Yedikule Gasworks () was a

gasworks A gasworks or gas house is an industrial plant for the production of flammable gas. Many of these have been made redundant in the developed world by the use of natural gas, though they are still used for storage space. Early gasworks Coal ...

to produce

coal gas Coal gas is a flammable gaseous fuel made from coal and supplied to the user via a piped distribution system. It is produced when coal is heated strongly in the absence of air. Town gas is a more general term referring to manufactured gaseous ...

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

, Turkey. It was built in 1880 and functioned until 1993.

History

Yedikule Gasworks is located at

Yedikule Yedikule (''Seven Towers'') is a neighbourhood in the municipality and district of Fatih, Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its population is 15,789 (2022). It is named after the seven-towered Yedikule Fortress, which surrounds the neighborhood. Urbaniz ...

neighborhood of

Fatih Fatih () is a municipality and district of Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its area is 15 km2, and its population is 368,227 (2022). It is home to almost all of the provincial authorities (including the mayor's office, police headquarters, metro ...

district in

, Turkey. Its construction began during the

Ottoman era The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Central Euro ...

in 1873 after the mayor of Istanbul signed a

concession agreement A concession or concession agreement is a grant of rights, land, property, or facility by a government, local authority, corporation, individual or other legal entity. Public services such as water supply may be operated as a concession. In the ...

with a French company also as the operator. The project included the building of five industrial coke furnaces, two of them in the first phase. The budgeted cost amounted to 350,000-400,000 French francs. The project dragged on for a long time, and was not completed. The construction work resumed during the first years of the reign of

Sultan Sultan (; ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be use ...

Abdul Hamid II Abdulhamid II or Abdul Hamid II (; ; 21 September 184210 February 1918) was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1876 to 1909, and the last sultan to exert effective control over the fracturing state. He oversaw a Decline and modernizati ...

(), and was completed in 1880. It was decided that the Municapity of Istanbul would take over the operation. It was the first gasworks in Istanbul, which produced

used primarily for the lighting of streets and residences. In the beginning, the coal gas was sufficient only for 400 street lamps. Later, the street lighting was extended to the neighboring districts of Eyüp, Makriköy and San Stefano. The municipality handed over the operation concession for a period of 40 years to the merchant Hasan Tahsin on 25 August 1887. The contract included the operation of lighting 500 street lamps paid and 200 lamps free of charge. On 19 June 1888, the operation rights were transferred to İstanbul Şirket-i Tenviriye-i Osmaniye (Ottoman Lighting Company of Istanbul), which Hasan Tahsin was a partner of. The concession ended in 1926 when the Üsküdar-Kadıköy Gaz Şirketi (Üsküdar-Kadıköy Gas Co.), which operated the Hasanpaşa Gasworks on the

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

n part of Istanbul, purchased. From 1945 on, the gasworks served under the roof of the company Istanbul Elektrik, Tramvay ve Tüne Şirketi, IETT (Istanbul Electricity, Tram and Funicular Co.). The operation of Yedikule Gasworks ceased in 1993, along with other gasworks in Istanbul, due to the decrease in gas demand after

natural gas Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...

came into use. In the time after its closing, the equipment of the gasworks, except the

gas holder A gas holder or gasholder, also known as a gasometer, is a large container in which natural gas or town gas (coal gas or formerly also water gas) is stored near atmospheric pressure at ambient temperatures. The volume of the container follows t ...

, was dismanteled. Its ground became a

wrecking yard A wrecking yard (Australian, New Zealand, and Canadian English), scrapyard ( Irish, British and New Zealand English) or junkyard (American English) is the location of a business in dismantling where wrecked or decommissioned vehicles are brou ...

for the out-of-service vehicles of the İETT.

Redevelopment project

Yedikule Gasworks has undergone restoration works within a redevelopment project run by the Metropolitan Municipality of Istanbul, similar of the Hasanpaşa Gasworks. It was announced that a part of the gasworks would be opened to the public before the end of 2022.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yedikule Gasworks Gasworks in Turkey Buildings and structures in Istanbul Industrial buildings in Turkey 1880 establishments in the Ottoman Empire 1993 disestablishments in Turkey Redevelopment projects in Istanbul Fatih

History

Redevelopment project

See also

References