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Coffehouses

Rethinking the Public and Private in Early Modern Istanbul

Boaziçi University

This article explores the development of coffeehouses as public space in early modern Istanbul, placing them within the context of wider developments, such as the level of urbanization, migration, and the consequent rise of public sociability. Their links with transformations in the pattern of traditional domestic hospitality, and the evolution of public and private space, are also considered. It is argued that Istanbul coffeehouses made a considerable contribution to accelerate this long process of changes. Addressing the relationship between the coffeehouses and Habermas's public sphere, the article focuses on the local types of coffeehouses in an attempt to relate them to urban houses in the neighborhood scale. The coffeehouse provided a zone of interactions between different cultural communities, and performed as the only public space for bachelors and poorer inhabitants who lodged in very limited dwellings, while it served as a principal location for the social, political, and cultural discourses of the Ottoman elite.

Key Words: coffeehouses • public • private • early modern • urban houses

Journal of Urban History, Vol. 33, No. 6, 965-986 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0096144207304018


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