"Hammam Rejuvenation
Istanbul's Booming Spa Culture Is Revisiting Old Turkish Bathhouse Rituals
By J.S. MARCUS
For centuries, pleasure combined with practicality in the hammams, or bathhouses, of Istanbul, where everyone from the humblest worker to the sultan himself regularly kept clean by indulging in the local tradition of a steam bath and professional body scrub. With the rise of modern bathrooms during the past 50 years, the tradition threatened to die out. Private bathing facilities replaced public hammams, and private hammams in the city's great houses became too expensive to maintain. Many of the city's most treasured hammam buildings, often important works of Ottoman architecture, have been converted into everything from cafes to warehouses."
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