and wall decorations on the floor were simplified to make more of the window glass visible. The tower's roof was rebuilt using a lead-clad reinforced-concrete system, retaining the conical design used between 1832 and 1876, although with a somewhat less pointed profile. A gold-plated bronze finial was installed on top. Cracks in the tower walls were repaired, and the load-bearing system was reinforced with reinforced-concrete elements. A relief depicting the miniature of Galata by Matrakçı Nasuh, created by Tankut Öktem and Haluk Tezonar, was installed above the ground-floor entrance to the lift.