Closed Bazaar

This 1929 photograph documents modern cosmopolitan consumers in the bustle and energy of the bedesten (meaning Closed Bazaar or The Covered Market) in Istanbul. Built shortly after the conquest of Constantinple, this immense structure with thousands of shops has been a functioning marketplace since the 1460s. In a gesture likely symbolic of legitimizing the new Ottoman Empire, it was constructed on the former Byzantine commercial district dedicated to guilds and crafts. The bazaar is an essential element of an Ottoman city, and Istanbul’s Closed Bazaar surpasses the ones found in the earlier capital cities of Bursa and Erdine. The original design of the bedesten has expanded over the years, and now it encompasses more than sixty streets and alleys, as well as houses and thirty-two gates, where both locals and tourists can purchase precious textiles, metalwork, jewelry, and carpets.