Review Paper “architecture, Identity, and Liminality: On the Use and Meaning of Catholic Spaces in Late Ottoman Istanbul”

Review essay of the article: 

“Architecture, Identity, and Liminality: On the Use and Meaning of Catholic Spaces in Late

Ottoman Istanbul”

 By Paolo Girardelli, in Muqarnas, Vol. 22 (2005), pp. 233-264.

The article “Architecture, Identity, and Liminality: On the Use and Meaning of Catholic Spaces in Late Ottoman Istanbul”, is written by Paolo Girardelli who is an art and architectural historian, with research and teaching experience in the field of Euro-Mediterranean and Ottoman interactions during the XVIII to early XX centuries.

In his article Girardelli discusses the reflection of catholic churches and illustrates the presence of Catholic and other religious houses of worship in Istanbul during the nineteenth and the end of twentieth century.

The worship houses mentioned in the article, dated back to the Byzantine era, are located in the districts of Galata and Pera. After the Tanzimat Charter of 1839, the liberalization of the ottoman religious policies resulted in their present shape after conducting renoovations and reconstractions. Some of these churches were destroyed by fire or converted into mosques- Saint Anne, Saint Francis-. They plans and styles of the churches conform to the standards of  european historicism of nineteenth century, The architectural concept of ottoman-ness exceeds its Islamic and Dynastic dimensions. The catholic community of Galata was composed by both ottomans and foreigners, after certain period foreigners become Ottoman subject or they acquired foreign protection and in the absence of a religious head they shared many aspects of communal life with their foreign co-religionists.Most popular Catholic church of present-day that reflect the characterestics of european style is Saint Anthony in Beyoglu designed by  Giulio Mongeri.