The Architects of Ottoman Constantinople: The Balyan Family and the History of Ottoman Architecture by Alyson Wharton (review)

Book Reviews    405 perspective however, this study provokes investigation of a different question. While Özel offers a convincing refutation of Huri Islamoğlu’s argument that Anatolian peasants were able to adapt to population growth, Islamoğlu’s point that peasants in Anatolia had a number of options at their disposal to cope with population change cannot be denied. As Sam White has acknowledged, the question of why they failed to cope is a compelling mystery. There is no obvious reason why the land and water resources of Anatolia were insufficient to support the population, even at its height. The answer to this question is beyond the scope of Özel’s work and he does not speculate about it. It is a question that does lead the reader back to his observation at the beginning of chapter three that we know very little about the socio-political activities of the villagers and how they managed their affairs. If Özel’s study is another addition to an Ottoman and Mediterranean historiography bearing witness to the wisdom of John Malthus, historians trying to answer the question of how population growth turned to pressure may yet find themselves turning to that famous critic of Malthus, Robert Brenner, for a path forward. Malissa Taylor University of Massachusetts Amherst doi:10.2979/jottturstuass.4.2.09 AlysonWharton. The Architects of Ottoman Constantinople: The Balyan Family and the History of Ottoman Architecture. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2015. 336 pp. Cloth, $110. ISBN: 978-1780768526. Alyson Wharton’s book provides a fresh look at the Ottoman-Armenian family responsible for many imperial Ottoman works and buildings for the Armenian community of Constantinople. The strength of her work lies in its use of sources: Wharton takes into equal consideration Turkish and Armenian historiography of the Balyans to achieve a picture of the family that is somewhat more balanced and less nationalistically determined. Moreover, her book is a detailed account of the development of specific architectural styles of nineteenth-century Istanbul, a topic that has until recently been overlooked in favor of buildings of the classical period in Ottoman architecture which spans the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. Wharton states that the goal of her book is to situate the Balyans not just in Armenian and Ottoman history, but also in world architectural history . She identifies major works on late Ottoman architects and architecture by Turkish and Armenian historians, “aim[ing] to find a meeting place for extant cultural memories and discourses” (p. 3). She also considers the various titles ascribed by documents and historians to the Balyans, such as 406 Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, Vol. 4.2 mimar (architect), kalfa (a slippery and changing term meaning non-Muslim builder or simply non-Muslim), and amira (prominent leader in theArmenian community), in order to envision more accurately their roles and to identify certain works as definitely made by the Balyans. Lastly, she seeks to situate the family in the context of the dramatic change of architectural culture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that was spurred by social change and bureaucratic reform. Her second chapter summarizes the history and infrastructure of the Imperial Architects Office, founded in 1453, and its changes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It provides a genealogy of Krikor, Karapet, Nigoğos, Serkis, and Agop, demonstrating the ways in which these individuals were engaged in practical and creative aspects of projects and “were, in some ways, equivalent to the imperial architects of old” (p. 24). Chapter three highlights Karapet Balyan in order to explore the role of the Balyans as benefactors of the Armenian community in Constantinople, underscore connections to Armenian communities abroad (such as in Venice and Isfahan), and demonstrate how amiras incorporated certain elements from European architecture to “modernize local identity” (p. 72). The fourth chapter considers the education of some Balyans in Paris, their contact with Romanticism and with Viollet-le-Duc, and new hybrid styles in both Paris and Constantinople. Chapter five asks what an official style in Ottoman architecture was in the Classical period, and how it changed in the nineteenth century: in the 1840s and 1850s, Romantically-inspired works that emulated the empires...