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As the administrative center of the Ottomon Empire for nearly 400 years, Topkapi Palace is certainly the most important historical site to be visited in İstanbul. Thus, due to its highly acclaimed position among its European counterparts, Topkapi Palace is one of the most frequently visited museums of Europe, and is the most visited one in Turkey.
The foundations of the palace dating back to years between 1475-1478 were laid by the decree of Ottoman Sultan Fatih Sultan Mehmet, particularly on a venue where the ruins of the ancient Roman city lied. The succeeding centuries were to witness the ongoing construction facilities that led to the extention of the palace through spatial annexations until it was abandoned in the 19th century.
The palace surrounded with walls, around five kilometers, has a total area around 700.000 m2 which is twice the area of Vatican and half of Monaco in size. Most of the buildings in the palace were destroyed during the conflagrations and earhquakes that frequently wreaked havoc with the Istanbul during 16th and 17 th centuries. Hence most of the buildings that underwent substantial restoration works reflect the architectural features of different periods.
The general construction plan of Topkapı Palace is based on two disparate parts; Enderun and Birun. While Enderun stands for the private residence of Sultans and other members of the dynasty, Birun, on the other hand, was the place where high level civil servants conducted the works of the government. Far from resemling to any other European Palaces, Topkapi Palace inherently embodies the essential configurations of Ottoman architecture and craftsmanship the manifests plainness in style but sublety in the ornamentation of the tiles.
The main entrance gate Bab-ı Hümayün leads to the second main gate ‘Bab-us Selam‘ that opens to the inner courtyard where the palace buildings are strewn around. Among these buildings and sections, the most striking one is perhaps the HAREM that designates the part of the palace in which Sultan and his family pursued their lives. Harem figuratively meant to be the wordly application of heaven full of beauties that is promised to religious men by Islam.
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