The historic hammam ritual is having a renaissance in Istanbul

Istanbul, Turkey – The Zeyrek neighbourhood of Istanbul is quintessentially residential; men play backgammon on makeshift tables and discarded vegetable crates line the streets. Seemingly identical grocers, butchers and spice shops alternate between one another, each drawing a handful of customers at any given time.

Turning into Itfaiye Street, I catch sight of a series of silver domes lining the horizon. Below them, at the Zeyrek Cinili hammam, there is a small commotion.

Gaggles of friends and lone tourists mill around an arched stone entrance. Some of them sport slicked-back hair. Others clutch enormous bags with towels and exfoliator scrubs poking out.

The domed exterior of the Zeyrek Cinili hammam shows covered star-shaped skylights that allow light into the rooms of the bathhouse below [Courtesy of the Zeyrek Cinili hammam]

The hub of activity surrounding the newly restored 16th-century bathhouse points towards a wider cultural renaissance occurring in the city: the revival of the historic hammam ritual.

Hammams, where the communal bathing tradition of being cleansed and scrubbed by an attendant takes place, were once central in Ottoman society. Originally government-run establishments, these bathhouses fell out of fashion in Istanbul during the 19th and 20th centuries. The hammams in the city have since been abolished or acquired by private entities.

Over the last decade, the bathing ritual has started to gain popularity again, with a series of hammam restorations catering to the demand.

Zeyrek Cinili is by far the most impressive. The project took almost 13 years to complete and included excavation of Byzantine cisterns below the grounds and the construction of a museum focused on hammam culture.

Other notable hammams have undergone restoration too. The 16th-century Kilic Ali Pasa hammam reopened in 2012 after a seven-year-long renovation and the 19th-century Cukurcuma hammam started welcoming guests again in 2018 after closing for renovations in 2007.

Luxury hotels have also started to incorporate the historic hammam ritual in their offering since the turn of the century. The Four Seasons Sultanahmet, Shangri-La Bosphorus and Six Senses Kocatas Mansions all boast their own glittering marble bathhouses.

Eager to see what the fuss is about, I venture into the sogukluk, or cold room, of the women’s section at Zeyrek Cinili. This space is where bathers hydrate before treatment and return to afterwards for relaxation and socialising. Most bathhouses have separate sections for men and women, though some smaller establishments will have different hours for either gender to attend.

Koza Gureli Yazgan, the director of Zeyrek Cinili hammam, meets me there before my treatment. She and her now-retired mother are the formidable forces behind the restoration project.

“Renovations were initially projected to take three years but we kept making discoveries,” Yazgan explains. The Byzantine cistern, a series of intricate galleon carvings, and numerous archaeological trinkets were among the items that had to be excavated.

Determined to see the project through and restore each finding to its original glory, the pair shifted their timeline significantly.

“Our aim was to honour the history of this regional wellness practice,” Yazgan explains. “That is why we renovated the hammam in line with ancient standards. We used traditional Marmara marble and kept original design features, including the ornate tiles – or cinili –  that gave the bathhouse its name.”

The walls used to be covered in these cerulean tiles, though only six remain in the women’s section. The rest of the tiles have either been lost or were ferried to museums in Europe long ago.

“Some hammams have made adjustments to appeal to modern-day visitors but our guests actually want to fully immerse themselves in the history and culture of the bathhouses. That is why we offer the traditional surroundings and ritual,” Yazgan explains.

“People are able to feel the centuries-old legacy of this practice during the bathing process. You will see,” she assures me.

One of the renovated rooms in the Zeyrek Cinili hammam in Istanbul [Courtesy of the Zeyrek Cinili hammam]

Scrubbing and socialisation: Bygone rituals

When I enter the cold room, an attendant brings me a refreshing cold sherbet drink, a tradition designed to hydrate guests before their treatment. I gulp it down before making a beeline for the changing rooms. Here, I undress and wrap a pesthemal – a traditional lightweight and quick-drying cotton bathing towel – around myself.

As I enter the sicaklik (hot room) of the baths, I am struck by the sheer opulence of the space. Soaring domed ceilings are peppered with celestial openings. Streaks of sunlight pour through the star-shaped slits, bouncing off the marble walls and benches in a dazzling haze.

Around me, women stretch out across hot stone slabs or curl up on marble steps as their attendant scrubs them. Echoes of women laughing and talking among themselves periodically interrupt the gentle sounds of running water.

My attendant tells me to lie on the central hexagonal table to acclimate to the temperature. After 10 minutes pass, she collects me and guides me to a brass washing basin. Here, I am vigorously scrubbed with a kese, a rough exfoliating mitt.

Then, mounds of foam are poured onto me and the attendants’ agile hands dart in and out to massage my legs. Lashings of cold water follow, cleaning me completely before I am guided back into the cold room to relax.

Perched in a cushioned alcove, I watch groups of friends chatting and a mother and daughter bickering humorously in the corner.

Kate Fleet, the director of the Skilliter Centre for Ottoman Studies at the University of Cambridge, explained how hammams have traditionally been a place for people to socialise.

“The act of cleansing oneself is central in Islam, so bathhouses played a key role in Ottoman society,” Fleet said.

Hammams became a central hub for meeting up, conducting business and celebrating key events such as commemorating a marriage or the birth of a child.

Fleet tells me that the bathhouses became central for women because they could visit hammams unaccompanied and socialise with females outside of their family circle.

“Of course, they would gossip, or select brides for male family members,” Fleet explained. “However, there are also reports of females chatting about business or politics. Indeed, in the 19th century, there was a lot of concern within the regime that the hammam was a place where both genders would criticise the Sultan.”

The women’s cold room inside the Zeyrek Cinili hammam in Instanbul [Courtesy of the Zeyrek Cinili hammam]

Private bathrooms, economic collapse and Orientalism: The decline of the hammam

The bathhouses enjoyed notable popularity during this period. Frederic Lacroix’s Guide Du Voyageur a Constantinople Et Dans Ses Environs claims that there were approximately 300 in Istanbul during the 1830s.

Soon after, however, hammams started to see a decline in popularity.

Ergin Iren, the owner of the Kilic Ali Pasa, explained how the rise of private bathrooms contributed to this decline: “On a very basic level, the introduction of private bathrooms in Istanbul meant that fewer people actually had a reason to visit the bathhouse.

“In rural areas, having a bathroom in your house was less common, so hammams actually retained a lot of their popularity there.”

Leyla Kayhan, a Turkish historian and fellow at Harvard University, touched on this decline further.

“The accessibility of water comes into it of course, but so too does a change in attitudes. Hammams have always been exoticised by the West. During the 19th century, some European observers described them as backward, unhygienic or as promoting homoerotic promiscuity. As the bathhouses became associated with these features, they started to fall out of fashion,” she said.

Both Kayhan and Fleet stressed that we should not place too much importance on the opinions of the West, however. Internal dynamics were also at play.

By the 19th century, the government was bankrupt. As the popularity of hammams waned, they could no longer be sustained by an already struggling administration. Many of the bathhouses were thus privatised during this period.

The Republican reforms under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the president of the newly formed Turkish Republic, also brought about a shift in the early 20th century.

“Social reforms meant that women were no longer segregated to the enclosed spaces of the home and the hammam. They could attend schools and universities, interact with the opposite gender, and also dress similarly to their counterparts in Europe,” Kayhan said.

As a result, the hammam lost its nuclear, central importance in society.

A photo from the restoration of the historic Kilic Ali Pasa hammam in Istanbul, September 11, 2009 [Murad Sezer/Reuters]

A historic ritual reimagined

By the late 20th century, many of the traditional bathhouses in Istanbul had fallen into disarray.

“When I was a child in the late 80s, bathing in a historical hammam was not a very common thing to do,” Kayhan reminisced. “Turkey was going through a period of industrialisation and a lot of new money had come in. In the late 90s and early 2000s, going to Western-style spas in luxurious hotels became far more fashionable and popular in contrast to the rundown public hammams that were poorly maintained.”

Things started to change about 10 years ago, however.

“Globalisation made everything generic and homogenised. By the turn of the century, people started to crave something different,” Kayhan said. “In Turkish society, this meant reviving the aspects of traditional culture that made the region unique.”

In many cases, it was luxury hotels that started to incorporate modern, hammam spaces in their properties first.

“International hotels were choosing aspects of Turkish culture that would appeal to their visitors,” Kayhan explained. “In some ways, this means that the bathhouses are being fetishised by the tourist industry, but it has helped popularise the hammam ritual again.”

A slew of historic hammams have also reopened over the last 12 years in Istanbul. Zeyrek Cinili, Kilic Ali Pasa hammam and Cukurcuma hammam all underwent extensive restoration projects.

The most notable of these was the recent opening of the Zeyrek Cinili hammam. “People not only come here to cleanse themselves, but also to feel a sense of connection to a longstanding tradition,” Anlam De Coster, the artistic director at Zeyrek Cinili, said. “Both locals and tourists are fascinated by the history and culture of the ritual.”

The restoration of Zeyrek Cinili taps into this, with an onsite museum dedicated to the history of hammam culture. A display of traditional pearl-adorned bathhouse shoes and artefacts found during excavations are displayed there.

De Coster’s cultural programme also invites artists to produce work for the space, including an abstract marble structure from Turkish artist Elif Uras; site-specific sculptural massage units by Athens-based artist Theodore Psychoyos; a soundtrack titled Rhythms of Water, composed by Turkish musician, Mercan Dede; and a bespoke clothing collection for visitors and staff made by renowned fashion designer Hussein Chalayan.

“The popularity of our hammam, and the amount of creatives that are eager to respond to the space, shows that bathhouses are still relevant today and are now assuming a new role in Istanbul,” De Coster told me.

“People are engaging with this historical ritual in a reimagined way – one that fits within modern-day life too.”

Inside the Zeyrek Cinili Hammam Museum [Courtesy of Zeyrek Cinili hammam]