Architectural Change and Significance

A Map of Europe featuring Vienna and Istanbul at the time that the cast-iron framework was shipped to Istanbul.

It soon became clear that the wooden structure situated on the Golden Horn of Istanbul was not doing justice to the aims of St Stephen’s Church of the Bulgars. Rather, ‘the ground by the Golden Horn was very weak’[1] and could not support a concrete structure. This marked the need for a transformation for the physical structure of the Church, which led to ‘an international competition [being] held’[2] to design a new framework for the Church.

This competition saw the Austrian company, R PH Waagner, win the chance to redesign the Church, and between 1893-96, his design was ‘prefabricated in Vienna and shipped down the Danube to Istanbul’[3]. After a year and a half, in 1898, the Church finally stood complete in Istanbul. In this sense, St Stephen’s Church of the Bulgars has a multi-faceted origin since, although it now stands in Istanbul, it was created and produced elsewhere, and travelled through Europe to reach its final destination. As a lieu de memoire, this is significant since it means that parts of Europe were connected through the creation of this Church, although at the same time, in an oxymoronic way, the existence of the Church is a result of the divisions between different ethnic groups. 

A painting of St Stephen's Church of the Bulgars at the time of its construction.

The architecture of the Church is particularly vital to our view of the Church as a lieu de memoire. The ornate decorations on its iron frameworks are an ‘outstanding example of Gothic revivalism’[4], and it is actually ‘one of the few examples of neo-Gothic architecture’[5] that still remains today. As a lieu de memoire, the fact that the site itself is retrospective in that it acknowledges traditional architectural styles despite being designed in the latter half of the 19^th century adds another layer to our interpretation of it, as it physically appears older than the time in which it was created.