Built as the first Town Hall of Istanbul in 1885, the building is considered to be the birth of the modern day municipality of the Ottoman era and still belongs to Beyoğlu Municipality, which is one of the district municipalities The ottoman emperor Abdulhamid 2nd and his love of Paris and French culture was the catalyst of the original Town Hall Building of Istanbul. Abdulhamid 2nd saw and embraced the local authority system that Paris was using at the time and wanted to adopt this to Istanbul. After efforts, government decided to fit only one municipality to this mold and chose the most prestigious 6th Arrondissement region of Paris and called the new municipality building ‘6. Daire‘ which means the same thing in Turkish. Beyoğlu was the center of art and culture along with the non-Muslim community and embassies so it was seen fit to put this building in this region as the first municipality building of Istanbul.