Nr. 48b.

From a site I found in French, after Google-translation: "This large building at the beginning of İstikal Avenue (coming from Taksim Square) reflects the late 19th century buildings in the Péra district. Its monumental door leads to a passage connecting the neighboring streets, but is no longer used today. On the upper floors, several coffee shops are located there.

On the door, the name of the passage is in Ottoman (Rumeli Han), French (Cité Roumélie) and Greek (Agoras Roumelias).

The sponsor was Ragıp Pasha, private secretary to the sultan and minister, who had his winter apartments a few meters away. It took the architects Aram brothers and Isaac Caracach, the architects, nearly three years (1894-1897) to build this large eight-storey building with 56 apartments and shops on the ground floor opening onto three different streets. the most important of which was naturally the Grand'Rue.

The Art Nouveau style was still in its infancy in Istanbul in 1894, yet the architects lavishly decorated the building with floral motifs, cherubs, and imps, which was not the custom for the houses belonging to to Muslims, as was the case here."