Pirinç Han

Pirinç Han, a caravanserai commissioned by Sultan Bayezid II in Bursa.

It is located on Cumhuriyet Street in the Hanlar District in the city centre. It was built between 1490 and 1508. It is the second caravanserai that Sultan Bayezid II had built in Bursa for the purpose of income for his endowments in Istanbul. The sultan had previously commissioned Koza Han. Because it was built near Koza Han, it was initially known by names such as Hân-ı Cedîd-i Hâkânî, Kârbansaray, Hân-ı Cedîd-i Âmire; from the early 17th century it began to be called Pirinç Han. Its architects were Yakup Şah bin Sultan Şah and Ali bin Abdullah. The building’s overseer was Ecebey bin Abdullah and Nazır Muhiddin.

Both stone and brick materials were used in the structure. The courtyard arches and columns are cut stone; the arches, domes and vaults are brick. Cut stone and three rows of brick were used on the entrance façade.

Around a large square courtyard there are 38 rooms on the lower floor and 48 rooms on the upper floor. It has camel stalls and animal pens. The building is entered through a 2.96 m wide arched‑less door opening onto the courtyard. Traces of the hexagonal fountain that originally stood in the courtyard are still visible today.

Documents indicate that at the time of its construction many Venetian, Russian and Frankish merchants lived in Bursa and resided in the Şehreküstü neighbourhood where the caravanserai was built. Pirinç Han became one of the caravanserais most frequented by foreign merchants coming to Bursa and especially dealt in fur trade. From the middle of the 16th century, silk twisters gathered in the caravanserai.

In the 1855 Bursa earthquake the western and northern wings and shops of the han were completely destroyed, and various additional structures were built in its courtyard and inside to make the damaged parts usable. In addition, its northeast corner was cut off while Hamidiye Street (now called Cumhuriyet Street) was opened in 1903-1906. It is known that until the late 1970s the han housed workshops for leather work, shoe factories, silk twisters and silk dyers.

Pirinç Han was opened as a shopping centre in 2002 after a restoration lasting about twenty years. During the restoration a new door was opened on the western façade; the prayer room mentioned in the records and the fountain were not built. Today it has cafés on the lower floor and some shops and offices on the upper floor.