In contrast to the mighty mosque architecture supporting such enormous domes, comparable to the buildings of the European Renaissance, no such colossal image on the scale of European structures was created for this palace. Small residences already existed outside the historic city in Bursa and Edirne, when Sultan Mehmed II, two years after the conquest of Constantinople, built his first palace in the center of the city. This palace was known as the Old Palace ("Eski Saray") and included several pavilion-type buildings, which lay in a park and were screened by a double surrounding wall. The sultan also built the fortress of Yedikule near the Sea of Marmara, making use of the fortified towers of the old wall of Byzantium. Thus, this fortress was able to serve as a treasure chamber and, in case of attack, as a refuge.
 

The buildings were hardly complete when the sultan decided on an area of more than 150 acres on the point of the city peninsula, whose elevated position with the Byzantine sea wall behind it met his security require­ments as a site for his palace. On a sightseeing tour of the conquered city, the extensive ruined landscape of the Byzantine palaces had made a lasting impression on him. They had been left to decay after being plundered by the Crusaders in 1204. Building work began in 1459 and lasted throughout the sultan's sovereignty. From that time onward the new palace later known as the Topkapi Palace, was for centuries the showplace of the unrestrained royal desire to build. The complex, whose exterior was finished off with a surrounding wall complete with towers and gates, is of modest height as a palace, with numerous pavilions, laid out in a scattered formation and with the spacious gardens which reflect the closeness to nature of Islamic culture, imbued with illusions of paradise.
 

The Mediterranean enthusiasm for garden landscapes, which had been recorded ever since the age of Roman palaces and country villas, was revived in the 14th century in the Nasrid palace city of the Alhambra. The Ottomans also loved views over luxuriant gardens with geometrically designed flower and vegetable beds, in which pools and fountains provide coolness and cypresses and plane trees afford some shade. On the Saray headland stretched terrace gardens lined with rows of cypresses as far as the Byzantine sea wall.

In the plan you can see the three courtyards of the Ottoman residence one behind another. The second and third courtyards can be seen, and the tulip garden, which is fenced off in the northern part of the viewing terrace. In the northern corner of the second courtyard are the divan room, the state chancellery, and the financial administration. Behind the third courtyard's gate is the audience room. In the north are the sultan's private chambers, living quarters for the state court and the harem.
 

The palace city consisted of three groups of buildings, lying behind one another, which were adapted to different functions. Complex entrance is through the Imperial Gate (Bab-i Humayun) which was built near Hagia Sophia by Mehmed the 2nd. Behind this is the first courtyard, with the Byzantine church of Saint Irene used as an arsenal and various pavilions in different styles.

The Çinili Kiosk (Tiled Pavilion) covers an an area of 1000 sq. meters, its name refers to the rich tile decoration. Behind the entrance hall is another hall with a cruciform ground plan and a domed central area, which opens into a reception room with a view over the gardens. The room design makes use of ideas from the palace of the Aq-Qoyunlu rulers at Tabriz, the fiercest adversaries of the Ottomans in the east, who were utterly defeated in the year building began.

The second courtyard can be approached through the gatehouse of the Orta Kapi ("Middle Gate"), which is surmounted with battlements and flanked with towers. On the east side of the courtyard is a long kitchen wing with enormous places for cookers and dome-shaped chimney hoods. In the adjacent rooms holds, you find the fine dinner services and large quantities of Chinese pottery. On the side of the courtyard opposite the kitchen wing and at a somewhat lower level were the stables. The magnificent decoration, with heavy silks and satins, bejeweled cushions as well as exquisite carpets, is emphasized in contemporary chronicles. In the adjacent domed rooms were accommodated the state chancellery, the treasury, and the financial administration.
  
The adjacent rooms include the sultan's private chambers, which were regularly enlarged, especially when the sultan's wife Hurrem insisted that the women's quarters be moved into the New Palace following a fire in the Old Palace. After another devastating fire, which broke out in the Topkapi Palace in 1574, Sultan Murad 3rd. began the improvement of the women's quarters complex. A tiled panel, whose inscription refers to the completion of a pavilion next to the sultan's bath house in the year 1574-1575, dates from the beginning of this phase of renovation. A blossoming plum tree, which controls the symmetry of the decoration, and floral compositions of tulips, carnations, ranunculi, and hyacinths transfer the splendor of the flowers that blossomed in the palace gardens into the interior of the palace. The entrance to the reception room of Sultan Murad 3rd. is bordered with almost identical tiled panels -- The room is vaulted with a pendent dome decorated with graceful arabesque paintings, in the top medallions and around the base of the dome runs a band of tiles bearing the inscriptions of the Quran. "Several experts on the subject noted that the marble fountain that is set into a wall niche was designed to prevent the overhearing of state secrets with the noise of its splashing." The adjoining Throne Room was completed in the middle of the 17th century. It houses the throne sofa, which stands prominently on a platform and is surmounted by a wooden canopy, and was used for festive occasions.
 
The greatest festival at court was the Festival of Circumcision, for which there was a separate pavilion (Sunnet Odasi) available, renovated by Sultan Ibrahim (1640-1648). The entrance facade, screened by a hypostyle hall stand­ing in front of it, is renowned for its tiled walls, where tiles from the golden age of Ottoman tile production had been reused. In a magnificent blue-and-white composition are combined a rectangular panel with densely packed bands of cloud and a tripartite arch wall, with blossoming plum trees in the middle and flowering tendrils at the side, together producing a balanced composition, in which the scroll cloud motif recurring in the arch spandrels joins it all together. In the dense tendrils with serrated leaves and full peony flowers appear pheasants and fabulous Chinese beasts, which come from designs from the court studio. Contrary to Ottoman tradition some of the buildings arranged around atria or alleyways, for example the princes' chambers, have tile-clad exterior walls.
 
The Sunnet Odasi occupies a terrace in the Tulip Garden, which was laid out on top of the old fortifications, together with the Golden Canopy (of gilded copper) - also constructed by Ibrahim and offering a unique view over the park and the massive royal mosque buildings - and two further pavilions. Both the Revan kiosk and the Baghdad kiosk, which were built on the occasion of the victories of Murad IV (1623-1640) at Erevan and Baghdad, have three or four fenestrated alcoves furnished with low sofas, eminently suitable for meditative contemplation of the stunning landscape.

The Baghdad Kiosk

On the viewing terrace on the northwest corner of the Topkapi Palace rises the very elegant Baghdad kiosk, which Sultan Murad IV had erected to commemorate his successful Baghdad campaign of 1638. Behind the slender marble columns of the entrance hall opens out a low building with windows reaching almost to the floor, which afford views onto the park and the architecture of the city.
 

In the Baghdad Kiosk the walls are decorated with tiles up to the base of the dome, where tiles from older palace buildings were also reused alongside new tiles. The wooden doors, window shutters, and wall cupboards show the usual interlace with inlaid pearl, ivory, and tortoiseshell, which together produce a surface with a sumptuous effect. The dome carries subtle paint work with gold stars on a red background and the flat ceilings over the bays bear painted arabesques.