Born in Italy in 1857, architect Raimondo d’Aronco arrived in İstanbul in 1893 to work on designs for a planned İstanbul exhibition of agriculture and industry that never materialised after a terrible earthquake struck the city in 1894. Fortunately, by then he’d caught the eye of Sultan Abdülhamid II, who employed him to restore some of the damaged buildings. Between 1900 and 1901, he built a house for the sultan’s tailor, Jean Botter, which was the city’s first Art Nouveau structure and is now the Casa Botter Cultural Centre on İstiklal Caddesi.
