Italians to restore clock tower at Istanbul's Dolmabahce

The Turkish Parliament's Secretary General Ali Osman Koca said Italian artists had previously restored several parts of Dolmabahce Palace, and their cooperation would continue. Â

Koca said Ottoman Sultan Abdulmecit had commissioned the construction of Dolmabahce Palace, and it was one of the most important buildings of modernization of the Ottoman Empire.

Dolmabahce Palace was the first European-style palace in Istanbul and was built by Sultan Abdulmecit between 1842 and 1853, at a cost of five million Ottoman gold pounds, the equivalent of 35 tons of gold. Fourteen tons of gold in the form of gold leaf were used to gild the ceilings of the palace.

The clock tower was constructed by Armenian architect Sarkis Balyan between 1890 and 1895.The clock tower was added to Dolmabahce Palace, and stands in front of its Treasury Gate on a square along the European waterfront of Bosporus next to the Dolmabahce Mosque.

Designed in the Ottoman neo-baroque style, the four-sided, four-storey tower stands at a height of 27 meters (88-1/2 feet). Its clock was manufactured by the French clockmaker house of Jean-Paul Garnier, and installed by the court clock master Johann Mayer. In 1979, the original mechanical clock was converted partly to an electrical one.