Yıldız Tile and Porcelain Factory

Overview

Guide

The Yıldız Tile and Porcelain Factory is a working factory and museum standing in the grounds of Yıldız Park in İstanbul. It was founded between 1892 and 1894 to meet the Ottoman palace's need for tiles and to revive an art then in decline, and it is, according to Turkish Wikipedia, the oldest plant in Türkiye still producing in this field. It is run today under the Directorate of National Palaces.

By the nineteenth century the art of tilework, one of the most important of the traditional Turkish arts, had fallen away to the point where the Ottoman state depended heavily on imports. The works were founded on the instruction of Abdülhamid II, under the name of the imperial tile factory at Yıldız, to supply the palace and those around it.

The factory began work with technology imported from the French firms of Sèvres and Limoges, and specialist staff and tile moulds were brought from France for the purpose. It was badly damaged in the İstanbul earthquake of 1894, stopped production for a time, and was repaired by the Italian architect Raimondo D'Aronco.

Besides tiles, the factory made everyday objects: vases, wall plates, writing and dinner services, calling-card trays, covered bowls, serving dishes, aşure trays, sugar bowls, and tea and coffee sets.

Production was stopped after Abdülhamid II was deposed, and the factory was brought back into operation in 1911 through the efforts of its former managers. During the war of independence it also made the kaolin insulators used to join telegraph wires, which were then in short supply. In 1957 it was transferred to Sümerbank.

The factory went on producing through the republican period, and it did a good deal both to bring Western and Anatolian work together and to make traditional Turkish tilework known abroad. Today it makes pieces for present-day use and taste alongside copies of the work it produced in its early years.

Visit status for this record: open to visitors.