The new space of Late Ottoman Istanbul houses: Salon

Focusing on the salons of Istanbul houses in the nineteenth century of the Ottoman Empire, this thesis aims to examine how the spatial presence of the salon, its everyday life practices and material cultural elements were produced and consumed in the minds of the Istanbulite Muslim bureaucrat bourgeoisie and the non-Muslim merchant bourgeoisie - the Istanbulite elite - using Ottoman printed publications. In parallel with modernization, print publications, which have rapidly increased in number since the mid-nineteenth century, have actively participated in the production and consumption of already emerging spaces. Printed publications rendered the space imaginable in the minds of Istanbul's elite, sometimes through textual and sometimes through visual narratives. The salon was also included in Istanbul homes as a new space produced and consumed in such channels of knowledge transfer. As a socially produced and consumed space, the salon has the potential to render visible the social dynamics of the Ottoman Empire. In this respect, while the salon establishes a close relationship with modernization processes, it cannot be considered independent from the economic, political and social developments of the Ottoman Empire. Among the classes that made up Ottoman society, especially the Muslim bureaucrat bourgeoisie instrumentalized the salon as a place of consumption in order to maintain and elevate their privileged position in society. The salon in the homes of these elite families of Istanbul in the nineteenth century, as a means of producing distinction within society, expresses a cultural respectability through its spatiality, the new forms of use it offers, and its furniture and furnishings. In this respect, the salon, which is the most public space of the house, is the most prestigious and ostentatious space of the house where the wealth, splendor and social status of the elite families are displayed. By using the qualities of this space, elite families reflected their social position to the relatively lower classes or other elite families in society. Considering that the salon, which produced distinction within the social dynamics of the Ottoman Empire, was produced and consumed under three groups in printed publications, this thesis discusses the meaning of each of these groups for Istanbulites. The thesis examines the production and consumption processes regarding the spatial organization of the salon, the way it is used, and the objects on display in printed publications, and attempts to approach the salon from these three perspectives. The first of these is the research on how the salon found its place in the spatial organization of houses. While these studies try to reveal the relationship of the salon with traditional reception rooms such as divanhane, selamlık, mabeyn, başoda, sofa, they also reveal how the spatial characteristics of the salon were instrumentalized by elite families as a place of consumption. The second group focuses on how the salon is used in the daily lives of Istanbulites, by whom, what behavioral codes this space generates, how male-female relations are shaped, how it is programmed with the consciousness of modern times, and how it is transformed with the development of new technical tools, based on the fact that there have been significant transformations in usage patterns and lifestyles with the inclusion of the salon in homes. The lifestyle that transformed in the houses together with the salon points to the construction of new boundaries for the habitus of the Istanbulite elite. In the second group of the thesis, it was tried to reveal how this habitus with changing boundaries was produced in printed publications and how this production was manifested in the salon. The last group is related to the furniture and objects that produce economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital that provide prestige to elite families. The furniture and objects that manifested the changing habitus and culture of space were introduced to Istanbulites in printed publications and produced as salon furniture. The advertisement of furniture and objects referring to the salon in printed publications also turned it into a place of consumption. Thus, when such readings referring to the saloon in Ottoman printed publications are considered holistically, it becomes possible to understand how the salon gained a place in the minds of Istanbulites, how it was experienced, and how it was socially produced and consumed.