The Late Ottoman Empire through the Lens of Guillaume Berggren (1835–1920)

On May 26-27 2025 the Photo-Archive of the Istanbul Department of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), in collaboration with the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul (SRII), organised a workshop devoted to the Swedish photographer Guillaume Berggren, entitled “The Late Ottoman Empire through the Lens of Guillaume Berggren (1835–1920)”.

Wilhelm – widely known as Guillaume – Berggren (1835–1920) was one of the most prolific photographers of Late Ottoman Constantinople (modern Istanbul), active from around 1870 until he died in 1920. His atelier, known as “Little Sweden”, in the centre of Pera (Beyoğlu) was a meeting point for locals and cosmopolitans, for tourists, expats, and celebrities. With modern technical proficiency and an eye for the contemporary and the mundane as well as the historical and the exotic, together with his niece Hilda Ullin (1861-1953), he documented both the modern and the traditional. His lens captured historical buildings, monuments, railway projects, archaeological sites, the people surrounding them, as well as their clothing and professions in Istanbul and Anatolia. He took thousands of photographs of panoramas, monuments and residents, which were sold as postcards to tourists. Visitors to the photo archive of the German Archaeological Institute can view these photographs, as the DAI acquired the largest collection of his glass plates. Together with a large album Berggren produced for the Anatolian Railway, they offer unique testimonies of an Ottoman Empire in a rapid state of change.

The workshop aimed to acquaint Berggren and his oeuvre in order to grasp key resonances of the turbulent period of the Late Ottoman Empire. A time that sees a juxtaposition of Orientalism and Modernism, which is reflected in urban versus rural environments, in the beginning of photography, the development of industrialization, as well as the history of archaeology. Beyond the analysis of Berggren’s photographic heritage within the historical timeframe, the workshop discussed the archival value and its potential for future research and public outreach.

We would like to express our gratitude to all scholars from the Orient Institut, the Bibliotheca Hertziana, the Universities of Gothenburg, Boğazici, Istanbul, and Mimar Sinan, as well as Kerim Suner from 1851.Studio for their invaluable contributions, and the Istanbul Municipality, the American Research Institute, Salt, and ANAMED for their attendance and support.