wharf:Unkapanı (flour wharf),Yağkapanı (oil or butter wharf), Buğdaykapanı (wheat wharf). Thi all means merchants, ports, depots, commodities and centuries. They became a meeting place of Far East and Mediterranian and Europe. Courtyards of inns hosted many caravans. And near the peak point of all these the Grand Bazaar served as a sole distributon point for these commodities to the citizens of Istanbul.
Then there is the Istanbul city where the complexity of trade at its peak has left its place to the geometry of complexes of faith and the political life in Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman times supported by all this incredible organisation of space. Trade and human relationships brought about by trade have carried Europe out of Medieval times; elevated humanism and democracy to its peak; and joined technology and civilisation. Trade has helped the development of freedoms and democracy.
Humanbeings have overcome universe, themselves, prejudices towards each other through trading environments. Not a single superstition has been able to resist against the reality of trade. People have leart to communicate through trade.
Take a look at the merchants of the Grand Bazar who learn the language of any tourist in just two days and and try to sell his goods to the tourist addressing them in their own languages. Which language school can teach a language in such speed and in such sincerity?
Grand Bazaar is the universal center of such relationships.
We now live in a different world.
In this world the Grand Bazaar and values it represents are in danger.
The Grand Bazaar must catch up with this new world and do so in avery short period of time.
Not a single corner, a couryard or an inn must remain functionless. While serving as a universal Mecca for the tourists it must act as a point of attraction, ready to serve day and night and 24 hours, no matter how many more bridges or motorways are built.
The Grand Bazaar must at the same time be a museum with its historical values; a shopping center with its daily use; a concert hall where rhythyms from all around the world meet; a conference center where all the new ideas and knowledge come together; a gastronomical center where the food and palates of all nations combine; an exhibition center where products are displayed; above all a square where a people from every nation join together. Our Grand Bazaar is able enough to prepare the grounds for all these and has the capacity to activate them. This eventually means Istanbul which was once the center of the world in the hands of Rome, Byzantine and Ottomans, will again be the center of the world.
The center of our own world...
Let's not leave our world without a center...

The importance of the Grand Bazaar for Istanbul has changed owing to the diversion of the city center to the north of the city caused by the bridges and related motorways being constructed in that direction. The Grand Bazaar consisting of arcades and 'in-town' inns reflect a trading tradition of nearly 2.000 years since Byzantine times, is one of the oldest and uniterrupted commercial existances in the world.
This is a trail which binds East and West; where humanity is attracted

either by development or backwardness but in all, to differentiations;where these differetiations are transformed into material and cultural richnesses; where humans try to overcome these differentiations with positive developments; where even for this reason alone the foundations of history of civilisations are laid. This is our trail, trail of us humans.
How right are those who have said if there was no trade we would still be living in caves.
The Uzunçarşı (meaning long market)Street which rises to the Grand Bazaar carries the same name since Roman times. The Mısır (means both corn and Egypt in Turkish) or Spice Market as known by foreigners does not receive its name from corn but Egypt. Wharfs transported commodities which gave their name to the