Ottoman double bath · 1489–1497
A 15th-century double bath under thirteen domes, now the main building of the National Gallery.
These are the stories you can open in the 3D view, each at its own numbered point on the model.
This is a double Turkish bath, with one half for men and one for women. It was built between 1489 and 1497 as an endowment of Daut Pasha, a vizier who served as beylerbey, the governor-general, of Rumelia. The names of its architects are not known. The building measures about 41 by 28 metres and stands at the bazaar end of the Stone Bridge.
The two largest domes stand side by side at the west end. Each covers a changing hall, one for the men's bath and one for the women's. The domes sit on tall square bases with an eight-sided shoulder, and they are covered in grey lead, like the smaller domes behind them.
Seen from the north, below Kale, the roof reads like a small town of domes. Fifteen rooms lie under thirteen domes: behind the two great halls come the warmer rooms and then the hot rooms, each under its own smaller dome. The plan of the rooms in this model follows the count of domes; the exact layout is an estimate.
The walls are built in alternating courses: rows of stone separated by bands of brick. They are massive, with only a few small windows set in arched or square frames. The building is low, about twelve to fourteen metres to the tops of the largest domes.
The bath was badly damaged in the fire of 1689, when Habsburg troops burnt Skopje during the Great Turkish War, and it was left to decay. In 1948 it was restored and turned into an art gallery. The earthquake of 1963 damaged it again, and it was repaired once more.
A local tradition, recorded in the Macedonian Wikipedia among two legends about the building, says that this bath was never actually used as a bath. It is a story people tell, not a documented fact. What is certain is that for more than seventy years its domed rooms have held paintings rather than steam.
Today the hamam is the main building of the National Gallery. The entrance is on the west front, a few steps below the stone plaza, between green railings. Inside, exhibitions fill the rooms under the domes. The Stone Bridge begins just to the south-west, so the gallery is often the first building visitors meet on the old-town side of the river.
Typical prices are our estimates for orientation, not menu prices. Check opening hours on the spot.
Walk around the model, switch between day and night, and hear each story read aloud in English, Macedonian or Turkish.
Open in 3D
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