Book Description

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The Galata Sarayı, registered in Istanbul’s records from the end of the 15th century onwards as a palace school, is the city’s only non-religious institution that has survived unchanged until the present day. Beginning with its founding myth based on the meeting of Bayezid II and Gül Baba, the building complex bore the very same name, and in time lent it to the neighbourhood evolving around it as well. The Galata Sarayı complex, which is used to train qualified personnel to the Ottoman Palace and Army throughout its history, became a pioneering military school. It hosted innovative developments such as a French curriculum and Western standards in education after the mid-19th century.

In the last 150 years, as the Mekteb-i Sultani in the final Ottoman years and as the Galatasaray High School from 1923 onwards, the school became a symbolic institution and an elite identity for its students and alumni alike. Designed to share the inspiring memory of this public institution, the exhibit thus presents glimpses from the school’s efforts, since 1868, to train skilled, qualified individuals.

Edited by curator İzzeddin Çalışlar the exhibition catalogue consists articles that give a unique insight to Galatasaray High School by Emel Engin, Fethi İsfendiyaroğlu, Seza Sinanlar Uslu, Gülsün Güvenli Vahdettin Engin, Köksal Bayraktar, Yıldızhan Yayla, Tarkan Okçuoğlu, Melih Şabanoğlu and İzzeddin Çalışlar.