Published simultaneously with the opening of Zeyrek Çinili Hamam, Barbarossa’s Çinili Hamam: A Masterpiece by Sinan is an invaluable reference chronicling the five-century story of this magnificent cultural heritage site from its construction to the present day as well as the striking aspects that distinguish it from similar structures.

Once standing gloriously in Zeyrek that was a prominent district during both Byzantine and Ottoman periods, the hammam afterwards was lost to oblivion behind modern buildings. Product of a two-year painstaking work, the book offers new information that came into light during the thirteen-year-long restoration on top of the already existing academic sources.

The articles penned by scholars and experts offers an insight and illuminating information from the sociological aspect of the hammams to Çinili Hamam’s tiles and ornamentation program, from its restoration process to the splendid hammamiye tiles and the journey of its tiles that were sold in Europe in the 19th century. The book is equally absorbing for both academics and readers that take interest in architecture and history.

Edited by Aykut Şengözer and Aslı Özbay and designed by Yeşim Demir Pröhl, the book features articles by Leyla Kayhan Elbirlik, Cengiz Kabaoğlu, Bora Keskiner, Tim Stanley, Yavuz Suyolcu, M. Baha Tanman and Filiz Yenişehirlioğlu and photographs by Murat Germen and Orhan Cem Çetin that bring out the beauty of every part of the hammam.