Abstract

"Printed and Prefabricated: Timber Catalogues in Istanbul at the Turn of the Century"

Feyza Yagci, Istanbul Technical University (feyza.yagci@gmail.com) and Semra Horuz, Bilikent University

*This paper is supported by a research project funded by the Scientific Research Projects Unit (BAP) of Istanbul Technical University

The growing impact of European material culture in late nineteenth-century Istanbul coincided with far-reaching developments in transportation, communication, and print media. These innovations facilitated the mobility of materials, images, and people, making print a central site for architectural and design discourse. At the same time, timber experienced a revival as both a structural and decorative material in domestic architecture. Long associated with Ottoman residential traditions, wood acquired new significance as a prefabricated, modern, and relatively economical material. Following the devastating earthquakes of the century, the urgent need for rapid yet refined and earthquake-resistant construction techniques encouraged a renewed appreciation for wooden mansions. In this context, local workshops, lumberyards, and factories in Istanbul began to publish commercial catalogues of timber products for the first time. One notable example is the Dârü’s-sınâ’a-i Osmâniyye (Ahırkapı Lumberyard Catalogue, 1906), an illustrated publication issued in four languages. Alongside such local efforts, imported catalogues also circulated in the Ottoman capital, including Maisons norvégiennes pour exportation de M. Thams & Cie (1889) and Société Franco-Suisse Kaeffer Successeurs (1855). European catalogues, often advertising prefabricated wooden houses and machine-produced timber pieces from factories in France, Switzerland, Germany, and England, offered Ottoman audiences both technical knowledge and aesthetic models. These catalogues were instrumental in shaping the design and construction of the wooden mansions that appeared along Istanbul’s waterfront neighborhoods at the turn of the century. This paper offers a detailed overview of the wood catalogues circulating in late Ottoman Istanbul, analyzing them as both technical manuals and instruments of taste-making. By tracing how catalogues mediated between local building traditions and industrialized production abroad, it argues that these printed artefacts were active agents in redefining domestic architecture for the Ottoman elite.