After years of painstaking restoration, Istanbul’s historic Haydarpaşa station will reopen this year after work is completed on the building and its surroundings, including archaeological excavations beneath its structure in which archaeologists have unearthed the very origins of Constantinople: findings that wil be displayed around the station itself.
The news was announced this week, quoted by Turkish media, by the Turkish Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, speaking of one of Istanbul’s most emblematic train stations – it was built 116 years ago as the departure point for the railway connecting the ancient Ottoman capital with Baghdad – which on 28 November 2010 suffered a devastating fire that caused serious damage to the building, mainly to its roof.
Over the past few years, restoration work has been carried out in several phases: initially the work focused on restoring the roof, which had suffered most of the damage, and then included work to improve the structure and reinforce the foundations to protect the building against future earthquakes.
“We are meticulously restoring the external façade, carrying out restoration works including artistic cleaning to safeguard the integrity of the structure. For the restoration of the station building, we are employing a unique technique using Lefke stone, a type of sandstone sourced specifically from a quarry that was created for this project,” explained Uraloğlu.
An archaeological park with the remains of ancient Chalcedon
An innovative archaeopark project will also be included within Haydarpaşa Station, which, according to the minister, and will be a pioneering initiative in Turkey and the world: a space in which a multitude of historical relics and artefacts discovered during excavations in the station area will be displayed to the public. “The Archaeological and Industrial Heritage Park Project has revealed structures believed to be part of the ancient city of Chalcedon. The excavations have unearthed structures from Ottoman, Roman and Byzantine times,” commented Uraloğlu, who assured that the new archaeopark will attract tourists from all over the world.
90% of the archaeological excavations in the area, under the direction of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, have already been completed; in total the exhibition area will be 475,000 square metres, of which 400,000 square metres will be dedicated to the archaeological park. According to the minister, all excavation and restoration work at Haydarpaşa Station is nearing completion, and it is expected to be fully operational before the end of this year.
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Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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