Kucuksu Pavilion

Kuecueksu Pavilion is a three-storey Neo-Baroque summer palace completed in 1857 on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus at Goeksu, built as a modest hunting lodge and reception residence for Sultan Abdulmecid I. The Armenian court architect Nikogos Balyan, who also designed Dolmabahce, created here a comparatively intimate pleasure pavilion of just 27 by 15 metres with no harem wing. A sweeping double marble staircase on the seaward side leads to the small landing where sultans arrived from the city by caique. Today the building operates as a museum with original salons featuring Bohemian crystal chandeliers, Bukhara carpets and Bosphorus-vista murals; from the garden you look directly across to the medieval fortress of Anadoluhisari.