Ziya Kalkavan Maritime Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School

Audio Narration:

Construction Year:

1863

Location:

Beşiktaş, İstanbul

Ordered By:

Sultan Abdülaziz

Architect:

Nikogos Balyan, Sarkis Balyan, Agop Balyan

Changes After Construction:
  • It was built on the site known as Kazancıoğlu Garden, which was used by the Ottoman sultans as a hunting ground and private recreation area.
  • The building, which stands within the one-and-a-half-kilometre chain of buildings and palaces stretching from Beşiktaş to Ortaköy and now known as the Feriye Palaces, is one of the annex buildings of Çırağan Palace.
  • During the Ottoman period, the building was used as the Aides-de-Camp Building within the Çırağan Palace complex, and it suffered heavy damage in the fire that broke out in 1910.
  • After the fire, the structure, of which only the exterior façade was preserved, was shown as the Infantry Junior Officers’ School in Engineer Necip Bey’s 1918 Atlas of Istanbul.
  • Today, the building is used as Ziya Kalkavan Maritime Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School, and it has a two-storey seafront building and a large garden.
Prominent Features:
  • It is Turkey’s first maritime school.
  • The ship mast in the garden of the building is the main mast of the S/S İzmir, which belonged to the General Directorate of State Maritime Lines and Ports Administration and was scrapped in 1950; it is also the symbol of the present school.
  • The Ship Electronics and Communication Department, established in the 1983–1984 academic year, was the first branch opened in this field in Türkiye.
  • In 2018, the school received the status of the first project school in the field of maritime studies approved by the Ministry of National Education.