What Makes the Eyüp Toy Workshop Different

Introducing the Eyüp Toy Workshop, we are sometimes asked: “What sets you apart from other wooden toy workshops?” This piece is our answer.

Toys with a story

In Istanbul you can find many alternative toy-painting workshops for children. But most offer models with no story at all — shapes and forms you could find anywhere. At the Eyüp Toy Workshop, children are told about and given Eyüp Toys, the products of a tradition that has run for centuries — no toy that is not an Eyüp toy is ever offered to children. Every single toy carries a story out of history; and the Traditional Eyüp Toymaker has a very special story of its own, beginning with Hasan Efendi.

Through these stories children also learn core values such as love and respect, gain awareness of the environment and recycling, and build a bond between the toy and their own culture.

An interactive workshop

In our workshop children don’t just listen. They are asked question after question — about the kinds of toys, how they are made, their materials, what each toy does — and the answers keep both their knowledge and their curiosity alive.

A space true to the tradition

We hold our workshops in a space that matches the work itself. The interior is decorated to carry the warmth of wood and the spirit of the tradition; every colour used is one of the essential colours of Istanbul and of our civilisation. Children and visitors see motifs, tastes and patterns belonging to a five-hundred-year past.

To us, the most important thing children take home is an awareness of a cultural and traditional value — the knowledge that five-hundred-year-old toys exist. The mission and responsibility we carry is, in the end, what most sets us apart.