Konak Pier

Konak Pier is a Victorian iron-and-glass warehouse designed by the Eiffel engineering company in 1890, converted into a shopping and restaurant complex in 2004. The building's industrial skeleton — its cast-iron columns and glass roof — has been preserved inside the conversion, giving the shopping centre an architectural character that most Turkish malls entirely lack.

The pier sits right at the water's edge in Konak, with views across the Gulf of İzmir from its restaurant terrace. It houses a mixture of international chains and local restaurants, with a good food court. Worth a look for the building itself even if shopping is not your priority.

things to do sight shopping konak
A story
The pier building was designed by Gustave Eiffel's company — the same firm responsible for the Eiffel Tower — and completed in 1890 as a customs warehouse for the port. It stands as a rare surviving example of the Eiffel company's industrial architecture in the Ottoman Empire, which commissioned several such structures as part of its modernisation programme in the late nineteenth century.