Mualla Eyüboğlu

Who was Mualla Eyüboğlu?

Mualla Eyüboğlu Anhegger was one of the first female Turkish architects. She is known for her restoration work on the Topkapı Palace harem room and the Rumelihisarı in Istanbul.

Eyüboğlu was born in 1919 in Aziziye, Erzurum. She was the sister of well known Turkish painter and poet, Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, and Sabahattin Eyüboğlu, an author, academic and translator. Her father, Mehmet Rahmi, was the Governor of Trabzon and a member of parliament chosen by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

Her family moved to Istanbul, where she enrolled in a regular high school, unlike many of her peers who often attended all girls colleges. After graduating from high school, Eyüboğlu was educated in fine arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul and became an architect in 1942. She later explained her family's commitment to education, especially for women, saying, "We grew up with Atatürk's reforms. That was what Atatürk had indoctrinated in us. That we would finish school and serve our country."

After the academy, she began working in the small village of Hasanoğlan, Ankara Province, where she facilitated the construction of a village institutes. The Turkish government was working to develop the small villages and communities of Anatolia at the time, and the village institutes were considered essential to educating its citizens. Eyüboğlu later said in an interview: