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International Journal of Engineering and Technical Research (IJETR)
ISSN: 2321-0869 (O) 2454-4698 (P) Volume-8, Issue-3, March 2018
27 www.erpublication.org
Abstract— The article discusses the history of construction of
the Orthodox Christian architectural complex St Stefan in
Istanbul, comprising a church and a convent. The church is a
monument of cultural heritage of Bulgaria and Turkey. The
study is a result of in situ work and of an analysis of unpublished
records kept in the Central State Archives in Sofia. The
construction had three stages, each of which used different
building materials. The construction started in the late 1840s,
continued unsuccessfully in the 1850s, and once again resumed
in the 1870s with geological surveying which established that the
ground could not withstand the load of a brick church. This
stage ended with the consecration of the St Stefan Church in
1898. The paper pays special attention to the third stage: the
steel structure of prefabricate elements and the ornamented
cast-iron cladding manufactured and fitted by the Vienna-based
company Rudolph Philipp Waagner in 1896-1898 on a design of
Turkish architect Hovsep Aznavur. Comparisons are made
between the St Stefan Church, the steel churches in the other
countries as Latvia, the Philippines, Peru, Chile, Mexico, Costa
Rica, and Russia that are a product of the industrial
development in the 19th century and now are the rare
architectural monuments.
Index Terms— cast-iron cladding, church complex in
Istanbul, Gustave Eiffel bureau, prefabricated steel elements,
Rudolph Philipp Waagner factory, steel structure
I. INTRODUCTION
The reform era in the Ottoman Empire named the Tanzimât.
It started in the in 1839. In that time Christian people were
recognized in the Ottoman Empire and were granted religious
freedom. In the 19th c. the Bulgarians were part of the
Ottoman Empire. These who lived in the capital
Constantinople worked as craftsmen. They did not have much
money to spare but nevertheless wanted to build a church to
practice their religion, similar to all Christian people in the
Empire. The church was donated by a well-off Bulgarian
Stefan Bogoridi, who held a high position in the Ottoman
administration. The idea for constructing a church, a convent,
and a school attached to it meant this was going to be an
architectural complex housing a spiritual and educational
center.
The construction of the church had three periods. The first
period started in 1849. In terms of time it coincided with the
start of the reforms in the Ottoman Empire known as the
Tanzimât reform era. The second period coincided with the
Blagovesta Ivanova Ivanova-Tsotsova, Department of Architecture,
University of Structural Engineering & Architecture (VSU) Lyuben
Karavelov, Sofia, Bulgaria
mid-19th c. and the aftermath of the Crimean War. This was
also the time of the fight for independence of the Bulgarian
church which had been destroyed as an independent
institution when Bulgaria was conquered by the Ottoman
Turks. The third period started in the 1870s and continued
until 1898. In 1878 Bulgaria was liberated but became an
independent state only in 1908.
The article analyses the stages of construction and the
building materials in two separate buildings − the St Stefan
church and the convent at the Golden Horn in Istanbul. The
two buildings are united by a number of inter-dependent
characteristics: territory, religious identity, chronological
sequence and stages of construction.
The approach that is used advances a new thesis vis-a-vis
the buildings at the location in question, namely, that they
constitute an entire architectural complex. The aim of the
study is – after clarifying the stages of construction – to make
a comparative analysis of the used materials and the shared
characteristics of the structures from the third and last stage of
construction of the St Stefan steel and iron church, and other
similar churches in the world. In this way will be proved the
development and adaptation of the design idea to the
peculiarities of the terrain and of the environment during the
construction of the St Stefan Church.
The specific characteristics are yet another example of
resorting to modern European tendencies for fast
prefabricated design and use of new materials in the
construction of buildings with religious functions at “remote
locations” for certain religious and social groups in the 19th c.
Special significance is attached to establishing St Stefan
Church's place among the few preserved churches in the
world built in a similar way, in light of their artistic features.
The case with the Bulgarian St Stefan Church in Istanbul is
yet another example of the advent of new construction
materials such as steel and cast iron and complements the
problem about the peculiarities of the use of steel structures in
the fast construction of churches.
II. PREVIOUS STUDIES
The studies of the St Stefan Church so far have not
explored the question of its construction as part of a bigger
architectural complex. The present study is the first one to
examine the complex from the point of view of architecture
and art. Bulgarian historians earlier contribute for studying of
the church.
The Architectural Complex at the Golden Horn a
Monument of Cultural Heritage of Bulgaria and
Turkey
Blagovesta Ivanova Ivanova-Tsotsova
The Architectural Complex at the Golden Horn a Monument of Cultural Heritage of Bulgaria and Turkey
28 www.erpublication.org
Bulgarian scholars Peter Karapetrov and Hristo
Buchevarov did the earliest studies in the history of the
building of the church in the late 19th c. and the early 20th c.
The studies advanced the idea that Stefan Bogoridi, the
Bulgarian who held a high official position in the Ottoman
Empire and who donated the house and the courtyard where
the church was to be built, pursued his own profit, rather than
the Bulgarian national interests. It is for this reason that the
names of the two as scholars of the church are not that popular
[1]-[4]. Yordan Popgeorgiev made the first scholarly
interpretation of the documents about the church kept in the
Bulgarian History Archive of the National Library.
Popgeorgiev's study championed Stefan Bogoridi's work and
belittled the efforts of Alexander Exarch who helped obtain
the documents vis-a-vis the status of the church and
contributed towards its construction [5].
The earliest description and evaluation of the stylistic
characteristics of the iron church was made by Ivan Stoinov in
1923. According to Stoinov, the style of the church is
“authentic Bulgarian“, the construction “elegant“, “light“ and
“welcoming“ [6]. Dimiter Mishev, who in 1925 published
documents from the Ottoman Archive in Istanbul, had a big
contribution to the studies of the church [7]. In the recent
decades, historians Zina Markova [8] and Hristo Temelski [9]
have studied the problems of the church struggles and the
Bulgarian local administration in Constantinople. The
Turkish scholars of the Church Hasan Kuruyazici and Mete
Tapan [10] studies and published archival documents from
Istanbul about the previous stages of the construction of the
temple.
None of the discussed studies explores the buildings in
question in their conceptual unity, nor has the place of the
Bulgarian steel church at the Golden Horn been studied in the
context of the industrial development which caused the
advent of steel structures.
Among the European scholars German researcher Immo
Boyken [11] in an article discussing the use of steel in the
construction of religious buildings in the late 19th c. studies
the use of steel structures in the construction of the church as
an expression of industrialization in architecture. The article
analyses the plan, the structural characteristics and the
composition of the building on the basis of nothing else but
the specialized Austrian periodical press of 1895.
In 1989 the Austrian hydroengineer Gilbert Wiplinger did a
research and prepared a project for desining a drainage
system for the church and independently the same was done
by Prof. Veselin Venkov [10].
III. FIRST CONSTRUCTION PERIOD
The first period of the construction of a Bulgarian church in
Constantinople did not entail the construction of a new
building. Rather, it constituted the remodelling of a wooden
outbuilding in the yard of Prince Stefan Bogoridi located on
the shore of the Golden Horn (Figures 1, 2 a, b). A wooden
outbuilding remodelling of a wooden church.
In the donation certificate Bogoridi formulated the
fundamental arrangements vis-a-vis the ownership and the
management of the future church. He stipulated that the
church, the buildings and the lot where they were, were to be
property and possession of the Bulgarian people who were
represented by the Ottoman State. Bogoridi's covenant was
for the church to be managed by a board of trustees composed
of Bulgarians residents of Constantinople.
Figure 1: A wooden outbuilding remodelling of a wooden
church. CSA, F. 3 К, Inventory 1, Archival Unit 78, Sheet 3.
Figure 2 a, b: Reconstruction of 1st and 2nd floor (where was
placed the school) of the wooden church.
In July 1849 Stefan Bogoridi invited prominent
Constantinople architect Hadji Stefan Kalfa to design the new
buildings which were to be erected in his yard. Stefan Kalfa
himself had experience in designing the first public buildings
of the High Porte. The architect's name is associated with the
construction of the building in Istanbul which at that time
housed the Council of Ministers, the office of the Vizier, the
ministries of foreign affairs and of the interior, whose
construction was finished in March 1844. In the course of one
month, Kalfa designed a big church, a small church and a
convent, i.e., a whole architectural complex [12], [13]. These
buildings were projected only, because the finances had been
missing. This was the time when Stefan Bogoridi's stone
buildings were remodelled into a convent (Figure 3).
The building of the convent took place in the first
construction period of the complex. The building was
designed as a seat of priests and a place for pilgrims headed to
the Holy places. Its architectural plan and stylistic features
were borrowed from the imposing secular European
Renaissance buildings – palazzo, which served as a model for
the construction of public buildings in the Balkans. Usually
International Journal of Engineering and Technical Research (IJETR)
ISSN: 2321-0869 (O) 2454-4698 (P) Volume-8, Issue-3, March 2018
29 www.erpublication.org
these were buildings with a design where the distribution of
the volumes had a central façade and two parts parallel to one
another and perpendicular to the façade. With the convent,
however, the longest was the central section while the two
lateral ones were much foreshortened so that the idea for the
palazzo remained invisible from the central façade and the
building looked rectilinear. The characteristic inner court for
the palazzo was closed by the two lateral wings and a
Byzantine wall on the back. A staircase divided the convent in
two parts.
Figure 3: The structure of the Convent ended in 1850. Point
of view from the churches’ court. CSA, F. 1459 К, Inventory
1, Archival Unit 99.
IV. SECOND CONSTRUCTION PERIOD
The second construction period began at the start of 1859.
The Fossati architect brothers, Gaspare and Giuseppe, were
invited to design a three-aisle, domed basilica with three
rounded conches of the apse with a semi-cylindrical vault of
the central nave. The idea of the Fossati brothers was to build
an imposing church with architectural merits as stately as the
other Orthodox churches in Constantinople. The
measurements marked in the design were: length, 28.5 arşın,
width, 20.9 arşın an height of the dome, 21.85 arşın. Having in
mind that a building arşın equalled 0.758 m, the sizes were
21.60 х 15.84 х 16.56 m. The church of this design was not
built due to absence of sufficient resources, and the
construction was abandoned in 1860 (Figure 4, Figure 5).
The Fossati brothers were well known in Russia and
Turkey [14]. They were among the artists who created the
outlook of 19th-c. Saint Petersburg and Istanbul. The Fossati
brothers designed and built the Russian Embassy in
Constantinople in 1837 – 1849. The two brothers were born in
Ticino, Switzerland, and – like many other architects and
mostly builders from these regions, worked in Saint
Petersburg. [15]
Style of Classicism was at the root of Fossati's work in
Russia and in Constantinople where they designed churches
and public buildings. In the design of private residences in
Russia Gaspare Fossati experimented with Eclecticism,
copied the local architectural tendencies and the Anglo-Saxon
traditions of the romantically landscaped parks.
Already in Russia Gaspare Fossati gained a name as a
restorer of buildings. In Constantinople, in addition to the
renovation of the Hagia Sophia, Gaspare Fossati and his
brother Guiseppe also renovated the Saint Mary Draperis
Roman Catholic church close to the Russian Embassy [10]. In
Figure 4: The Plan of three-aisle Fossati brothers domed
basilica. CSA, F. 321 К, Inventory 1, Archival Unit 473, sheet
189.
Figure 5: The façade of Fossati brothers basilica.
Еcclesiastical Institute for History and Archeaelogy, Sofia,
Inventory 9103.
1841 Gaspare Fossati became one of the architects of the SS
Peter and Paul Church in the city [16]. The renovation of the
Hagia Sophia in Constantinople in 1846 under the supervision
of the Fossati brothers constitutes the biggest contribution of
the two in the world's architecture. The brothers restored the
structural parts of the church. They straightened the columns
of the gallery, consolidated the dome and vaults, uncovered
mosaics, listed and restored them, covered with plaster and
painted ornamental inscriptions, added Gothic-style gypsum
rosettes on the exterior. After the renovation of the Fossati
brothers the church acquired an outlook to the taste of the
West European imperial courts and the Sultan's court. [17]
V. THIRD CONSTRUCTION PERIOD
The year 1876 marked the start of the third period of
construction of the Bulgarian church in Istanbul. The period
was characterized by the use of materials that were new for the
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30 www.erpublication.org
end of the late 19th c., such as steel, cast iron and zinc. It was
thanks to the use of such materials and also due to the main
distinctive feature of the structure for which high-quality alloy
steel was used, and also due to the decoration of the church
with iron and zinc castings, that the designation “the Iron
Church” came to be used (Figure 6) .
Figure 6: South façade of the St Stefan Church.
The suggestion to build the St Stefan Church with steel
structures and metal sheeting came from prominent architects
in Istanbul. They were among the designers of the docks on
the Bosphorus, and of state, public and private buildings in
the heart of the city. The decision to build the church with
materials that were new for the times, e.g. steel and cast iron,
was a decision of the Bulgarian state [18]. The use of steel
structures was associated with the Europeanization of the
architecture in Bulgaria in the 1890s, the stabilization of the
country, the inflow of foreign capital, the training of
Bulgarian architects abroad and the commissioning of
projects to foreign architects in Bulgaria.
A. The Main Peculiarities of the St Stefan Church in
Istanbul. Rudolph Philipp Waagner Construction Company
The iron elements of St Stefan were made by the Austrian
company Rudolph Philipp Waagner in 1893 [19]. A contract
is preserved on commissioning the execution of the design of
Architect Hovsep Aznavur, signed unilaterally by the
contractor, the Rudolph Philipp Waagner factory. Waagner's
signature is followed by a notarial certification made out in an
almost illegible Gothic writing: “I hereby certify that Mr.
Jacques Ritter von Leon, personally known to me, a
shareholder in the Waagner lawfully registered company, did
manually affix the official signature of the company in my
presence. Vienna, 11 April 1893 Charge/Stamp 1 fl. 50. G. Z.
[Geschäftszahl] 1941”. (“Ich beglaubige hiemit, dass der mir
persönlich bekannte Herr Jacques Ritter von Leon,
öffentlicher Gesellschafter der handelsgerichtlich
protocollirten Firma “R. Ph. Waagner” in Wien, seine
vorstehende Firmenzeichnung heute vor mir eigenhändig
beigesetzt hat. - Wien den elften April 1893: Eintausend
achthundert neunzig drei. Geb.[Gebühren]/ Stpl.[Stempel] 1
fl. 50 x Carl Fohleutner, k.k. Notar. [Rundsiegel:] Carl
Fohleutner, k.k. Notar in Wien, Oesterreich unter der Enns.
–Number 1941”.)
B. The Architect
The church was designed by Hovsep Aznavur between
1892 and 1894. Aznavur himself explained that the initial
outlook of the temple had been done in the lines of the
industrial design characteristic of the industrial buildings and
borrowed from a Belgian catalogue “of the system of the Le
Petit engineer in Belgium” [20]. The project represent a
church in the city of Colon Panama.
Aznavur was Armenian. According to A. Kardaşyan
[21], the inscription on the Architect's gravestone shows that
Aznavur was born in London in 1854. There are different
opinions about Aznavur's place of birth. The issue is
discussed by Hasan Kuruyazici [21]. According to A. Keçyan
[22], Aznavur was born on an British ship sailing from
Istanbul to Izmir on 21 May 1854. His father Serovpe
Aznavur was a lawyer and one of the founders of a Masonic
lodge in Constantinople. A well-off person, he sent his son in
the Armenian Catholic School of the Mechitarists on the
island of San Lazzaro in Venice. Hovsep Aznavur finished the
school and then went on to study in the Academy of Fine Arts
in Rome.[23] In Constantinople he built the famous steel
passage bearing his name on the İstiklal Avenue. The passage
was done in an Art Nouveau style and was probably created
after the St Stefan Church (Figure 7).
Proof of this claim are the distinct stylistic features of the
building in terms of the aesthetics of historicism along with
the combination into one whole of various architectural styles
and artistic trends. In the outline of the building Aznavur
followed the principles of Baroque. The windows were done
in the spirit of Neo-Byzantinism. In respect of the artistic
details on the façades, Aznavur adhered to the trends of
Neoclassicism and was a follower of the famous French
architect Charles Garnier [24].
Figure 7: The façade of Aznavur passage in Istanbul.
International Journal of Engineering and Technical Research (IJETR)
ISSN: 2321-0869 (O) 2454-4698 (P) Volume-8, Issue-3, March 2018
31 www.erpublication.org
C. Architectural and Artistic Peculiarities, Materials, and
Problems of the Terrain of St Stefan church
In terms of its plan with a Latin cross and its stylistic
features, the church followed the traditions of the
West-European church architecture. The façade was lavishly
decorated with cast-iron ornamentations (Figure 8, Figure 9).
Figure 8: Cast-iron decoration
Figure 9: Cast-iron decoration of the dome
Stained glass windows were planned to be used for the
decoration of the church and for its interior illumination,
which, however, were not made due to the huge costs (Figure
10).
Figure 10: Detail from the south façade of the transept and
Symbols on the transept walls
The problems related to the survey of the landslide on
which the church was to be built, the transformation of the
ideas from building a brick church to a church with steel
structures and steel cladding were a complex and responsible
decision. The decision was suggested by the prominent
Istanbul architects after detailed geological surveying
performed on the terrain [25] and was made in Bulgaria. The
site was studied many times between the 1870s and 1890s by
Italian engineers. Deep foundation with hanging pilots was
undertaken. The money for the construction was made
available from a special fund of the National Bank in Sofia.
The fund handling the construction spent nearly 1 million
French francs, a huge amount for the time.
The materials for the structure of the church were tested in
the Imperial Royal Service for Materials testing in Vienna
(“Royal Impérial Musée Technologique des Metiers”) in
1894 and the document states that they are of highest quality
[26]. 3D models were made for the cast-iron moulds for the
rich ornamentation of the exterior and the interior.
The St Stefan Church was built on top of a landslide, as was
the entire terrain of the shore of the Golden Horn. This was
why the church was designed in steel − to make it lighter. The
problematic terrain had been reinforced many times by the
best Istanbul engineers and architects who also designed the
modern European part of the city, a number of public
buildings, among them the Museum of Archaeology and the
port facilities at the Bosphorus. Among them were Italians,
French people, and Greeks such as George D. Stampa,
Antoine N. Perpignani, Alphonse Cingria, Fangoulis E.
Mavrogordato, Ailerli, Gabriel Tedeschie, as well as
Bulgarian architects who had recently studied in Belgium and
Austria-Hungary [27]. The manufacturing of the steel
elements for St Stefan by the famous Vienna-based company
The Architectural Complex at the Golden Horn a Monument of Cultural Heritage of Bulgaria and Turkey
32 www.erpublication.org
Rudolph Philipp Waagner in the 1890s coincided with the
first steps in the development of steel architecture in Europe.
The church was on the borderline between historicism and the
innovative trends of the new form-formation and the ensuing
new uses of metal. From this standpoint, the study explores
the place of the church at the background of the development
of architectural structures and form-formation in architecture.
From a structural and artistic point of view, the St Stefan
Church united into one whole the achievements of the
European architecture since the first use of cast iron structures
in the 18th c. until the shift on to the aesthetic properties of the
material. In the case in hand steel was highlighted as a
material but was used as a traditional one, the same as stone,
gypsum, marble and wood.
1
[28] This was as a result of the
hiding of the structure behind the metal walls which were
done in the spirit of historicism and decorated in the spirit of
Classicism.
The iconostasis was commissioned in Russia. It was
designed by Hovsep Aznavur. The iconostasis was made from
wood by the Russian iconostasis master Akhapkin in 1897.
Another iconostasis master Kondratiev who was in Istanbul
during that time, too offered opinions vis-a-vis the
composition of the work. The form-formation was related to
the architecture of Neoclassicism. The icons were made by a
Russian artists from Moscow, known as A. Lebedev, who has
not yet been identified. (Figure 11)
Figure 11: The Iconostasis of St Stefan church, 1897.
1
Wooden, steel and massive structures are equally vulnerable in different
atmospheric conditions. The computer analysis of the structures of the steel
temples is extremely complex, but necessary, like the analysis of the wooden
constructions of 19th-century masonic churches.
D. Ideas about Additional Buildings in the Complex and
Their Stylistic Peculiarities
The steel church was planned as part of a larger complex
also including a presbytery and a school, which was meant to
become a spiritual and educational center for the Bulgarians
living in the capital of the Ottoman Empire. The Presbytery
was too designed by Hovsep Aznavur, in the late 19th c., with
Neoclassical style (Figure 12).
The problem with the terrain which stands right next to the
waters of the Golden Horn remains the most complex one
even to this day. It is further aggravated by other problems
that appeared with time. When related to the factor weather,
metal and water are in a direct clash and this circumstance
causes the problems with the state of the church. The water
next to which the church is situated, the intensive evaporation,
the high humidity, the coating of the metal body with airborne
dirt all contribute towards corrosion [29], [30] (Figure 13).
Figure 12: The project of the Presbytery, c. 1891, façade.
Figure 13: Example of the corrosion from the interior of the
church, 2010
The weight of the church is greater than the other
churches that were mentioned. The bearing structure and
exterior cladding weigh 360 t, and the interior cladding, 140 t.
Today, Waagner-Biro does architectural designs and is a
leading company in modern technologies. The Bulgarian
temple on the Golden Horn is not featured among the
International Journal of Engineering and Technical Research (IJETR)
ISSN: 2321-0869 (O) 2454-4698 (P) Volume-8, Issue-3, March 2018
33 www.erpublication.org
company's steel projects because they are so many.
Nevertheless, St Stefan is only church made by the
Waagner-Biro. The company's records do not keep
documents about it construction.
VI. SIMILAR CHURCHES. SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES
WITH THE BULGARIAN CHURCH.
A. General Characteristics
Similar churches are preserved to the present day in
Australia (a church constructed in 1854 in Bristol, Britain); in
Latvia, between Daugavpils and Novoye Stroyenie (made in
1866 in Saint Petersburg), in Manilla, the Philippines, in
Tacna in Peru and Arica in Chile (all three were designed by
the bureau of Gustave Eiffel circa 1875). Iron churches in the
19th century were many so that the emergence of the St Stefan
was not a unique case in the development of either
architecture or industry. However, this was the only iron
church on the Balkans and Southeastern Europe [31].
The churches made of cast iron and steel were an outcome
of the technological development and the mastering of new
industrial technologies. Such churches were erected in places
where the footing did not allow the construction of
heavy-weight buildings or when opportunities for
development were absent and the circumstances were such
that only the functional side of architecture was paramount,
e.g., military garrisons, development of ore mines,
development of new technologies in distant places,
re-settlements of large Christian communities or missionary
activity. In this sense the aesthetics of the industrial
architecture and the latest developments in the field
determined the simple design of the church buildings, among
other things.
Another important characteristic of the prefabricated steel
architecture was the opportunity to dismantle, carry and
re-assemble the building in a new location, according to need.
Put in other words, this is an architecture that is not associated
with the historical memory of the concrete place. Such
architecture has a purely practical application – the elements
are prefabricated and can be quickly assembled in situ.
Examples of this are the pavilions for the world exhibitions in
the late 19th and early 20th c.
With the iron churches, added to the absence of a desire to
leave a lasting historical significance was the absence of the
aesthetic impact of the current architectural styles and the
prevalence of functionality. In the discussed characteristics
we see the similarities between the Bulgarian St Stefan
Church and the other iron churches.
In addition to easing the load on the site, the decision to
design the church following the modern tendencies in the
industrial technologies was also related to a discussion of
changing its location in case of an increased risk from an
environmental impact such as a possible collapse of the
terrain. Another common characteristic was the speed of
execution of the third stage of the construction, given the
objective impossibility to complete the two previous stages of
construction of the Bulgarian Church in Constantinople.
B. Chronology of the Construction of Some Other Iron
Churches in the World. Analogies
In 1840 in Loch Sunart in Scotland a floating iron church
worth 1,400 pounds which held 750 people was anchored
onto a wooden platform.
The next example is 1866 a garrison built church for the
imperial troops in Russia placed between the towns Dinaburg
and Novoye Stroyenie. The church was very small, 13 by 9 m,
and was clad in cast and sheet iron. The building was located
in a corner of the garrison and was too small to accommodate
all worshippers. In 1904 the church was moved in Tsargrad,
50 km from Daugavpils in Latvia, present-day Jersika, and in
its place the Ss. Boris and Gleb Cathedral was built in 1905
[32]. The cathedral is now located along the road to the city.
The St John Chrysostom Church was built in Kiev during
the same time: 1867 – 1871, in respect of which it is argued
that it was the first collapsible iron cult building in the Russian
Empire. Separate sections of its construction were made in
Saint Petersburg using the technology of Engineer R. Nikels
and a design by Architect Nikolay Egorovich Jurgens. In 1934
the church was demolished due to corrosion.
In the 1860s Gustave Eiffel designed churches with metal
structures, such as the Church of Notre Dame des Champs, the
Church of St Joseph both in Paris, the Church of San Marcos
in Arica, Chile, 1875, (Catedral San Marcos) the Cathedral of
San Pedro de Tacna, Peru, the Church of Santa Barbara in
Santa Rosalia, Mexico, (1884 - 1897), the San Sebastian
Church in Manila, Philippines (1891).
Gustave Eiffel's iron structures were meant for Europe,
Asia, Africa, Latin America and Oceania. Along with the
churches of cast iron and steel, Eiffel's bureau designed
synagogues, galleries, markets, customs office buildings,
some of which for France. Eiffel also designed the Western
railway station in Budapest, Hungary and a station and engine
house in France.
The artistic features of the San Sebastian Church in Manila
demonstrate how the specific characteristics of the metal were
overcome when the material was used. In the church steel was
used for the walls and their stone-like decoration, and the
combination of metal and marble reinforces this effect. This
peculiarity also applies to the Bulgarian church in Istanbul,
thus making the two monuments the closest of analogues.
The closest analogue to St Stefan in terms of the history of
construction, the significance of ‘the value’ and of the site for
construction is the church Iglesia de la Nuestra Señora de las
Mercedes in Grecia, Costa Rica. The history of its
construction is similar to that of the Bulgarian church. The
town was established in 1838 in honour of Greece, and
probably involved settlers from the recently liberated Balkan
country who earned their living in farming (sugar and coffee
beans) and in industry (textiles and metals). In 1844−1847 a
small wooden church was built there whose roof was made
from interwoven palm fronds. Construction of a new church
started in 1868 and continued for 16 years. An earthquake in
1888 toppled the two belfries and inflicted other damage on
the entire building. In 1890 a decision was made to build a
new church with a steel structure and an earthquake-resistant
roof. A contract was signed with a Belgian company in 1891.
The church has three naves. The central façade, flanked by
two belfries, is adorned by a high Gothic gate. The exterior is
clad in sheets bound together with rivets. The flat-plane
design dominates while the rhythm is created by the Gothic
windows with white ornaments. On the whole, the design is
simple, free of the excessive ornamentation of the Gothic
style. The interior does not have a specific decoration. It is
done in two colours, by means of emphasizing the lines in the
columns, the arches of the roof and of the windows.
The Architectural Complex at the Golden Horn a Monument of Cultural Heritage of Bulgaria and Turkey
34 www.erpublication.org
St Matthew's Church was built in Cape Town, the Republic
of South Africa in 1879 – 1883 which was made with checker
plates. The church was designed by architect John Norton of
London. The cost for the building was 13,000 pounds. The
church was dismantled in 1960 due to the expensive upkeep it
required. An iron church was built in 1896 in Kalgoorlie,
Western Australia, to be replaced with a stone one in 1902.
The reinforcement of the terrain, the design and the
construction of the Bulgarian church (1896-1898) cost 1
million French francs. The church has undergone multiple
repairs which were always partial. The proximity to water
increases the risk of corrosion. The processes accelerated
over the past few years and the Greater Istanbul Municipality
provided 2.5 million Turkish lira. The money went towards
partial replacement of bearing structures and removal of
corrosion. The restoration has been finished in January 2018,
on account of the complex nature of the work, which includes
constructive and individual elements dismantling some of
which constitute complex relief decorations.
VII. SPECIFIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DECORATION OF
THE ST STEFAN CHURCH
The comparisons between the discussed churches and the
Bulgarian St Stefan Church reveal clear differences. The
temples that are products of the European industrial exports to
faraway countries have modest interior and exterior
decorations. The decoration is determined not only by the
available financial resources but also by the modesty of the
social or religious circle that the church served. The St
Stephan Church impresses with its rich ornamentation which
considerably raised its final cost. The intricate cast-iron
elements in the style of the late Classicism in the interior are
gold-plated. The entire outlook of the church is achieved
thanks to the classical details such as garlands, Christian
crosses, relief heads of cherubs, acanthus leaves, palmettes,
the floral ornaments on the front of the curves of the arches
and the circles of the window rosettes. The variety of
ornaments creates the impression of opulence, of a distinctive
wall design and distinctive silhouette of the entire building.
The details and the ornaments produce the distinctive
outlook of the building and make it one of a kind by uniting
into one different historical styles. The acanthus leaves
dominate the decoration with their rich and heavy shapes
which connect with the palmettes, in accord with the classical
artistic ideas. They are placed in the friezes and the capitals of
the columns whereas the exterior is dominated by
intermediate ornaments, something between an acanthus
leave and a palmette. The ornaments resembling an acanthus
leave are preferred due to their volume and the greater plastic
possibilities they offer, thanks to which the design attains the
specific characteristic of the developed detail contributing to
the overall silhouette of the building.
The fronts of the semicircular arches housing the windows
feature plastically rich acanthus leaves and the oak leaves
mentioned in the architectural brief. The fronts of the attic are
decorated with palmettes with concave volutes in the upper
sections with hearts inside them, or the so-called raies de
coeur pattern. Acanthus leaves sprout from the upper sections
of the hearts between the volutes which connect with the
palmettes on the pediments under the domes. The examples
show that the peculiarities of the material were no impediment
to the plastic expression, its diversity and ideas.
The exterior ornaments betray a desire to emphasize the
church's identity as an Eastern Orthodox temple. The reliefs
have bishop's miters, staffs and candles. (Figure 13, Figure
14)
IX. CONCLUSION
From the point of view of the aesthetics and the appearance
of the churches, the prefabricated elements used are
highlighted in the interior space and have a structural as well
an aesthetic role. In the 19th c. the church architecture with
prefabricated components was in the mainstream of
historicism and did not differ from brick buildings in terms of
artistic peculiarities. The steel structures were not totally
hidden. Their specific characteristics and main elements were
part of the overall artistic appearance of the churches.
The St Stefan church at Istanbul's Golden Horn, which is
the last implemented part of the unfinished architectural
complex, possesses the richest artistic ornamentation amongst
the “generation” of iron churches of the 19th c. It creates the
outlook of the entire architectural complex and in the present
day distinguishes the old capital of modern Turkey as a place
possessing one of the rarest churches in the world.
The interstate status of the monument nowadays commits
Bulgaria and Turkey in the care of its preservation, because
the church is the only such one in the Balkans and in Southern
Europe [33].
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I would like to thank Mr Ferdinand Gutchi of the Vienna
Academy of Fine Arts for the translation of notarial
certification of the Contract for the construction of the Church
made out in an almost illegible Gothic writing. I would like to
thank arch. Stoyana Kolin for drawing the plan of the
Convent, which original was bad condition and Dr. Elena
Krusteva from Bulgarian Academy of Science for the
translation from French language of the official
Austro-Bulgarian documents, preserved in Central State
Archive in Sofia.
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Hrabar Varna Free University.
Assoc. Prof., PhD Blagovesta Ivanova
studied History and Theory of Art in the
Lomonosov Moscow State University. She
defended her PhD dissertation in the Institute
of Art Studies with the Bulgarian Academy of
Sciences and did a post-doctoral study in the
Central European University in Prague and in
Budapest. The main research is Art history of
the period of the Transition from Medieval
times to Nova days in the countries of East
Europe of the Balkans. Ivanova specializes in
the area of art and architecture in the second half of the 19th century.
Teaches Art history, History of Architecture and Preservation of Cultural and
Historical Heritage in the Lyuben Karavelov University of Structural
Engineering & Architecture, Sofia. She has published four monographs on
the art of the Bulgarian Revival (XIX c.) and Moderm Bulgarian Art, and
more than 100 articles and studies about Bulgarian and European art and
architectural history. She has curated many artistic exhibitions