Sarı Köşk

Sarı Köşk is a pavilion located within the Beylerbeyi Palace complex in Istanbul’s Üsküdar district. Today, it is used as a working office by the President of Turkey.It takes its name from the pavilion of the same name within the former wooden palace complex that previously stood on the site of the current palace. Following the partial or complete demolition of that pavilion, it was constructed between 1863-1864 alongside the current palace. With the law enacted after the proclamation of the republic, it was nationalized in 1924 and its management was transferred to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The following year, it was affiliated with the Directorate of National Palaces as part of the palace. Although it was opened to visitors along with the palace in 1964, it was closed in 1971. While the main building of the palace was opened to visitors in 1981, Sarı Köşk remained closed. When the palace was turned into a museum in 1985, the restoration of Sarı Köşk was completed the following year, with its first floor arranged as a museum and the second floor as a cultural center, sales section, and the kitchen of the café added to the garden. Having started to be used as a working office by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2013, the pavilion continues to be used by Erdoğan after he became president.Situated in the northeast corner of the palace complex, the pavilion is the largest structure in the complex after the palace itself. It has a cross-shaped plan due to a rectangular section extending roughly in an east-west direction, intersected perpendicularly in the middle by a rectangular section protruding from the south and north. It is a masonry structure built with cut stone, consisting of two floors above the basement. Although there are symmetrical arrangements on the facades reflecting an eclectic approach incorporating Neoclassical and Neo-Baroque styles, there are architectural differences in appearance between the facades. Both floors share the same layout, consisting of a central entrance space, a hall to the north of this space, and one room each to the east and west. Due to the slope of the terrain, the basement, located only beneath the western and central parts, features a similar layout. Inside the geometric frames formed by laths on the ceilings of the spaces outside the basement, there are Moorish and Baroque style hand-drawn decorations and depictions.