Gaziantep Old Town

The quarters around the citadel, built up with nineteenth-century stone houses of the local pale limestone — a material soft to work and hardening in the air, which is why the facades are carved and the courtyards are spanned with arches. The layout is traditional: a blank wall towards the street, all life in an inner courtyard with a pool and a vine, separate summer and winter rooms. Some of the houses have been restored as museums, coffee houses and workshops, others stand empty after their residents left. The streets are narrow, cobbled and climb steeply towards the citadel. A distinctive mark of the district are the workshops making sedef: mother-of-pearl inlay on wood, an old urban craft. Gaziantep is heavily built up with new districts, and the old town remains the only place where its former appearance can still be read. In the evening venues with live music open in the courtyards, and they are worth a visit if only for the courtyard itself.

Address

Kasap Sokak, Gaziantep

On the map