Turkish Delights

Famed as the crossroads of two continents, three religions and innumerable cultures for centuries, Istanbul has risen once again as one of the hottest spots on the globe. Once chagrined that approval of its status in the European Union dragged on, Turkey is still flexing its conspicuous consumption muscle while EU members enter the era of increasing austerity. Over-the-top hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, luxury retailers, museums and galleries are popping up with abandon as a result of political and financial stability that is the envy of its admirers to the East and West.

The style-soaked city, straddling Europe and Asia, stands as a monument to both progress and preservation. Cutting-edge technology and design intersects with tradition and antiquities, dating back to the Roman era. And that’s just the architecture.

Even travelers looking for contemporary cool are hard-pressed to avoid the city’s recently renovated landmarks that date back civilizations, such as the dramatic underground Basilica Cistern (Yerebatan Cad. No. 13, yerebatan.com), which played backdrop to the James Bond flick From Russia with Love decades before opening to the public. The city is rich with ancient homes of the sultans and harems of the Ottoman Empire, including the storied Topkapi Palace (Sultanahmet, Eminönü,topkapipalace.com), which exhibits the eponymous 86-carat Spoonmaker’s diamond, among other artistic treasures collected over four centuries.

Indeed pilgrimage-inspiring religious artifices, such as the Hagia Sophia—built in 360 A.D. as a Greek Orthodox basilica, re-dedicated later as a Roman Catholic church, later still as a mosque in 1453, and ultimately turned into a museum in 1935—define Istanbul’s landscape, particularly on the European side of the Bosphorus River. But the minarets and towers springing up from the undulous hills of a city with no clear boundaries belie the modernism percolating down below.

Even architectural designs representing the center of the secular state’s religious traditions make room for avant-garde ideas. Famed interior designer Zeynep Fadıllıoğlu is considered the only woman in Turkey, and perhaps the contemporary Arab world, to be publicly credited with helping to design a Muslim house of worship. Her Sakirin Mosque (Karacaahmet Cemetery, Üsküdar) on Istanbul’s Asian side is replete with Modernist plate-glass walls, cast-iron grids and acrylic accents, making it as much of a design must-see as a religious landmark. It’s projects like this one the international cognoscenti cite as evidence of Istanbul’s willingness to simultaneously embrace and skirt tradition, which is yielding a white-hot cultural scene.

The city has recently become part of the pantheon of important European Modern art cities. The Istanbul Biennial has validated the region’s contemporary art cred, and a multitude of museums have recently dedicated themselves to showing the work of local artists as they rise to international stardom. The Istanbul Modern (Sahası Antrepo No. 4, istanbulmodern.org) is found dockside on the European coast of the Bosphorus. Its permanent exhibition New Works, New Horizons offers one of the city’s best historical perspectives of the rise of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, as told through the contemporary art and artists of multiple decades throughout the last century and this one.

The Pera Museum (Meşrutiyet Cad. No. 65, en.peramuzesi.org.tr), named for its home in one of the most walkable neighborhoods of the city, Pera, features work, in many cases, from the private collections of Turkey’s own style setters. Frida Kahlos and Diego Riveras often hang in galleries a flight of stairs away from up-and-coming graduate students exhibiting cutting-edge comments on the country’s traditional arts and crafts. The work of local artists can also be nabbed in the über-contemporary galleries dotting the Istiklal Caddesi (Independence Avenue) in the heart of the Beyoğlu district. Hipsters can be seen taking in the edgy neighborhood, strolling through Taksim Square and then continuing along the side streets of the closest thing Istanbul has to the East Village.

On the European side, mid-century-modern-flanked interiors are set deep into historic buildings, allowing for the kind of juxtaposition urbane, urban Americans yearn. While only a few markets and restaurants warrant a trip to the Asian side of the Bosphorus river, the architecture built after the Bosphorus Bridge—the first contemporary span connecting the two continents—was completed in 1973 and calls to any traveler looking for the city’s contemporary structures. The manses and row houses look wildly of the moment, despite their 1980s origins.

Few leave Istanbul without a trip to the Grand Bazaar (grandbazaaristanbul.org), one of the largest covered markets in the world, which opened in 1461. But the Egyptian Bazaar (also called the Spice Bazaar), dating back to 1660 in the Eminönü neighborhood, and the more recent Ortaköy Market on the Asian side, offer foodie fortresses that will yield Turkish delights far more interesting than de rigueur pottery and pashminas.

However, Istanbul natives choose elsewhere to shop altogether. Supermalls are popping up alongside new hotels in the Levent financial district complete with behemoth luxury imports such as Harvey Nichols. But it’s the intimate, nearly tourist-free neighborhood of Nişantaşı that reigns as the city’s fashion fortress. Native son Atil Kutoglu (Karakol Sokak No. 9, atilkutoglu.com) built his first boutique here amid the Art Nouveau buildings lined with chic streetside cafes. The top shops, which include Alexander McQueen, Prada, Cartier, Dolce & Gabbana, Louis Vuitton, Roberto Cavalli and Giuseppe Zanotti, among many, many others, create a prêt-à-porter play place where Louboutin clicks can be heard up and down the cobblestone paths until the sun goes down.

With all of its juxtapositions, Istanbul offers a lush look back at the creation of a multitude of cultures over nearly a millennium. Though it’s likely the stunning view of what’s to come for Turkey that will inspire the jet set to continue dropping in on this newly modern mecca.