Building (on) Trust: The Architecture of Debt in the Late Ottoman Empire

Abstract

The Ottoman Public Debt Administration (OPDA), a multinational financial cooperation with semi-governmental privileges, was founded in 1881 following the Ottoman government’s declaration of bankruptcy. Acting within a complex inter-imperial setting, the OPDA’s headquarters constituted the center of an expansive material network engendered by debt, operationalizing a system of resource extraction across a wide economic geography. Focusing on the concept of trust underlying the financial instrument of debt, this paper considers architecture to be both a medium and a product of the logics of modern finance developed in the late nineteenth century. The building’s methodical ordering of space, modest yet specific ornamentation, and unique façade design did not simply mirror the financial activities it housed, rather it actively mobilized them to regain creditors’ trust following financial collapse. I argue that the OPDA building’s design—in its incorporation of past, “traditional” forms—materialized an ongoing process of borrowing from the future, naturalizing the debt system’s stability and thus enabling its endurance.