Bursa (Eski Kaplica)

In Bursa, Eski Kaplıca (the 'old thermal baths') stands on a site with roots reaching back to 525 AD, when a public bath already existed there; the present building was raised under Sultan Murad I between 1360 and 1389, with a changing room added later under Bayezid II in the early 16th century.

Ottoman architecture unfolds here through two domes and two half-domes flooded with light from numerous windows, gathered around a central fountain. In the hot room, a baldachin resting on eight columns crowns a circular pool 7 meters across, fed by Çekirge's Horhor spring through a lion-head spout -- a setting both monumental and intimate, steeped in centuries of hammam tradition.