The "Passage" between East and West

The passage is not only a street; it is a new building type, a direct by-product of industrialisation. As soon as invented it was imitated all around the world and considered a symbol of cultural modernity, an opportunity for real estate speculation by wealthy citizens and a possibility to satisfy the need expressed by upper-class citizens for a covered public promenade. The term passage in France, galleria in Italy and arcade in England generally designated the same type of building, fully developed by 1830 in Europe. As J.F. Geist (1985) put it "The arcade is the organising force of retail trade. It offers public space on private property as well as an easing of traffic congestion, a short cut, protection from the weather, and an area accessible only to pedestrians." In this sense the passage model was imported also in Ottoman cities. The paper will illustrate a number of significant case studies from Istanbul, Alexandria, Thessalonica and Smyrna with the aim to show not only how the European model was adapted by different urban cultures but most significantly the cross fertilization in this process. The brief excursus focusing on the transformation of the han type during the 19th and early 20th century and the emulation of the European passage building type, will show that the multicultural societies of these cities although imitating European trends, lifestyle and consumption modes, reinterpreted local traditional typologies such as the han or okelle, instead of simply coping foreign models. This was done by opening up previously enclosed courtyards or by cutting passageways through closed-off buildings. That is, the opening up of public space, while increasing commercial space, was done, to a large extent, within the unbroken tradition of the oriental trading structure of the han, both in terms of function and form.