From stench to hygiene? Public toilets as liminal spaces in late Ottoman İstanbul

Abstract This article examines public toilets in late Ottoman İstanbul as liminal spaces where urban governance, public health, and everyday life intersected. It argues that these sites functioned as arenas through which modern notions of hygiene, order, and civilization were articulated and contested. Drawing on archival documents, municipal records, and contemporary accounts, the study shows that while purpose-built public toilets began to emerge in limited numbers in the early twentieth century, urban sanitation largely relied on mosque latrines and other semi-public spaces, blurring the boundary between public and private. At the same time, sanitary interventions in bureaucratic buildings reveal how the modern toilet was imagined as a controlled, technical environment, even as persistent problems exposed the limits of this ideal. Taken together, these sites demonstrate that sanitation did not follow a linear trajectory of modernization but unfolded through technological experimentation, institutional frictions, and everyday practices shaped by concerns over smell, gender, and property value. By tracing how waste, infrastructure, and urban space were continuously negotiated, the article positions public toilets as critical nodes in the making of late Ottoman urban modernity.