Beylerbeyi Palace

Beylerbeyi Palace
General information
Architectural style	Ottoman, Second Empire
Town or city	Istanbul
Country	Turkey
Construction started	1861
Client	Sultan Abdülaziz
Owner	Turkish state
Technical details
Structural system	main palace, pavilions and gardens
Design and construction
Architect	Hagop Balyan, Sarkis Balyan

The Beylerbeyi Palace (Turkish: Beylerbeyi Sarayı), Beylerbeyi meaning "Lord of Lords", is located in the Beylerbeyi neighbourhood of Üsküdar district in Istanbul, Turkey at the Asian side of the Bosphorus. An Imperial Ottoman summer residence built in the 1860s, it is now situated immediately north of the 1973 Bosphorus Bridge.

Beylerbeyi Palace was commissioned by Sultan Abdülaziz (1830–1876) and built between 1861 and 1865 as a summer residence and a place to entertain visiting heads of state. Empress Eugénie of France visited Beylerbeyi on her way to the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and had her face slapped by the sultan's mother, Pertevniyal Sultan, for daring to enter the palace on the arm of Abdülaziz. (Despite her initial reception, Empress Eugénie of France was so delighted by the elegance of the palace that she had a copy of the window in the guest room made for her bedroom in Tuileries Palace, in Paris.) Other regal visitors to the palace included the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

The palace was the last place of captivity of the deposed sultan Abdulhamid II from 1912 until his death there in 1918.

Designed in the Second Empire style by Sarkis Balyan, Beylerbeyi Palace seems fairly restrained compared to the excesses of the earlier Dolmabahçe or Küçüksu palaces.

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Wikipedia