Odunpazari Quarter

Odunpazari is considered the oldest quarter of Eskisehir; it grew up around the firewood market that gave it its name. The streets climb the slope up from the Porsuk River, and along them stand two- and three-storey houses of the late 19th and early 20th centuries with projecting bay windows, wooden frames and tall blank gates into the courtyards. After restoration the facades were painted in bright colours, blue, turquoise and ochre, and the quarter became the city's main tourist address. In the lower part the Kursunlu complex has survived, with a 16th-century mosque and medrese that now hold workshops for working meerschaum: this white porous stone is quarried in the area around Eskisehir, and the city remains its main supplier worldwide. A glass museum has opened in one of the old mansions, and next to it stands the Odunpazari Modern Museum, designed by the Japanese studio of Kengo Kuma and assembled from wooden beams. The lanes here are narrow and there are almost no cars, while the ground floors of the houses hold coffee shops and stores with local sweets. Some of the houses have been given over to small guest houses and workshops, so the quarter remains lived in rather than a stage set.

On the map