Abstract:

Water, which is the source of life for humanity has also played an important role in the foundation and development of civilizations. Throughout history, people preferred to settle close to rivers in order to supply easily their need of fresh water. Istanbul which has almost no source of fresh water, had been the capital of Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman Empires as one of the exceptions. These empires of great population have built water ways to bring drinking water to the center of the city from outside. They constructed cisterns to store water inside and built fountains for bringing that water to people’s avail. Unfortunately those water ways each of which were a brilliant piece of craftsmanship and engineering have become out of use in time and have been disconnected from each other by careless zoning projects of the city’s governments. Since it’s in the essence of human body and also because it’s crucial for survival, water is blessed by many religions and cultures. The religion of Islam has also given a lot of importance to water and cleanliness. It’s been required for a Muslim to keep always himself and his surrounding clean. For that reason bringing fresh water to public use has considered a very important deed in the Ottomans. The Sultans, their wives, the Sultanas and some other wealthy government officials have built fountains in the era so that water has brought to public use.Nowadays those fountains which were built as miniature samples of the architectural style of their era, have become unprotected since they lost their function. Dam parts /dams of the fountains have been filled with garbage. Consecutive road building and asphalting jobs left many of the fountains buried waist deep. Basin parts have been broken, plumbing infrastructure has been built around them, and they became a chalk board by writings. Directorate for the Inspection of Conservation Implementations KUDEB , have restored 67 fountains all around Istanbul as part of its “Stone Masonry Workshop, Simple Maintenance and Repair Works”. In this article restoration implementations of 12 fountains which had been completed in 2011 by KUDEB Stone Masonry Workshop, is mentioned briefly. Restorations of the Mahmut II, the “Saka” and the “Sine-i Perver Valide Sultan” fountains are retailed due to the use of some different procedures during their restoration process as well as they reflect the architectural style of their era

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