Port of the Orient and capital of three empires - Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman - Istanbul attracts millions of tourists with its history and its extraordinary beauty. Visiting it is like living a legend: cultural crossroads, mosques and the wealth of sultanates mix with the thrill of the Orient Express, enriched with the enigma and fascination of an Agatha Christie mystery or Hemingway’s reports, written after their stay at Pera Palace decades ago.

And yet, despite the many stories narrated in the glossy pages of travel catalogues, what strikes the visitor first is the physical energy of this great megalopolis whose population has grown rapidly over the last fifty years, reaching 15 million today, and its trend-setting role in economics and finance. A stimulating and pleasurable mix of tradition and contradiction makes up the city wherever you look. Because amidst the imposing presence of antiquities: the famous mosques, the bridges over the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, the Galata tower, and the UNESCO protected historical districts with their decadent wooden houses and alleyways swarming with sellers, there is a dynamic city bent on constructing its own modernness.

A modernness not only architectural, with business and residential centres and new trendy hotels, but in every sense; think of the Mosque of Sakhir for example, the only one in the world designed by a woman architect, Zeynep Fadillioglu, or the cultural ferment of quarters like Pera Galata, a focal point for elegance and fun in the metropolis.

This feeling accompanies you as you look beyond the color of the spices in the Grand Bazaar or the play of light on the Blue Mosque, of Aja Sofia, of the Basilica Cistern and other monumental historical places, up to the most recent and extremely interesting symbols of the contemporary city. The new museum of contemporary art, Arter, for example, or the fascinating Yapi, designed in the 1950s but still a business and fashion center in today’s modern city, and – especially – the great worksite of modern Istanbul nearing completion, the huge centre of contemporary art and architecture designed by Renzo Piano. Another interesting worksite nearing completion this spring is the large structure of the former port warehouse, Antrepo 5, which is destined to become the Museum of Painting and Sculpture of Istanbul and which, in the meantime, hosted the Istanbul Biennial 2019 of contemporary art a few weeks ago.

To these places of contemporaneity can be added fascinating huge luxury hotels such as the Ajwa Hotel Sultanhamet or the Room Mate Emir, where design and furnishings, regardless of the architectural design, are inspired by the best in luxury, materials and historical artisanal goods. Lastly, there are also the new temples to wellness in the contemporary panorama, following in the footsteps of the long tradition of the hammam, like the Afiya SPA, which I will come back to in the next few days.

by Ilenia Girolami

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