Saçmacı Hammam

Saçmacı Hammam

The Saçmacı Hammam, also known as the New Orient, has taken its current form by demolishing a part of it and shrinking it. The Saçmacı Hammam consists of hot, warm and dressing rooms. The two-storey dressing room with shops on the ground floor is covered with an oval dome. The warm room consists of two separate sections and covered with a dome and a mirrored vault. There are round skylights on the dome of the square-planned hot room. Ornamental elements are rarely encountered in the warm and hot rooms of Turkish hammams. Because the decorations exposed to hot weather and excessive moisture will be destroyed in a short time. This is the main reason why decorative elements in hammams are mostly seen in dressing rooms. The dressing room of the Saçmacı Hamam, covered with wooden materials, had stucco decorations before the fire in 1997. Today, only the arches carrying the dome and the heads of the supports have partially destroyed plaster decorations. There is no inscription indicating the construction date, founder or architect of the hammam. It is possible to date the Saçmacı Hammam to the early 18th century, considering other hammams with architectural similarities. Based on the ornaments of the Westernization Period and the crescent-star motif in the dressing room of the hammam, it is assumed that this section was repaired in the middle of the 19th century or at a later date.