If walls could talkю Exploring the dimensions of heterotopia at the Four Seasons Istanbul Hotel

Zeynep Kezer

Introduction

The Four Seasons Istanbul Hotel was inaugurated with a series of high-profile invitation-only receptions spread over the course of three nights in early October 1996.1 The opening events created quite a splash, receiving extensive coverage in the Turkish media. Four Seasons Regent Hotels and Resorts and its local partner Sultanahmet Turizm AS had spared no expense to create an intimate and soothing atmosphere in this sophisticated boutique hotel and the results were remarkable2 (Figure 10.1).

The restoration and retrofit of the eighty-year-old structure, which had been chosen to house the hotel, was commissioned by Dr Yalgin OzQekren, one of Istanbul’s most experienced and reputable experts on preservation and adaptive reuse. The interiors bore the signature of METEKS, under the direction of Sinan Kafadar, a rising interior designer with an inter­national practice, who had already worked on some critically acclaimed projects for Yapi Kredi Bank, the parent company of Sultanahmet Turizm AS.3 Both OzQekren and Kafadar strived for an understated style and an overall visual coherence throughout the hotel.4 Their choice to highlight the archi­
tectural characteristics of the existing building and to focus on well-executed details called for a labour-intensive process. According to Mr Kafadar’s office, about 200 subcontractors were hired for the construction of the interiors alone – an unprecedented number for a project that has a relatively small square footage.5 To achieve the desired effect, chairs and sofas were imported from the US, hand-selected lamps were shipped from Paris, and Mr Kafadar’s custom-designed chandeliers were manufactured in Murano, Italy.6 Scouts were dispatched to Istanbul’s antiques dealers to collect unusual pieces of furniture to complement the design. Moreover, thirty paintings to be displayed primarily in the public areas of the hotel were commissioned to Timur Kerim Incedayi, a Turkish painter residing in Italy. Mr Incedayi’s
paintings, the general themes for which had been preselected by the interior designers, shared similar themes and colour palettes, conferring the interiors a general sense of unity.

Within just a few years since its opening, the Four Seasons Istanbul Hotel has proven to be a winning enterprise. As an establishment that combines ‘Western amenities’ with a decidedly ‘Eastern character’, the Four Seasons Istanbul is considered, by many, to bring together the best of both worlds.7 The building is located at the heart of Istanbul’s historic peninsula, in the Sultanahmet district, which takes its name from the Sultanahmet Mosque – better known as the Blue Mosque to English-speaking audiences. Other venerable historic structures in the immediate vicinity of the hotel include Topkapi Palace, the Hagia Sophia, the Grand Bazaar, and the Basilica Cistern, to name a few (Figure 10.2). Inside, the painstakingly renovated structure comprises 65 spacious guest rooms (including 11 suites) all of which offer excellent views of the neighbourhood’s famous landmarks. Turning the challenge of working within the constraints of an existing shell to their advantage, the designers have created rooms in various shapes and sizes that break the monotony of a typical hotel floor layout. Moreover, the display of original artwork and one-of-a-kind antiques further reinforces the individual character of each room. For the modern day business traveller the hotel provides computers on demand and the rooms are equipped with high-speed communication access. Not surprisingly, with its tasteful atmosphere, unmatched location, and the attentive service, for which the chain is renowned, Four Seasons Istanbul has quickly garnered some of the most prestigious awards within the hospitality industry, including a vote for the best hotel in Europe by the readers of the Conde Nast Magazine.8 It also became a favourite destination for affluent travellers. The roster of rich and famous guests so far has included the likes of Mikhail Gorbachov, George Soros, Jeremy Irons, Cameron Diaz, Olivero Toscani, and Frank Gehry among others.

Interestingly, this building, which now houses the Four Seasons Hotel, has had a long history of hosting famous guests. In an ironic twist of fate, for the better part of the last century, some of Turkey’s most revered writers, poets, artists, and political activists also stayed in this building – albeit in its previous incarnation as a prison.9 These so-called ‘thought criminals’ shared their quarters with drug users and dealers, pimps, and murderers and wrote extensively about their experience behind bars in what came to be known as the country’s most famous – or infamous – prison. In effect, for decades, the people of Istanbul used ‘going to Sultanahmet’, or more accurately, ‘being taken to Sultanahmet’, as a euphemism for being impris­oned. Especially in the 1960s and 1970s, the building’s image as the visual

embodiment of incarceration acquired nationwide recognition through countless Turkish films, which often featured melodramatic plots and in which the disgraced heroes and heroines would be sentenced to prison and, almost without exception, they would be sent to ‘do time at Sultanahmet’.

Traces of the building’s previous use as a prison are still quite clearly evident on the surrounding landscape. The hotel’s address alone, Tevkifhane Sokak, 1, which translates as ‘1 Jail Street’, invokes this unfortu­nate history. The marble frieze atop the main entrance features the building’s former title in Ottoman script ‘Dersaadet Murder Jail’ and its year of construc­tion 1327 (1916/17).10 The service entrance, which once served as the prisoner release gate, faces KutlugQn Street – that is, Celebration Day Street – in acknowledgement of the joy of regaining freedom. Nowadays, this gate, by which once newly released inmates facing bleak prospects ambivalently celebrated their newly regained freedom, is used to bring in the most exquisite imported delicacies from around the world, the crispest linens, and the plushest towels. These days, only those who can pay at least $290 before taxes can spend a night at the Istanbul Four Seasons Hotel – and that is roughly 3.5 times the official monthly minimum wage in Turkey.11

As I have tried to sketch with these brief observations, the reincar­nation of the former prison as a luxury hotel has radically transformed this building’s relationship with the physical and social fabric around it and with its own history, rendering it as a heterotopic site. Heterotopias, as identified by Foucault, are places that are ‘capable of juxtaposing in a single real space, several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible’.12 A heterotopia is necessarily a relational phenomenon: no site is heterotopic by itself, it only becomes so through its juxtaposition with other sites around it. Heterotopia arise from physical and temporal adjacencies which reveal the existence of alternative social orderings, incommensurate meanings, and incongruous spatial practices.13 Within this context, the conversion of the former Sultanahmet Prison into a luxury hotel has generated heterotopic relationships in the following ways. First of all, and most dramatic, is the slippage of meaning that occurred between the current and former uses of the building. Ironically, despite the incommensurability of the two, the conver­sion was achieved with surprisingly little modification to the layout of the original plan. Second, Four Seasons Istanbul is a generic presence in an excep­tional place. It relies on the uniqueness of its location for attracting business. Yet, by framing that location as one among many the Four Seasons chain can offer its discriminating guests, it also reduces that uniqueness to ordinariness and commodifies what would otherwise be priceless. Last but not least, the hotel embodies two conflicting meanings depending on the audience. While for its primarily foreign clientele staying at the Four Seasons is a journey to the East, for the people of Istanbul, the hotel marks their city’s accelerated integration with the West and the Western-dominated spatial logic of global capitalism.

In the following pages, after providing a brief history of the Sultanahmet Prison and its environs, I will discuss in further detail the hetero­topic relationships generated by the conversion of the former detention facility into a luxury hotel.