The Turkish lobby: telling the story of modern Istanbul through the Pera Palace Hotel
Matthew Price
October 9, 2014 Updated: October 9, 2014 02:50 PM
Istanbul’s Pera Palace Hotel was a good vantage point to view the end of an empire and the beginnings of a nation-state. Founded in the late 19th century by the same Belgian company that brought the Orient Express to Europe and situated in the city’s most fashionable neighbourhood, the hotel became a destination for businessmen, writers, diplomats (the embassies of major world powers were just footsteps away), émigrés, spies and shadowy figures lurking in the lobby.
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