Alexander Vallaury

Alexander Vallaury (1850-1921) was a French-Ottoman architect, who founded architectural education and lectured in the School of Fine Arts in Constantinople (Istanbul), Ottoman Empire.

Vallaury was born in 1850 into a Levantine family in Istanbul. His father, Francesco Vallaury, was a renowned pastry chef, highly respected in the court circles. Vallaury's nationality is not definitively known; however, it is assumed that he is of French extraction due to his affinity to French culture.

Alexander Vallaury spent his time between 1869 and 1878 in Paris, France, where he studied architecture at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts. Returning to Istanbul in 1880, he met Osman Hamdi Bey, who was at that time curator of the newly established "Empire Museum" (Turkish: Müze-i Humayun), which is today the Istanbul Archaeology Museum, during an exhibition of his relief drawings of various architectural monuments. The two artists worked closely in the fields of archaeology, museum work and education in fine arts.

Following the foundation of the first School of Fine Arts (Turkish: ) in Turkey on January 1, 1882, Alexander Vallaury was appointed with the establishment of the architecture department of the school, which is today Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts. He lectured for 25 years at the school until his retirement in 1908.

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