First look into Istanbul's Greek orphanage after decades

Years after a devastating fire destroyed Europe's largest wooden building, photographers got a chance to capture its beauty through the lens.

Standing on top of a hill on Istanbul's Büyükada island the building catches the eye of whoever comes to see the biggest of the Prince's Islands.

The Büyükada Greek Orphanage is now finally set for restoration after experts completed surveying the building following long delays.

A budget of $23.61 million is required to restore the building to its former glory.

Originally known as the Prinkipo Greek Orphanage, it was included in the list of endangered cultural heritage sites of Europa Nostra, as years of negligence and exposure to the elements nibbed away at the structure.

The European cultural heritage organization had called for at least a partial reconstruction of the building.

The 20,000-square-meter wooden building stood strong throughout decades despite a devastating fire in 1980 that tore parts of its roof and corner posts and have since fallen.

The building originally was designed to be a hotel and casino, built by Compagnie des Wagons-Lits, the travel firm that operated the fabled Orient Express luxury train.

The French-Ottoman architect Alexandre Vallaury had designed the building. He was also the architect of Pera Palace Hotel, another eye-catching structure of Istanbul.

The construction of the building was completed in 1898.

But the sultan refused to grand the casino license and in the end, the building was purchased by a wealthy Greek family upon the request of the Fener Greek Orthodox patriarchate based in Istanbul and opened as an orphanage for Greek children in 1903.

During WWI the building was confiscated by the government to be used as an accommodation for cadets and troops of the empire’s war ally Germany.

After the war, it served as an orphanage again.

In 1964 it was ordered to be evacuated amid heightened ethnic tensions between Turks and Greeks.

It was completely closed in 1977.

And only three years later a fire broke out damaging the building.

The Ecumenical Patriarchate, the center of Orthodox Christianity around the world, won a lengthy battle in 2010 to regain property rights of the building.

In 2020, survey work that will precede the restoration was launched at the building, which once housed some 6,000 orphans from the Greek community of Turkey.

Inch by inch, crews mapped the original features of the orphanage.

Once approved by the preservation board, the comprehensive restoration project would begin to restore the building to its former glory.