Maslak Pavilions Orangery (Maslak Kasırları Limonluk)

Sultan Abdülaziz had the Maslak Pavilions built in the 1860s, in what is now the district of Sarıyer, and in 1868 gave them to his nephew, Prince Abdülhamid. The prince bought up the surrounding land and turned it into a large agricultural estate given over to horse and livestock breeding; after becoming sultan in 1876 he kept the property, known during his reign as the Imperial Farms of Maslak (Maslak Çiftlikât-ı Hümâyûnu).

The orangery, or limonluk, was completed in 1876, the very year of his accession, and the camellias planted that year still adorn it. Under the Republic the estate changed role: from 1937 to 1982 the pavilions served as a military preventorium. Restored in 1984, they became a house museum open to the public within the Presidency of National Palaces, which still runs the complex.

In 2020 the daily Milliyet noted that the orangery had stood in the garden for 144 years, a garden now hemmed in by the skyscrapers of the Maslak business district.

The Maslak complex, covering some 170,000 m², has five main parts: the Kasr-ı Hümâyûn, the Mabeyn-i Hümâyûn, the Pashas' Quarters, the Tent Pavilion (Çadır Köşk) and the orangery. The orangery is linked to the Mabeyn-i Hümâyûn, and National Palaces lists its furnace room, the Limonluk Külhanı, as a separate structure; its stove heated the glasshouse. Inside, temperature and humidity are held at a constant level to protect the plants. One curiosity survives: an artificial grotto that stayed cool at the heart of the heated glasshouse, where colourful flowers were grown through the winter. The sources consulted give neither the dimensions nor details of the building materials.

The orangery keeps the camellias that Sultan Abdülhamid II had brought from the Far East and Europe; according to İbrahim Akkurt, writing on the İstanbul Tarih website, they were planted in 1876. In 2020 the daily Milliyet listed lemon trees, camellias, dragon trees (Dracaena), giant elephant-ear alocasias, Latania palms, cycads (Cycas revoluta), rhododendrons and philodendrons; one cycad is described as the oldest in Turkey. At the entrance, a bank of roses and a sharp scent of lemon greet visitors. National Palaces also mentions the glasshouse's rare tropical plants and a large garden with countless species, brightened in summer by hydrangeas.

The Maslak Pavilions stand on Büyükdere Caddesi, in the middle of the Maslak business district in Sarıyer. The orangery is seen as part of the National Palaces house museum, which also includes the Kasr-ı Hümâyûn, the Mabeyn-i Hümâyûn, the Tent Pavilion and the Pashas' Quarters, set in a large garden full of hydrangeas in summer. A visit pairs well with Yıldız Palace in Beşiktaş, where the same institution opened Raimondo D'Aronco's art nouveau orangery in 2024, another witness to Abdülhamid II's love of plants.