Hürrem Sultan Hamam

Overview

On the green square between Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, a long, low building of striped stone and brick hides under a row of lead domes. Still, it is easy to walk past it on your way between the two great monuments. Yet inside, warm marble and soft light wait under a dome by Mimar Sinan. This is the Hürrem Sultan Hamam (a Turkish bath), a Turkish bath by Mimar Sinan in the heart of Sultanahmet.

A Bath for Hürrem Sultan

In 1556, Hürrem Sultan, the wife of Suleiman the Magnificent, commissioned the bath as a charitable gift for the community around Hagia Sophia, which was then the great mosque of the city. For the work, her architect was Mimar Sinan, and, he built it over the ruins of the Baths of Zeuxippus, the great public baths of Byzantine Constantinople.

Two baths in one line

To begin with, Sinan designed a double bath, 75 m (246 ft) long, with a men’s half to the north and a women’s half to the south. Unusually, he set both halves on one straight axis, so that the two hot rooms meet in the middle, back to back. At the time, this was something new in Ottoman bath design.

Inside the Hürrem Sultan Hamam

From cool to hot

Inside, each half follows the classic order of the Turkish bath. First comes the domed changing room, next the cool room, and last of all the hot room. Here, the hot room is shaped like a cross, with marble basins in its corners and small private cubicles.

The navel stone

Finally, at the center of the hot room lies a great octagonal slab of marble, the göbektaşı, or navel stone. Today, bathers stretch out on it in the warmth, under a dome pierced by small glass windows that let in a soft, scattered light.

A bath reborn

However, for a long time the building stood closed, and later it served as a warehouse and then as a carpet showroom. Then, between 2008 and 2011, a long restoration brought it back to life, and in May 2011 it reopened as a working hammam for the first time in more than a century.

The Hürrem Sultan Hamam Today

The restoration that began in 2008 followed a project by the Faculty of Architecture of Kocaeli University, and about 1,300 m² (14,000 sq ft) of Marmara marble went into the work. The dome of the cold section rises 24 m (79 ft). In the hot room, the navel stone is kept at about 42 °C (108 °F), and the private cubicles are warmer still, at about 48 °C (118 °F). Because it is a working hammam that runs on bookings, we reserve your session and ritual with the hamam’s team before you go.

How to Visit the Hürrem Sultan Hamam

Conveniently, the bath stands on Sultanahmet Square, between Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, a few minutes from the Sultanahmet tram stop. We book your treatment at the Hürrem Sultan Hamam between Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque.

New to the ritual? Read our guide to the Turkish bath in Istanbul, or let us arrange an Istanbul hammam experience. Nearby, also visit Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and the Basilica Cistern.