In the mid 1800s, the hammams began losing their wealthy patrons who were feeling some of the effects of the Industrial Revolution in the West. The rich began withdrawing their support from the baths, stripping them of their ornaments, carpets, mosaics, and leaving them to lapse into decay. I spoke with Dogan Kuban, director of the Istanbul Technological University, in 1974. Hammams are dying out. They are too expensive to run.
Water is costly to heat, repairs are numerous, and maintenance costs keep going up.
However, not all hammam experts agree with Kuban. Sabiha Tansug, an Istanbul woman who writes and lectures about the hammam at home and abroad, believes the Islamic bath is too much a part of Moslem religion to fade so easily. We have to appreciate and study it for its own value, not as an interchangeable section, but as an indispensible detail of daily life. If people like Sabiha Tansug represent incipient signs of nationalism or a true attachment to cultural heritage, there is good chance the hammam may regain its historic popularity.