The Projections of a Roof: An Ottoman Armenian Family Residence in Nineteenth-Century Eastern Turkey
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The first substantial investment we made in our terraced house in Northern England was renewing the more-than-a-century old slate roof. It was costly and necessary, but not something that readily improved our use of the place, so I resented the expense. It was not something that I could even see!
This might be why I was somewhat fixated on the roof of a row of terraced houses built at about the same time in Mezre (modern day Elazığ) in eastern Turkey, where my current research is based. The architecture of this building stood out in its entirety from all other residential buildings in Mezre and the nearby medieval fortress town of Harput, as well as the more than fifty villages around them, but what really intrigued me was its sheet metal roof. Prefabricated steel roof tiles were not available in the Ottoman Empire at the time, so they had to be imported and brought to the site in this rather remote location. Tracing the story of what I already imagined to be a lengthy and laborious undertaking cast light on the complex intersections of local and global networks of commerce, faith and diplomacy at work in the Ottoman East.
Commonly known as Beşkardeşler (five siblings), this row of terraces was built to house the five brothers Fabrikatorian and their families. Beşkardeşler was distinctive in its massing, composition, and material (Figure 1). Extended families often lived in close proximity, but their compounds typically grew gradually and by accretion rather than being built at once as a single multi-unit terrace. Beşkardeşler was handsomely detailed: ornate chimneys on both ends of each unit vertically punctuated its silhouette. The chimneys alternated with elaborate dormers atop bay windows and semicircular French balconies, the slight projections of which offered a brief and sheltered transition between the garden gates and the entryway. The predominant building materials for domestic architecture in this region were sundried brick, mud, and wood. Some wealthy families had exposed masonry in their homes featuring timber lintels that provided structural support and a pleasant façade composition. Their cantilevered wood projections with windows offered better views of the surrounding landscape. Beşkardeşler was also built from stone, but it was rendered in stucco with lightly rusticated stone details on the corners marking the divisions between each home.
Figure 1. Terraced houses, Beşkardeşler, ca 1930. Photograph by M Süruri, URI: https://archives.saltresearch.org/handle/123456789/195650, SALT Araştırma, Fotoğraf ve Kartpostal Arşivi.
Unusual for a residential building anywhere in the empire at the time, Beşkardeşler’s roof was made of metal. In eastern Turkey, the typical roofing material was mud, although in Mezre tiles were used over the whole or part of some of the more prominent buildings. Although Mezre’s topography was relatively flat, hillside settlements were more common in the region, due to the exigencies of historical irrigation systems. The houses, often on slopes, included flat mud roofs that could be used as an outdoor space, and in hot summer nights as an open-air sleeping room (Figure 2). Mud roofs required constant maintenance: excessive water would have to be squeezed out with a large manually operated stone roller, called loğ. A metal roof was typically associated with institutional structures, not homes. It was durable and needed significantly less maintenance, but it was expensive.
Figure 2. General view of the settlement patterns on the steep slopes in Harput, n.d. Photograph by M Süruri, URI: https://archives.saltresearch.org/handle/123456789/195660, SALT Araştırma, Fotoğraf ve Kartpostal Arşivi.
The high price was due as much to the differentials in the exchange rate and buying power between the Ottoman Empire and the U.S., where the panels were manufactured, as to the transport and insurance costs. Mezre was on a major caravan route between the Black Sea port of Samsun and Baghdad, but it was 307.5 miles (495 km) inland, the roads were not good, and this was a large and heavy cargo. The overland journey in wagons or on pack animals normally took about a fortnight, but delays were likely. If ships arrived in the winter, snow obstructed the mountain passages, and if they arrived in the spring, the mud was thick and slippery. Consequently, it typically took five to seven months from order to delivery. Furthermore, brigandage and intercommunal violence in this region were a constant threat to caravans carrying merchandise. The cost of these risks was perfectly encapsulated in the price of shipping: freight rates for the same shipment from New York to Samsun were $18.47 inclusive of insurance and cartage, but from Samsun to Mezre they were $55![1]
“The architecture of this building stood out in its entirety from all other residential buildings in Mezre and the nearby medieval fortress town of Harput, as well as the more than fifty villages around them, but what really intrigued me was its sheet metal roof.”
In short, Beşkardeşler’s layered composition, with generously decorated elements and expensive materials and workmanship that signaled a familiarity with more sophisticated—or dare I say, cosmopolitan—tastes, was unusual in this impoverished corner of the Ottoman Empire. Nevertheless, it was commensurate with the ambitions and success of the Fabrikatorians, the region’s most prominent industrialists.
The five brothers Fabrikatorian were the second-generation owners of a modern silk factory. A driven and talented man, Krikor (1828-1902), the father, had originated from the nearby town of Arapgir, and traveled and apprenticed extensively in the renowned textile centers of the Ottoman Empire. Later, he received formal training in France on both the materials and technologies of silk production. Thereafter, rather than Arapgir, his hometown, he returned to set up shop in Mezre. To ensure the long-term success of his business, he sent his five sons to study silk production in Egypt, France, and the United States, and imported the latest American-made steam-operated machinery for the plant. By the late 1880s, despite severe setbacks, the family business was thriving, gaining recognition at home and abroad—including a medal for its delicate brocades at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1893). Acknowledging Krikor’s accomplishments, Sultan Abdülhamid II exempted him from duties, taxes, and freight charges, and awarded him free docking facilities in Beşiktaş. In addition, the sultan granted Krikor the rare privilege of stamping his name, which by then he had proudly changed from Ipekjian to Fabrikatorian, on the edges of his fabrics.
Krikor’s decision to settle in Mezre in the 1870s was canny. Then merely the budding provincial seat of the newly created Mamuret-ül-Aziz province, two miles to the southwest of the medieval fortress town of Harput, Mezre’s location between Samsun and Baghdad was convenient. Consequently, it had become a desirable place for enterprising merchants and manufacturers who followed the Fabrikatorians in locating their businesses and homes in Mezre. Beşkardeşler was built next to the family’s silk factory, just two blocks from the administrative quarter, on the western end of Mezre’s main street, which was also the caravan route. The new Protestant church, established and operated by U.S. missionaries, was only a short walk away; so was the American consulate (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Aerial photograph of Mezre (modern day Elazığ), ca. 1925. Key: (1) Beşkardeşler; (2) Beşkardeşler Silk Factory; (3) German Mission and Orphanage Compound; (4) Protestant Church. Photograph by M Süruri, URI: https://archives.saltresearch.org/handle/123456789/195653, SALT Araştırma, Fotoğraf ve Kartpostal Arşivi.
The inaugural American consul in Mezre, Thomas Norton, arrived in January 1901 with a dual agenda. First, he was tasked by President McKinley with monitoring the rising intercommunal violence in the region and offering the necessary protection to U.S. citizens and interests. Harput and adjacent communities, which were sporadically shaken by ethno-religious conflict, had seen a marked increase in the number of Ottoman Armenians departing for the U.S. in search of better prospects since the founding of the Euphrates College by Protestant missionaries in 1852.[2] In the last decade of the nineteenth century, four-fifths of all Ottoman immigrants to the U.S. were Armenians from the Mamuret-ül Aziz province. Many immigrants took up American citizenship, but maintained strong ties with their homeland. They propped up the economy with their remittances, and some returned to start businesses despite the rising security concerns.
Second, and very much building on this growing traffic, Norton was keen to expand the region’s commercial ties with the U.S. In his copious consular reports and communications with U.S. trade journals, he adopted an unmistakably boosterist tone, arguing that the U.S. would enjoy a head start in this long-neglected region where no other Western power had a meaningful presence. He noted that Armenians schooled at the College or who lived and worked in in the U.S. were a ready-made clientele familiar with and appreciative of U.S. products, and that they would make very suitable business partners. Norton cultivated strong relationships with local businessmen and Ottoman officials and authorities. He also dedicated the consulate’s ground floor to a permanent exhibition of U.S. goods, since the locals were not used to shopping from catalogues.
“Beşkardeşler stood at the crossroads of ambition, commerce, faith and diplomacy—and was readily understood by those whose impression mattered. ”
Unlike other exports from the United States, sheet metal could not be put on exhibit, but was displayed in situ. The Euphrates College had been badly damaged during the 1894-96 pogroms perpetrated by state-backed paramilitary forces, the Hamidiye Cavalry. Components manufactured by American Steel Roofing based in Norton’s home state of Ohio were used in the reconstruction of various buildings of the college (Figure 4). In successive years, the new city hall, five churches and the French Missionary School in Mezre also would acquire steel roofs as, according to Norton, their “manifest superiority to the fragile tile roofs and ponderous mud roofs hitherto in vogue has quickly been recognized.”[3] The Beşkardeşler factory also acquired steel roofing, quickly becoming the envy of Boghos Jafarian, the founder of Mezre’s second largest silk factory, who followed suit in short order.[4]
Figure 4. View from the Director’s Office, Euphrates College showing orphaned boys returning from school, 1902-1903. Some of the college buildings were built using vernacular methods, newer sections were built using modern methods and materials. To the left of the photo is one of the newer structures erected after the 1896 pogroms. The steel panels are clearly visible. Photograph by Sursurian, URI: https://archives.saltresearch.org/handle/123456789/43966 - United Church of Christ (UCC), American Research Institute in Turkey (ARIT), SALT (Araştırma).
That Beşkardeşler was fitted with a conspicuously expensive steel roof is not a surprise. The Ottoman state was failing to maintain order in the region, the Armenian community was riven between factions seeking independence and opting to negotiate for improvements within Ottoman pluralism, and the Armenian Church was battling corruption within its ranks and competition from the missionaries. Meanwhile the Fabrikatorians, with three hundred workers in their employ and their worldly successes, were keen to project a sense of institutional power. Their roof concretized that image. Beşkardeşler stood at the crossroads of ambition, commerce, faith and diplomacy—and these associations were readily understood by those whose impression mattered.
The Beşkardeşler building does not exist anymore, and neither does the renowned silk factory. During the Armenian Genocide in 1915, with the exception of a few survivors, the entire family was killed. Their home was confiscated and changed hands between official and private use several times, and was finally replaced by high-rise apartments in the 1980s. Today there is nary a physical trace of this once handsome terrace row. Ironically though, the entire neighborhood around it bears its name, Beşkardeşler.
Acknowledgements
Funding for this research was provided by Architectural Research Collaborative at Newcastle University. Local historian Mustafa Balaban provided invaluable support in Mezre and Harput, and preservation architect Yavuz Özkaya lent his mind and eyes for the Turkish translation. My heartfelt thanks to them all.
Notes
[1] United States Bureau of Foreign Commerce, Consular Reports: Commerce, Manufactures, Etc (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1902), 177–78.
[2] The College started out as a seminary in 1852, but grew in size and went through several name changes. It acquired the name “Euphrates College” in 1888. Since conversion to Protestantism from the Armenian Apostolic Church entailed communal ostracism in every other aspect of life, most Armenians did not convert. But they continued to send their children to the missionary schools that dotted the region. These were part of a growing feeder system that had emerged around the Euphrates College, which provided useful literacy, numeracy, foreign language, and vocational skills. The missionaries complained that the Armenians were using their schools to get ahead in life, rather than religious enlightenment, but continued to expand their operations anyway.
[3] United States Bureau of Foreign Commerce, Consular Reports: Commerce, Manufactures, Etc (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1903), 249–50.
[4] Boghos Jafarian, Claire Mangasarian, and Leon Mangasarian, Farewell Kharpert: The Autobiography of Boghos Jafarian (Madison, WI: C. Mangasarian, 1989), 71–73.
