The building, located at Tennuri Street in Cumhuriyet Mahalles section of the central Kayseri was built as a house by Raşit Ağa at the end of the 19th century.
It is two stroreyed building and is constructed from cut stones. Atatürk stayed in this building when he came to Kayseri on 20.12.1919 as the Leader of the Delegation of Representatives. To commemorate the event, the building was restored and documents and pictures were displayed in one of the upstairs rooms.
Güpgüpoğlu Mansion
It is located in Kayseri province, Centre Melikgazi District, Cumhuriyet Neighbourhood on Tennuri Street covering plots no. 46, 47, 93 and 95 in block no. 193. It was built in between 1417 – 1419 and consists of two parts devoted to the women (harem) and the men (selamlık).
The selamlık section was a later additon and is currently used as the Ethnographical Museum
The harem section was designed as the harem room, hall, bride’s room, kitchen, servants’ room, guest room, daily room and the room for the bride and the groom.
The hall is illuminated only through the door and the windows on the door. With no other windows opening to the outside world, it is a space which is shadowy, dramatic and mysterious. Its dimensions are 10 m. x 5 m. and have a ceilng height of 7 m. From the door one enters a section called “seki altı”. There is a stone called “çağ taşı” in the centre of this space. From the seki altı, two steps lead to the wooden upper section. The three sides of this space are defined by a settee which is 30 cm. high and has a width of 70 cm. There are built-in cupboards and niches in the side walls of the hall. These large cupboards which are called “yüklük” (storage) are used to store the matresses. In the hall, mannequins are used to represent the host and the guests.
The bride’s room is to the south of the hall. It is a private section where strangers are not welcome. It is used as a multi-purpose space with its settees and sunken cupboards.
Through a door to the west of the hall, front kitchen area is through it, the large main kitchen (Tokana) is reached. The stove built for cooking is the major characteristic feature of the tokana. Here, mannequins are used again, to represent the ladies carrying out the daily household chores at the kitchen.
To the north of tokana, there is a reception (guest) room which was added to the house at a later stage. There is a small room opposite the guest room which was assigned to the maids who managed the daily housework.
From above the servants’ room the second floor is reached with a wooden staircase. In the second floor there is the room of the bride and the groom and a daily room.
The summer pavillion section is in the west of the mansion. It rises over wooden columns and is a later addition. It has a decorated ceiling and there is a pool built with fancy stones at the front
History of The House
As the history of Kayseri says, in 1419 Zülkadiroğulları state was established with the help and support of the Egyptian king El Müeyeddin. At that time the Memlüks were reigning in Egypt. If the mosques built in Cairo during the Memlük era are studied, it will be seen that the columns used at the mansion on the sides of the windows inside the hall are the same as those built at that period. Furthermore, it is possible to trace an Arabesque effect from the arch built with black and white stones over the door and from the small niches carved into the stone at the sides of the doors.
Mehmet the Conqueror turned this area into an Ottoman State in 1468. Hence it will be appropriate to look for the Ottoman influence from that date on. At the time the Kayseri Bedesten (bazaar) was built, the marble inscription above the door which opened up to the old Cotton Market in the north was put up in 1497 by its benefactor the Emir of Kayseri, Mustafa Bey bin Abdullah Bey. The court registers and the information related to his foundation indicate that this person was from Bursa. From this we can surmise that craftsman from Bursa worked in Kayseri and as this house was one of those belonging to a wealthy members of the Kayseri community, it is very likely that craftsmen from Bursa were involved in its construction.
The date of construction of the house: in Between 1419 – 1497
Çifte Medrese, Kayseri
(Gevher Nesibe History of Medicine Museum)
The building which is known in Kayseri as the Çifte Medrese (The Double Medresse) consists of two adjecent buildings with open courtyards. Both buildings have the typical medresse lay-outs. The only difference is in the fact that one of the buildings is wider than the other. However, the similarity observed in form does not extend to a similarity in function as the western building is a hospital while the eastern one is a medical school of the old order. In other words one is a health and the other is an educational institution.
Both the hospital and the medresse are arranged according to the scheme which has four vaulted antechambers around an open court yard. The hospital is a rectangular shaped building whose outer dimensions are 41 m. x 32.30 m. One side of its rectangular courtyard is 12.50 m. and its three sides are defined by triple arched porticoes. The fourth portico which is at the front of the main antichamber (eyvan) is built with a single span. The vaulted antechambers are located behind the central arches with large spans. Rooms are placed on both sides of the main antechamber and these are arranged as a small room in the west and two inter-connecting rectangular rooms in the east. The portal does not coincide with the lengthwise axis of the building but is located on the axis of the portico at the west side of the courtyard. The medresse which is connected to the hospital with a barrel vaulted narrow passage is pushed back about a metre from the hospital, accentuating the existence of two buildings. If this small diffrence is ignored, it is possible to say that the depth of the hospital is equal to the depth of the medresse. However, it is narrower with its 27.50 m. width. Hence the courtyard is not a square, but a rectangle of 14.00 m. x 8.00 m. dimensions. Like the hospital, here also a portico defines the four sides of the court yard. At the long side of the rectangular court the portico is triple arched and the side antechambers (eyvans) are behind the middle span. The narrow side of the courtyard has a single arch at the north side, in front of the main antechamber and has two arches in the south. This has made it necessary to move the building south from its axis and to place it behind the western arch. The main antechamber (eyvan) of the medresse is narrower than the main antechamber of the hospital and less deep (9.70 m. x 7.50 m.) and this antechamber also has two rooms on sides, one larger and the other smaller.
The mausoleum (Türbe) which is located between the room in the north-west corner of the building and the eastern antechamber and who’s upper and lower grave cellar and mesjid doors face the courtyard, is a typical Seljuk tomb with its octagonal exterior and its octagonal prismatic hat. The interior of the mesjid is cylindrical. Eight niches are opened on its walls. One is rectangular shaped and the other is semi-circular. The semi-circular niche in the south east is the “mihrab” – the niche which indicates the direction of Mecca. The roof or “hat”, which looks octagonal from the outside, also rises octagonally on the inside. Thus, this mausoleum is an exception as the interiors of the hats are always domes in Anatolian Seljuk architecture. The portal of the mausoleum is on the axis of the western portico, like the hospital, that is, on the left.
Only the inscription on the portal of the hospital at the double building complex has managed to survive so far. From this inscription it is understood that the hospital was built according to the will of Gevher Nesibe Hatun, the sister of Giyaseddin Kerhüsrev the First and the daughter of Kılıç Aslan the IInd in 602 (Islamic calendar) (1205) The medical school adjacent to the hospital is known as the Gıyasiye Medresse and is assumed to be built by Gıyaseddin Keyhüsreev (1192 – 1196, 1204 – 1210) However, there is no definite documentation that shows that the medical school was built by him. It is not uncommon to have two adjacent buildings with different functions to be built by different people during the Seljuk era. Divriği Grand Mosque and the Orphanage is such an example. However the opposite is also true, such as the Hadjı Kılıç Mosque and Medresse in Kayseri or Mahperi Huand Hatun Complex. Hence, it is possible that both buildings of the Çifte Medrese were built by the same person.
As a general rule, it is true that the patrons of the institutions occupy the mausoleums (türbe) which are located at Medresses and hospitals. For example son of I. Keyhüsrev, İ. İzzedddin Keykavus (1210 – 1219) is buried at the mausoleum of the Hospital he built in Sivas. There is indeed a mausoleum at this building known as Gıyasiye Medresse but we know that it does not belong to Gıyaseddin Keyhüsrev as this Sultan is buried at the tomb located in the Konya Alaaddin Mosque. This being the case, we can surmise that the tomb here belongs to Gevher Nesibe Hatun. This assumption brings forth a new question. Why is the tomb not located at the Hospital section which was built by Gevher Nesibe Hatun as its inscription states but in the medresse section? Here, we might find two answers. Either the hospital was originally the building where the tomb is located and the inscription was later taken from the portal of that building and moved to the portal of the building currently known as the Hospital or both buildings were built by the same person and the tomb of its patron was placed at a suitable point of the complex. We tend to belive that the later of this assumption is correct and Çifte Medresse as a whole was built according to the will of Gevher Nesibe Hatun and the mausoleum is occupied by the sultan.
Today Çifte Medresse is in the Sinan park and used as a Medical Museum under the Erciyes University
Telephones
(0 352) 437 42 72
(0 352) 231 35 65
