Wooden houses in Istanbul

"The tradition of timber houses stems from the great earthquake of 1509. Timber houses were quick to construct and are at less risk of collapse during earthquakes. The great danger came from fire — not that timber houses catch fire more easily than masonry ones, but because streets were narrow and houses close together."

David Michelmore, The Zeyrek Cultural Association  commissioned  British expert on timber construction.

Mavi Boncuk | 

Virtually all Ottoman-era houses built in Istanbul were made of wood; until the 20th century Constantinople was still predominantly a "wooden city". Thereafter, the extensive urban areas ravaged by the last big fires were newly laid out and rebuilt with solid constructions rather than wood, partly according to plans reaching far back into the 19th century. There remained four fairly large quarters with traditional wooden houses, among them Süleymaniye and Zeyrek. The latter quarter was, until the 1970s, the largest continuous stretch of wooden buildings in the city. In two other localities in the metropolitan area timber structures are still to be found to this day, firstly on both sides of the Bosporus in the form of wooden villas dotting the shoreline, and secondly as summer residences on the Princes' Islands. For some years now the Istanbul Department has been conducting construction-history investigations in all these areas in order to document the surviving structures and thus to lay the foundations for future research and restoration work. Given that wooden houses continue to vanish from the Istanbul cityscape, this undertaking is highly urgent.

SOURCE

The German Archaeological Institute (DAI) is a »scientific corporation« of the Federal Institution under the auspices of theForeign Office. The staff of the Institute carries out research in the area of archaeology and in related fields and maintains relations with international scholars. DAI has been studying these wooden buildings since the 1960s.

German Archaeological Institute Istanbul Department 
Inönü Caddesi 10 34437 Istanbul 

The Istanbul Department of the German Archaeological Institute was founded in 1929.
See Article: Damage Assessment of 19th Century Traditional Timber Framed Structures in Istanbul by Hülya Diskaya, Research Assistant, Civil Engineer, Restorer, Architect (MSc), Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University