One of Istanbul’s best and most accessible of auditoriums, purpose-built for smaller scale concerts. Well not quite purpose-built. The building was originally constructed as a wedding hall. At a famous lunch at Yıldız Palace, the representative of a leading American philharmonic orchestra informed the then mayor, Bedrettin Dalan, that they would not come to Istanbul as there wasn’t a suitable concert hall. So, the wedding hall became a concert hall at the last minute, albeit with some high-powered acoustic engineering. Dalan of course lost the next election. The concert hall is part of a large cluster of venues, Congress Valley, overlooking Maçka Park.