4

GUEST-EDITED BY
,
HLYA ERTAS
MICHAEL HENSEL AND
LU HENSEL
DEFNE SUNGUROG
JAN/FEB 2010
PROFILE NO. 203

Turkey
At the Threshold

4 Architectural Design Forthcoming Titles

March/April 2010

Profile No 204

Exuberance in Architecture
Guest-edited by Marjan Colletti
This title of AD heralds a new era of exuberance in digital design. Having overcome the alienation and
otherness of the cyber, having mastered the virtual qualities and protocols of the parametric, having
achieved the intricacy and elegance of the digital, and having fully embraced the potential of 3-D computer software and CAD/CAM manufacturing technologies, it is now time for architects to show off!
Conjure up the extravagance of furniture design, the abundance of CGI in Hollywood, the profuseness
of bio-techno ornamentation or the lavishness of Middle-Eastern and Asian super-urbanism. Exuberance
not only celebrates new Baroque theatricality, formal sophistication and digital virtuosity; it also
debates a plethora of joyful and intelligent ways in which experimental architecture manages to cope
with the contemporary turmoil in global politics, economics and ecology.
Includes the work of seminal figures such as Peter Cook and Wolf D Prix
Features Hernan Diaz Alonso, CJ Lim, Ali Rahim, Neil Spiller, Kjetil Thorsen and Tom Wiscombe.

May/June 2010

Profile No 205

Territory: Architecture Beyond Environment

Guest-edited by David Gissen
Advancing a new relationship between architecture and nature, Territory emphasises the simultaneous
production of architectural objects and the environment surrounding them. Conceptualised within a
framework that draws from physical and human geographical thought, this title of AD examines the possibility of an architecture that actively produces its external, ecological conditions. The architecture here
scans and modifies atmospheres, arboreal zones, geothermal exchange, magnetic fields, habitats and
toxicities enabling new and intense geographical patterns, effects, and sensations within architectural
and urban experience. Territory charts out a space, a territory, for architecture beyond conceptualisations of context or environment, understood as that stable setting which pre-exists the production of
new things. Ultimately, it suggests a role for architecture as a strategy of environmental tinkering versus
one of accommodation or balance with an external natural world.
Features architects: Patrick Blanc, Gilles Ebersolt, Nicholas de Monchaux, Future Cities Lab, Fritz
Haeg, Iwamoto Scott, Kuth/Ranieri, The Living, R&Sie(n) and WEATHERS.
Cross-disciplinary contributions come from geographers, historians and theorists Ila Berman, Javier
Arbona, Ben Campkin, Edward Eigen, Matthew Gandy, Antoine Picon and Mitchell Schwarzer.

July/August 2010

Profile No 206

The New Structuralism: Design, Engineering and Architectural Technologies

Guest-edited by Rivka and Robert Oxman
Today the convergence of design, engineering and architectural technologies are breeding a new material
practice in experimental architecture. The significant emphasis on the structuring logic of tectonics is
resulting in a new structuralism in design. In this pioneering publication, this important shift is fully
defined as a highly dynamic synthesis of emerging principles of spatial, structural and material ordering
integrated through the application of materialisation and fabrication technologies. Providing the foundations for a new theory of structuring in architecture, The New Structuralism has broad implications for the
way we both conceive and undertake architectural design, as its impact starts to emanate not only across
education internationally, but also through architectural research and practice.
Features exemplary work by research and experimental design-oriented structural engineering practices:
Bollinger + Grohmann, Buro Happold, Hanif Kara (AKT) and Werner Sobek.
Theoretical contributions from: David Chilton, Holzer and Downing, Neri Oxman, Helmut Pottmann,
Nina Rappaport and Yves Weinand.
Focuses on new design and fabrication technologies in the recent work of Barkow and Leibinger, EMBT
(Enric Miralles and Benedetta Tagliabue), Gramazio and Kohler, and Fabian Scheurer (Designtoproduction).

4 Architectural Design Backlist Titles

Volume 77 No. 3 ISBN 0470031891

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Volume 79 No. 2 ISBN 978-0470998205

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Individual backlist issues of 4 are available for purchase

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4 Turkey
Architectural Design

January/February 2010

At the Threshold

, Michael Hensel and Defne Sungurog lu Hensel

Guest-edited by Hlya Ertas

IN THIS ISSUE
Main Section

LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE

Through their study of the 17th-century Yerevan Kiosk and Baghdad

Kiosk in the TopkapI Palace in Istanbul, Michael Hensel and Defne
Sungurog lu Hensel demonstrate there is much to learn from historical
structures no-energy and low-energy solutions to climate control. P 20

ISTANBUL 2010 EUROPEAN CAPITAL OF CULTURE

An interview with Korhan Gms, the Director of Urban and Architectural

Projects for the Istanbul Capital of Culture Agency, reveals the
progammes aims and its most significant projects. P 70

YOUNG TURKS

Hlya Ertas highlights the work of eight emerging

practices in Turkey whose integrity and original
approach to design sets them apart. P 84

4+
THE PHOENIX RISES

Mark Garcia profiles the current work of Amanda Levete

Architects (AL_A) led by Amanda Levete, previously co-director
of Future Systems with the late Jan Kaplicky. P 106+

RAVEN REVIVAL

David Littlefield reviews 6a Architects new art gallery at

Raven Row, an 18th-century silk merchants premises in
Londons Spitalfields, which refreshingly combines cheeky
references with authentic craftsmanship. P 120+

Architectural Design
Vol 80, No 1 (January/February 2010)
ISSN 0003-8504
Profile No 203
ISBN 978-0470 743195

C
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4
4

Editorial
Helen Castle

Introduction
Turkey: At the Threshold
, Michael Hensel
Hlya Ertas
and Defne Sungurog lu Hensel

14

Extended Thresholds I:
Nomadism, Settlements and
the Defiance of Figure-Ground
Michael Hensel and Defne
Sungurog lu Hensel

40

The Making of Early

Republican Ankara
Zeynep Kezer

46

Medium-Scale Anatolian Cities:

Conceptual and Physical
Routes of Urban
Transformation
Banu Tomruk

52

The Potential of Istanbuls

Unprogrammed Public Spaces

Hlya Ertas

20

58

26

64

Extended Thresholds II:

The Articulated Envelope
Michael Hensel and Defne
Sungurog lu Hensel

Ottoman and Turkish

Orientalism
Edhem Eldem

32

The Story of Istanbuls

Modernisation
ilhan Tekeli

Current Urban Discourse,

Urban Transformation and
Gentrification in Istanbul
Tolga islam

Developing Cities with Design

Tevfik BalcIog lu and
Glsm Baydar

4+
70

Creating Interfaces for a

Sustainable Cultural
Programme for Istanbul:
An Interview with
Korhan Gms

Hlya Ertas

76

Extended Thresholds III:

Auxiliary Architectures
Michael Hensel and Defne
Sungurog lu Hensel

84

Transforming Turkey:
Eight Emerging Practices

Hlya Ertas

96

To Integrate or
Not to Integrate?
Ug ur Tanyeli

106+

Practice Profile
Amanda Levete Architects
(AL_A)
Mark Garcia

114+

Interior Eye
Jil Sander Boutique and Derek
Lam Boutique, New York City
Jayne Merkel

120+

130+

Yeangs Eco-Files
Designing for Low-Carbon
Lifestyles
Mukti Mitchell and
Ken Yeang

134+

McLeans Nuggets
Will McLean

136+

Building Profile
Raven Row, Spitalfields
David Littlefield

Userscape
Dynamic Light: The Media
Facades of realities:united
Valentina Croci

124+

140+

Unit Factor
The EmTech Wave Canopy 2009
Michael Weinstock

128+

Spillers Bits
Telling Stories
Neil Spiller

The Museum is the Exhibit

Jayne Merkel

142+

Site Lines
Library of Birmingham
Howard Watson

Editorial
miles (776,997 square kilometres) and a population of almost 75
million. It encompasses a large number of minority ethnic groups,
including Kurds, Circassians, Bosniaks, Albanians, Laz, Georgians,
Helen Castle

Arabs, Roma, Pomaks, Jews, Greeks and Hemshins; in 2009, it was

also visited by approximately 25 million tourists. This all results in a
nation which is aptly described by the guest-editors in their

When dedicating an issue of AD to a specific

introduction as appearing highly heterogeneous from the outside, if

country or geographical region, it is always with the

not at times outrightly contradictory. It has a predominantly Muslim

intention of transcending national boundaries and

population and president, but an overtly secular republican

providing valuable universal insights. Turkey is, in this

constitution. The tug of modernisation and the West seems to be

respect, the consummate example. A transcontinental

constantly vying with cultural hegemony and tradition. Nowhere is this

country, straddling Europe and Asia, it has been of

more the case than in the built environment. For this reason, the guest-

great strategic importance since classical times,

editors have centred much of the issue on the question of identity,

providing a significant axis for empires and trade

which is so much at the fore in this expansive country, whether it is

routes bridging East and West: Istanbuls position at

focused on the pervasiveness of Orientalism, urban development or

the head of the Bosporus Straits gave it unique control

architecture. This theme of identity has a great deal of resonance

over the Black Sea, while Anatolias position at the

elsewhere in the world where the constant tug of globalisation pitches

southern end of the Silk Road to China made it pivotal

the local and the vernacular against standardisation and the pressure

in the medieval period for the silk and spice trade.

to roll out a built environment that is often executed economically but

The result of this was that when Constantinople fell in

of a low quality. What emerges, here, is a country that is not only

the mid-15th century, the full force of its economic

economically, geographically and culturally at the threshold, but also

impact was felt right across Europe with the maritime

at the point of assuming a new level of architectural confidence,

Venetian Republic never quite regaining its mercantile

looking beyond the polemics of tradition and Modernism and

supremacy. Bordered today by eight countries

understanding its built heritage as a repository of received knowledge

Bulgaria, Greece, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran,

that might provide the keys to a more sustainable future. 4

Iraq and Syria Turkey is over three times the size of

the UK with a land mass of over 300,000 square

Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: p 4 Steve Gorton; p 5 Yann ArthusBertrand/CORBIS

Aerial view of the Grand Bazaar, Istanbul, opened in 1461

Istanbul's important historic status as a trading centre at the crossroads
between East and West is reflected by the size of the Grand Bazaar, one of
the oldest and most extensive covered markets in the world. It incorporates
more than 58 covered streets and over 1,200 shops.

Introduction

By Hlya Ertas, Michael Hensel

and Defne Sungurog lu Hensel

TabanlIog lu Architects, Levent Loft,

Maslak, Istanbul, 2008
In this renovation of an old factory building
(which was never completed), the boxes
extending from the facade are intended to
add aesthetic value to function. Housing
luxurious accommodation, meeting rooms,
cafs and restaurants, Levent Loft attempts
to call back to the city centre the uppermiddle classes who have moved to the
suburbs over the last decade.

Turkey

At the Threshold

There are a thousand beauties But they are never

sold, never seen.
Nejt1
Displayed above is a truly remarkable carpet that
originates from eastern Anatolia. It featured in a book on
early Turkish carpets authored by Christopher Alexander,2
who most generously and enthusiastically granted us
permission to show it here. In his book, Alexander
describes this carpet as follows:
Most striking in the design are the bands of yellow,
with small purple zigzags, and the animals which
are repeated throughout the field. The smaller
animals are apparently fishes. The larger animals
the long yellow bands, with dragon-like heads are
certainly dragons. In addition, the manner of the
carpet, with its long dragon-like tendrils, is
reminiscent of medieval Norwegian carvings. Josef
Strzygowski has shown how the trade route from
Norway to Armenia, along the Danube, brought
many motifs from Norway to Armenia and the
Middle East, during the first millennium3 The
8

linear dragon motif, that also appears in this carpet, is

extraordinarily ancient. It does not only appear again and again
on 12th and 13th century Norwegian stave church carvings from
the Middle Ages, it appears in illuminations from the 7th century.
It also appears in virtually the same form, in a prehistoric
Chinese carving from the 8th century BC.4
Alexanders analysis of the pattern of the carpet is less surprising than
it may initially seem. The Vikings did indeed have contact with the
Byzantine Empire and Istanbul, which they knew as Miklagarr or
Miklagrd, meaning big city. To the east, the southern route of the
Silk Road connected China, via India, Turkestan and Mesopotamia, to
Anatolia. Likewise, the Persian Royal Road, part of the silk routes,
connected Susa to Smyrna (todays izmir), on the Aegean Sea. The
Greek, Roman, Persian, Byzantine and Ottoman empires engaged here
with great intensity. From these significant historical aspects one may
begin to sense that the region that today is Turkey has been a vital
crossroads and cultural amalgam over the ages, where closer yet also
far more distant cultures engaged, interacted and left their marks and
traces. The cultural variety that resulted from these connections and
interaction was, and is, very rich indeed.
Today Turkey is unquestionably an economic and political regional
power. It occupies an important strategic role in Central Asian and

Middle Eastern relations, and is at the doorstep of the

European Union, though it has met with resistance to its
ascendance from a group of European countries. Turkey is
a NATO member, yet not part of the Schengen area (the
25 European countries that have abolished border
controls between each other). Instead, its border with the
EU is part of an area of sharpened border controls that
shuts off eastern countries from the EU. Several of its
neighbours are engaged in conflicts, and Turkeys conflict
with Greece over Cyprus is far from resolved. Yet an
increasing number of tourists love holidaying in Turkey.
Taking the scope of foreign affairs and outside views of the
country into consideration, the resulting image is indeed
very heterogeneous, if not at times outright contradictory.
Likewise, Turkeys internal affairs and views oscillate
between secularism and Islam, between modernisation
and nostalgia for a traditional narrative, in large parts
directed towards some version of Ottoman Orientalism.
While the latter indicates a lack of recognition or
appreciation of other historical or current cultural

references, opposite tendencies also begin to indicate a heightened

awareness of a contemporary local heterogeneous culture in the
making. The Turkish director Fatih AkIn, for instance, celebrated the
broad and fast-evolving local musical scene of Istanbul in his
documentary from 2005: Crossing the Bridge: The Sounds of Istanbul.
Simultaneously globalisation forces its generic appearances strongly on
to Turkeys culture, economy, development and also the built fabric,
further fuelling the struggle for the search of either profit or identity.
In the face of all this diversity, the question arises as to what
content one might select for a themed journal focusing on Turkey. What
are the criteria for selecting content and contributions? Which stories
should be told and which omitted? In the preparation of this issue, it
quickly became clear that a somewhat comprehensive portrayal of
Turkeys cultural heritage, built environment and architecture is neither
realistic nor feasible. The aim could neither be an art-historical
synopsis nor an architectural encyclopaedia. This had been done by
others at great length, depth and detail. Instead, the strategy was to
embrace the diversity of views and aspects related to Turkish culture
and its built environment as a challenge. This challenge was met by
utilising the multiplicitous readings of the notion of the threshold as

above left: There are still some last remnants of nomads in Anatolia.
However, Turkey has not ratified the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples
Convention of 1989 and the older Indigenous and Tribal Population
Convention of 1957, and does little to protect and promote this key
aspect of its cultural roots. The ongoing, forced permanent settling of
these nomads adheres unfortunately to a singular state-driven identity
of a gentrified population. Now is probably the last opportunity for
Turkey to embrace differences and to incorporate these into a robust
cultural diversity from which many new impulses for a sustainable
cultural, social and architectural future may arise.

opposite: This early medieval eastern Anatolian carpet shows an

astonishing pattern of yellow dragon-like motifs that resonate with the
dragon motif of Viking culture. Given the actual exchange between the
Byzantium Empire and the Viking kingdoms it is, however, less
surprising that such motifs might have been exchanged between
cultures. Given the extent of cultural and economic networks over the
course of history one might begin to think of threshold conditions in a
rather different way: the coexistence of differences and exchanges over
time that is characterised simultaneously by both gradients and hard
divisions. Turkeys cultural diversity can then be thought of in light of
this alternative understanding of a threshold as a continuous unfolding
and differentiation, rather than a singular narrative outside of an
Ottoman nostalgia or a homogeneous nation-state profile.

Emre Arolat Architects (EAA), Milas Golf Hotel, Mug la, 2008
above right: The design of EAAs Milas Golf Hotel is based on the
practices research on the conventional urban pattern of the area.
Following this pattern, they suggest a roadbackyardhouse hierarchy
and organised common, semiprivate and private areas accordingly. Using
stone and wood for the buildings facades, the complex does not distort
the form of the hill it is situated on, and indeed takes advantage of it to
create underground spaces.

inici Architecture and DB Architecture,

Fibaline Housing, Istanbul, 2006
top: The architects here began by creating a stacking logic for the
houses that provided a design method that does not resist the
anonymous housing typologies of today, and instead plays on this to
create a more dynamic environment. With the housing units as macroform components, the design can also respond to the continuously
changing demands of clients.

10

Boran Ekinci Architecture, Kemer 50 Houses, Istanbul 2008

above: These two apartment blocks have open corridors, and
units open directly to the fresh air, giving residents a feeling of
villa living. The double-height balconies and warm wood
cladding of the facade encourage residents to spend time on
their balconies rather than indoors.

impeding change, as accelerated difference, as latent

tendencies and potentials that in their extensive
multiplicity could offer a first feel of the conditions and
dynamics that have established the key attributes of
Turkey over the ages and also today. These differences are
not easily resolved in the dichotomies of East and West,
Orient and Occident, globalisation and the locale,
modernisation and tradition. Together all these aspects and
many more may well accelerate cultural diversification. In
consequence, the conclusion was to introduce multiple
selected traits, arguments and debates revolving around
questions of Turkish architectural identity, practice and
discourse in a critical manner and to supplement this
discussion with a projective reflection of potentials
embedded within historical architectures and contemporary
design experiments, with the intention to open up new
avenues for debate. These discussions are chiefly
organised into three sections: the past, present and
future. Reflections on the past intend to unlock potential
for the future. Reflections on the present introduce
specific urban discourses and developments that have

arisen over time until today. And finally, reflections on the future
highlight promising traits that emerge from specific contemporary
efforts in practice, research and education in Turkey today.
Extended Thresholds I: Nomadism, Settlements and the Defiance
of Figure-Ground (Michael Hensel and Defne Sungurog lu Hensel see
pp 1419) pursues an analysis of ancient forms of inhabiting land as
an antidote to the strict figure-ground organisation of global and
Turkish developer architectures and its related problems. Taking the
analysis of threshold conditions to the scale of the discrete building,
Extended Thresholds II: The Articulated Envelope (pp 2025)
examines selected historical buildings with the aim of extracting an
integral relationship between spatial articulation and passive
environmental modulation strategies. In the following article, Edhem
Eldem discusses the background and make-up of Ottoman and Turkish
Orientalism (pp 2631), concluding the chapters on the past.
The Story of Istanbuls Modernisation by ilhan Tekeli (pp 3239)
opens the chapters on the present with an account of the development
of Istanbul from a large city towards a metropolitan region. This is
followed by Zeynep Kezers account of The Making of Early Republican
Ankara (pp 4045), which reflects on the development of Turkeys
capital city. Contrasting the prior discussion of Turkeys two foremost

Teg et Architecture, Novron Azur

Houses, YalIkavak, Mug la, 2008
Like many of the housing projects in
the region, the Novron Azur Houses
sit on a very steep hillside. But
unlike the many previous housing
settlements, which were composed
of identical buildings constructed on
linear slate walls, the Novron Azur
Houses take advantage of the
topography to melt the buildings
into the existing context and
maximise the views.

11

Mutlu ilingirog lu Architecture, Refiye Soyak Mosque, Istanbul, 2004

With its simple forms, the Refiye Soyak Mosque was designed to
represent the inner purity of prayer. It does not rely on classical or
conventional mosque typologies; it is a new building for worship that
allows in daylight from openings at the upper parts of the walls to create
a holy atmosphere inside. The mosque is sited in a generic non-place,
surrounded by parking lots, streets and nondescript high-rise typologies.
It markedly closes itself off from its context, which is in stark contrast to
the vibrantly populated urban space of Istanbuls centre.

Working on this issue of AD on Turkey has

yielded many interesting insights for the
authors, but, more importantly, it has raised
an increasing number of captivating
questions to be further investigated.

cities, Banu Tomruk offers a reflection on Medium-Scale

Anatolian Cities: Conceptual and Physical Routes of
Urban Transformation (pp 4651). Subsequently, Hlya
Ertas returns to a discussion of Istanbul, with a focus on
The Potential of Istanbuls Unprogrammed Public
Spaces (pp 5257). Tolga islam follows with a
description of Current Urban Discourse, Urban
Transformation and Gentrification in Istanbul (pp 5863).
Tevfik BalcIog lu and Glsm Baydar conclude this section
with a discussion on Developing Cities with Design (pp
6469) and the possibilities arising from this.
The final section, on the future, begins with an
elaboration of the aims and activities of Istanbul 2010,
by Hlya Ertas in conversation with Korhan Gms ,
Director of Urban and Architectural Projects for the
Istanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture Agency

(pp 7075). This is followed by Michael Hensel and Defne Sungurog lu

Hensels Extended Thresholds III: Auxiliary Architectures (pp 7683),
a discussion of the performative capacity of supplementary architectures
and a related report on a research by design workshop at the izmir
University of Technology. In her article Transforming Turkey: Eight
Emerging Practices (pp 8495), Hlya Ertas introduces the work of a
series of up-and-coming practices. The final article by Ug ur Tanyeli
returns to the question of To Integrate or Not to Integrate? (pp 96103)
and reflects on this question based on a series of selected projects.
Working on this issue of AD on Turkey has yielded many interesting
insights for the authors, but, more importantly, it has raised an
increasing number of captivating questions to be further investigated.
Invariably the feeling was that much more should be, and should have
been, researched. The authors thus remain positively poised at the
threshold, much as their subject of interest, Turkey, does. The hope is
that it has been possible here to share some of the excitement that
accompanied the work on this issue. In the process of developing the
project, many critical discussions took place and difficult decisions in
selecting and composing the content for the journal had to be made. In
some cases it was not possible to gain access to, and permission for,
items we would have liked to include, with bureaucracy operating on a
geological timescale. But hey.
We offer our heartfelt gratitude to Helen Castle, our enthusiastic
Editor, to Hasan FIrat Diker, Michael Young, Simge Sungurog lu, Kuyas
rs and all those others who have passionately helped us in this effort.
C ok tes ekkrler! 4
Notes
1. GA Walter, N Black and M Kalpakli, Ottoman Lyric Poetry An Anthology, expanded
edition, University of Washington Press (Seattle, WA), 2006, p 41.
2. C Alexander, A Foreshadowing of 21st Century Art: The Color and Geometry of Very
Early Turkish Carpets, Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1993.
3. J Strzygowski, Origins of Christian Church Art, Oxford, 1923.
4. Alexander, op cit, pp 13840.
Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 6-7 TabanlIoglu Architects photo by
Cemal Emden; p 8 Don Tuttle Photography; p 9(l) Fatih PInar; p 9(r) Emre Arolat
Architects (EAA); p 10(t) inici Architecture and DB Architecture; p 10(b) Boran
Ekinci Architecture, photo Veysel zbey; p 11 Teget Architecture, photos Cemal
Emden; pp 12-13 Mutlu ilingiroglu Architecture, photos Cemal Emden

13

Extended Thresholds I
Nomadism, Settlements and the Defiance of Figure-Ground
Since the onset of cartography in the 18th century, the fixed datum line and the figureground have become the predominant means of measuring and planning the built
environment. In the first of three articles on the subject of extended thresholds, Michael
Hensel and Defne Sungurog lu Hensel challenge this reductionist convention. By taking
Deleuze and his reading of nomadic smooth space as a starting point, they look at
alternative models provided by historic settlements in Turkey. These include: the neolithic
settlement at atalhyk in southern Anatolia; the medieval hillside town of Mardin in
southern Turkey on the Syrian border; the carved spaces and cities of Cappadocia, such as
Greme; and underground cities such as Derinkuyu, also in central Turkey.

14

A line drawn in the soil, marking a limit not to be

transgressed or else! Such lines deliver distinction and
division. They are used to draw up maps (contours
provisionally excluded) to gain distance from the close
range that precludes the discernment of the overall. For
this a fixed datum, a canvas as it were, is required and
the features that inhabit the datum are distinguished
against it. Thus what exists (map) or what is projected
(plan) is visualised and communicated, distinguishing the
figure from the ground. Giambattista Nolli (170156)
used this technique for his map of Rome, the Nolli Map
of 1748. Together with other maps of this type, but as
perhaps the most famous of its kind, it ushered in a still
ongoing tradition of surveying and planning the built
environment. Its different versions have become the
preferred means of planning not only for architects and
urban designers, but for developers who increasingly take
planning into their hands wherever a void of municipal or
governmental control permits, and wherever money rules
and short-term profit is plentiful. Fast profit invariably
precludes the search for alternative ways of organising
urban fabric, above and beyond the ubiquitous figureground and its associated problems: rampant sprawl, lack
of long-term thinking and of cultural, social or
environmental relevance, let alone sustainability. This,
too, happens in Turkey: rapid land parcellation together

above: The planar arrangement of dwellings in Mardin shows the adaptation of the
modular arrangement according to plot size, slope inclination and neighbouring
buildings. These plans also show that the roof terraces set out a second datum.
opposite: The few remaining remnants of nomadism in Anatolia are worth
protecting from a cultural point of view, as well as being a potent starting point for
restrategising modes and organisation of settlements.
below: View of Mardin.

15

with short-sighted profit thinking and nondescript

architecture accelerates the suburban sprawl, alongside
the evolving shantytowns.
A line of variable direction that describes no
contour and delimits no form1 fundamentally defies the
figure and its relation to the datum. Deleuze and Guattari
posited a nomadic absolute, as a local integration moving
from part to part and constituting smooth space in an
infinite succession of linkages and changes in direction
here the absolute is local, precisely because space is
not limited, while the desert, sky or sea, the Ocean, the
Unlimited, first plays the role of an encompassing
element, and tends to become horizon: the earth is thus
surrounded, globalised, grounded by this element,
which holds it in an immobile equilibrium and makes
form possible.2 If grounding is inevitable in order for form
to arise, are then also the consolidation of figure-ground
and its related consequences inevitable? Perhaps this is
so. But more importantly, one may ask whether the line of
variable direction can coexist and at the same time
subvert the immobile equilibrium of the horizon and the
datum, which also facilitates the local. Deleuze and
Guattari stated this condition as the perpetual interplay
between the smooth and the striated. It is thus in the
nomadic condition and its interaction with the striated that
a first trait for the intended analysis can be found: Never
believe that a smooth space will suffice to save us.3
Nomadism has a rich history in Turkey. Nomadic tribes
dwelled in Anatolia from the time the first agricultural use
of land occurred and Turkey was occupied in many waves
by nomadic Turks from Central Asia. Given these roots, it
is astonishing that Turkey seems to do little to protect its
nomadic remnants,4 let alone foster them as its potential
inroad to prevent the fatal homogenisation of its built
16

environment. At the same time Turkeys history is rich in examples that

are characterised by a different relationship to the datum, its different
relationship to spatial organisation and built fabric, the way it may
provide for habitation and for projective cultural and social
arrangements. In order to commence such an analysis, it is not
sufficient to simply replicate an art-historical or anthropological
narrative. Instead, it may be useful to extract specific arrangements
that defy the prevailing figure-ground so as to yield effective diagrams
that may be enriched by contemporary spatial thought and actualised
through contemporary design methods. Several starting points for such
an inquiry are examined here: the neolithic settlement of atalhyk
and the hillside town of Mardin that multiply the ground, and the carved
cities of Cappadocia, such as Greme, and underground cities such as
Derinkuyu, as examples that subvert the datum in a different way.
atalhyk, the largest neolithic settlement ever found, dates from
around 6500 to 5500 BC, and is located in the Konya plain in central
Anatolia. Estimates of its population vary from 5,000 up to 8,000.
This density of population brought with it dramatic developments in
town planning, architecture, agriculture , technology and religion, as
Charles Gates has explained.5 He describes such settlement as follows:
The houses clustered together, their walls touching those of their
neighbours. Although small courtyards connected by streets lined the
edges of the excavated area, within the cluster courts existed but
streets did not. People entered houses from the flat rooftops,
descending to the floor by means of ladders. Since the town lay on
sloping ground, the height of the roofs varied.6 This settlement was
characterised by a duplication of the datum on which the buildings
were erected. In duplicating the datum and the free movement
facilitated by it, the provisional datum of the nomadic tradition was
re-enabled, yet tamed by the control of the elevated perimeter of the
settlement. Descending within the cluster from the second datum
implied entry into an enclosed space, the interior of the house or,
alternatively, a protected court. The dense fabric of the settlement was
therefore neither disassociated into discrete figures, nor did it reduce

above: This generalised combinatory chart of the underlying modular

logic of Mardin strongly resonates with contemporary methods of
parametric modelling and algorithmic processes, such as are used in
evolutionary design methods. Terrain form, environmental data and
so on can serve as drivers of a computational method the same way
as they do in the evolution of an actual settlement over time. If a
computational approach was built around this logic it would
certainly be interesting to involve some form of economic variable
that addresses, for instance, the availability of resources (materials
etc), which in turn could modify the size and arrangement of
modules. Eventually this could lead to a very different way of
designing settlements that incorporate key characteristics of
evolving settlements and could make such undertakings more robust
and sustainable.
opposite left: The sectional arrangement of dwellings in Mardin
utilised the slope of the terrain to double up the datum through the
use of roof terraces. On the less inclined slope the roof terraces often
provide a more continuous datum, while the more steeply inclined
slopes result in a more clearly terraced arrangement.
opposite right: This chart shows how the combination of basic
modules results in different types of spatial arrangement for
dwellings. Taxonomising the different units of the built fabric does
not only shed light on the logic of arrangement of the settlement
pattern and organisation, but may also serve as a way of strategising
a much denser form of contemporary settlement.

the ground to a singular datum. Instead, a much more intricate

relationship is established, in which the trapped courtyards are
intimate and associated with different degrees of enclosure of which
the interiors of the houses are the extreme. Through this sectional
articulation, inner perimeters are defined on the duplicated datum
wherever roof surfaces are absent. Speculations suggest different
reasons for the sectional organisation. Whatever may have been the
case, it seems fruitful for a projective outlook to assume an integral
reasoning that incorporates social arrangements and spatial formation,
the provisions embodied in the doubled datum in connection with the
pocket-like spaces enfolded within the lower and upper datum, all
facilitated by the interplay of the two lines of fundamentally different
character, one striating and the other smoothing.
The city of Mardin is located in southeastern Anatolia, on a southfacing mountain slope that overlooks the plateau and the northern
Syrian plains. The beginnings of this settlement date back to the 3rd
century AD. Over time, Mardin benefited from its strategic location
relative to the trade routes, and in particular one of the silk routes. The
city is most famous for its dense terraced fabric of Arabic-style
buildings, which are modular in their layout. The layout of both the
17

The carved tuff pinnacles are

continuous with the datum and the
landscape in an amalgam of
landscape features, thus figure and
ground cannot be distinguished
from one another, whereas the
underground cities cannot be
thought of as ensembles of figures
reading against a datum.
A group of carved tuff pinnacles in Greme, Cappadocia.

introverted, mostly two-storey buildings and the compact

settlement adhere to the topography of the steeply sloped
hill, as well as to local climatic conditions. The former
determined the orientation of buildings, while the latter
determined the density of the built fabric and the more
detailed layout of the dwellings, due to the Anatolian
plateau experiencing sharp differences between hot dry
summers and very cold winters. The inner streets of the
city are narrow and cater for pedestrian circulation. In
many instances buildings bridge over these narrow
streets. The circulation system is labyrinthine in nature,
with staggered roof terraces sometimes a part of the
circulation, sometimes connected or entirely
disconnected, some serving as a datum for the building
above. The figure-ground arrangement is defied through the
doubled datum of these roof terraces, yet not quite like in
atalhyk, where the new datum is more continuous.
Mardins labyrinthine circulation that partly interrupts
and partly integrates the doubled datum to a degree has
the character of a burrowed organisation wherever it is
roofed over by other buildings. Another distinctive feature
of the circulation is that it both divides the built volumes
in specific locations, but also reconnects it in other
locations. The quasi-modular character of the circulation
together with the modular character of the buildings
makes this kind of fabric particularly suited to parametric
and associative modelling methods driven by algorithmic
procedures. It is indeed remarkable to what an extent the
organisation of the settlement pattern of Mardin resonates
with such contemporary design methods.
18

Cappadocia is a region on the central Anatolian plateau. Its unique

landscape is characterised by sedimentary rocks and volcanic deposits,
consisting of tuff, a rock of consolidated volcanic ash that has eroded
into astonishing formations of pinnacle-like forms, such as the fairy
chimney formations of Greme. The softness of the volcanic deposit
enabled the locals to carve inhabitable spaces into the rock since
ancient times. In the case of the tuff pinnacles, this entailed carving
above ground, reaching in some instances up to 16 floors.7 Paul Oliver
explains that carving out dwellings is an excavating, hollowing
procedure, essentially sculptural, except that the carver works around
himself, turning solid into void, rock mass into room. To do this
requires a mental map of the section of the rock pinnacle so that the
sides are not breached, and the position and number of steps in a
flight of stairs, as well as an awareness of the necessary thickness of
floors that must be left above the room below. There is no latitude for
mistakes.8 Regarding the organisation of the dwellings, Oliver continues
to elaborate that most families carve out their rooms on the south or
southeast face of the Cappadocian pinnacles, to get the benefit of any
sun in the hard and cold plateau winters. Three or more rooms may be
carved, with short inter-linking passages and balconied access to the
outer faces.9 Other carved spaces of Greme include spectacular
monasteries and churches that feature magnificent Byzantine frescoes.
Carving into freestanding or clustered tuff pinnacles is a different
project to that of carving downwards into the ground. In the Nevs ehir
province, over 200 underground cities of remarkable size and depth
have been discovered, with living quarters, refectories, chapels,
stables, storage rooms, wine and oil presses, spaces for metallurgic
works, ventilation shafts, wells and tunnels for circulation. The largest
underground city of the region is Derinkuyu. Construction commenced
possibly as early as the 8th century BC, but its main expansion took

A carved tuff pinnacle that once housed a monastery,

located in the Greme Open Air Museum, Cappadocia.

place between the 5th and 10th centuries AD. The city
was organised over eight to eleven floors, although a
number of floors have not yet been excavated, and a
depth of about 85 metres (279 feet). Large millstone-like
stone doors weighing up to 500 kilograms (1,102
pounds) were used to close the entry points to prevent
raids by Arab tribes commencing from the 7th century. In
addition, Derinkuyu was connected to other similar
underground settlements through tunnels. Other large
complexes include KaymaklI and zkonak. The latter was
organised over 10 floors and a depth of about 40 metres
(131 feet). It is estimated that zkonak could house up
to 60,000 people over several months. Each room had
secured ventilation even when all entry points were
closed to prevent raids.
The carved tuff pinnacles are continuous with the
datum and the landscape in an amalgam of landscape
features, thus figure and ground cannot be distinguished
from one another, whereas the underground cities cannot
be thought of as ensembles of figures reading against a
datum. Instead these constitute burrowed space that
escapes the dominance of the horizontal datum entirely.
Greg Lynn posited that labyrinthine organisations such
as the burrow are light because they are essentially
ungrounded, or rather they are not grounded by the
single gravitational force of the earths horizon. Because
these structures are both mounded and subterranean,
gravitys influence in the organisation of the burrow does
not mandate any single or essential plane of organisation
and within the labyrinth, vertical and horizontal

movements are separated by degrees of gravitational forces rather

than by right angles. In this way there are as many gravities and
grounds for such structure as there are potential orientations and
vectors of movement.10 The latter can play themselves out in a
local integration moving from part to part and constituting smooth
space in a succession of linkages and changes in direction,11
albeit more constrained by the material perimeter. In this way the
arrangement inverts Deleuze and Guattaris argument that the
nomadic absolute is local, precisely because space is not
delimited.12 The labyrinthine carved space is obviously physically
delimited by the material threshold that surrounds it everywhere,
yet the multiplicity of movement vectors prevails.
While it is not feasible today to literally carve dwellings due to
the increasing demand for space, labour costs and lack of
suitable context, it is nevertheless interesting to speculate what
kind of design process may be extracted from this. The mental
map that Paul Oliver alludes to above with reference to the act of
carving, has little to do with the spatial and organisational
reductivism of figure-ground relations. Instead, the
interdependency between material and spatial organisation is at
stake. To this should be added that spatial organisation and
connectivity is not simply a question of connecting rooms or
circulation of people, but also of ventilation, the simultaneously
constrained and free flow of air or, in a broader sense, the
necessary environmental modulation of deep space. This first
article on the extended threshold can be preliminarily concluded
with the realisation that potent (historical) examples exist that
can inform alternative design strategies in the service of
rethinking reductive threshold conditions and impoverished
spatial organisations. 4
Notes
1. G Deleuze and F Guattari (1988), The smooth and the striated the aesthetic
model: nomadic art, A Thousand Plateaus Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Athlone
(London), 1988, p 499.
2. Ibid, p 494.
3. Ibid, p 500.
4. Turkey has to date not ratified the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention of
1989 and the older Indigenous and Tribal Population Convention of 1957 set into
motion by the International Labour Standards Department of the International
Labour Office (ILO) in Geneva. See www.ilo.org/normes.
5. C Gates, Ancient Cities: The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near East
and Egypt, Greece and Rome, Routledge (London), 2003, p 24.
6. Ibid.
7. B Rudofsky, Architecture without Architects: A short Introduction to Nonpedigreed Architecture, University of New Mexico Press (Albuquerque, NM), 1987
[1964], p 23.
8. P Oliver, Dwellings, Phaidon (London and New York), 2003, p 89.
9. Ibid.
10. G Lynn, Differential gravities, Folds, Bodies and Blobs, La Lettre Vole
(Brussels), 1988 [1994], pp 956.
11. Deleuze and Guattari, op cit, p 494.
12. Ibid.
Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: p 14 Fatih PInar; pp 15(t), 16-17
Drawn after Fsun Alioglu, E. (2003). Mardin S ehir Dokusu ve Evler. 2nd
Edition. Istanbul: Trkiye Ekonomik ve Toplumsal Tarih VafkI YayInI; p 15(b)
Zeynep Atas; p 18 Jeff Goldberg/Science Photo Library; p 19 Noboru
Komine/Science Photo Library

19

Yerevan Kiosk (Revan Ksk), 16356

opposite: Interior view of the Yerevan
Kiosk showing one of the three apses
with a diwan. The openings in the
exterior wall have both an outer
window and inner timber shutters. The
upper windows follow the box-window
principle: two single-layer glass
windows with a space between them.
below: Southeast elevation as seen from
the garden level. The lower garden
level, the large roof overhang, the
meandering facade and the balcony
with its baldachin roof all contribute to
the passive environmental control of the
building and its adjacent spaces.

Extended
Thresholds II

The Articulated Envelope

Previous to the widespread adoption of air conditioning in the 20th century,
which introduced a distinct differentiation between controlled interior space
and the external environment, a wealth of strategies were developed in
Turkey to moderate the transition between inside and outside. There is much
to learn from these no-energy and low-energy solutions to climate control.
Here, Michael Hensel and Defne Sungurog lu Hensel describe the original
research and special study they undertook of external vertical thresholds in
an extended envelope when they gained special access to the 17th-century
Yerevan Kiosk and Baghdad Kiosk in the TopkapI Palace in Istanbul.

Miniature of the Fourth Courtyard (Sofa-i Hmyn:

the Imperial Sofa) of TopkapI Palace with the
gilded iftar Kiosk in the centre background and the
fountain and water pool in the foreground.
Arcaded kiosks flank the space to the left and
right. On the right the arcaded space displays
hanging carpets as temporal thresholds.

With an area of some 780,000 square kilometres

(301,159 square miles) Turkey plays host to a wide
variety of climates, ranging from coastal (Mediterranean
and Black Seas) to continental (Anatolian plateau). While
the former is characterised by hot and often humid
summers and relatively mild and wet winters, the latter
features strongly pronounced seasons with exceptionally
cold winters. In addressing such extremes of climate
traditional regional architectures, whether representative
or vernacular, exhibit a wealth of spatial strategies to
moderate the transitions between inside and out that
maximise user comfort and passively control
temperature within and adjacent to buildings.
Despite this rich heritage, however, like many other
countries Turkey embraced electricity-powered air
conditioning and central heating as status symbols. As a
result, today the vast majority of the countrys buildings
resemble tightly sealed envelopes with a hard threshold
between the fully climate-controlled interior and the fully
exposed exterior. New buildings that utilise both artificial
temperature control and transitional spaces are in the
minority. In large part, such architectural interventions as
recesses, protrusions and spatial pockets in the
envelope, layered thresholds and intermediary devices
including arcades, porches and loggias, as well as
protruding elements such as balustrades and canopies
have all but disappeared from the built environment. It is
therefore interesting to revisit historical examples of
much more articulated, varied and sometimes multiplied
envelopes and spatial organisations. It has proved far
more difficult, however, to choose examples from among
the broad range of available building types on which to
focus the discussion here.
The type selected was the Ottoman kiosk. The word
kiosk (kus k) is of Persian origin, meaning offering
shade and initially indicating a type of more or less open

22

garden pavilion. Kiosks became widespread in Persia, India, Pakistan

and the Ottoman Empire from the 13th century onwards. Introduced
by the Seljuks the kiosk has also come to exemplify Ottoman
architecture perhaps, as has been suggested, because it was the first
stationary interpretation of the Seljuk nomadic tent embodied in a
building type that endured over the centuries. Prime examples of
Ottoman kiosks can be found in TopkapI Palace in Istanbul, the
official residence of the Ottoman sultans from 1465 to 1853 and the
most important complex of Ottoman architecture featuring styles from
every period of the four centuries during which the palace served as a
residence. Kiosks have often been described as Turkish, Persian and
Arabic influenced and a direct connection between the historical
garden pavilions of Persia and the Seljuk and later Ottoman kiosks has
often been postulated. As it seems, however, most scholars now
dismiss the theory of the kiosk as an eclectic architectural collage,
favouring instead the view that such buildings represent a distinct and
integrated synthesis of Ottoman, Persian and Mameluk influences.
The following focuses on two kiosks that are part of the Fourth
Courtyard (Sofa-i Hmyn: the Imperial Sofa) of TopkapI Palace: the
Yerevan Kiosk (Revan Ksk ) of 16356, and the Baghdad Kiosk
(Bag dad Ksk) of 16389, assumed to have been constructed by the
royal architect Hasan Ag a under Sultan Murat IV. The Yerevan and
Baghdad kiosks served different purposes over time ranging from
leisure as summer houses, to celebratory, to turban storage (Yerevan
Kiosk) and to library (both). The use of the basements has not been
established beyond doubt. The kiosks are quite similar in their design.
Both are double-storey buildings, with the lower floor accessed from
the lower-level garden with the upper-level access provided by the
raised level of the Fourth Courtyard. Further, both kiosks are organised
on an octagonal footprint with four of their faces recessed, a plan
which would normally result in a symmetrical arrangement. In both
cases, however, the symmetry is broken. One of the protruding faces of
the Yerevan Kiosk is shorter than the other three and contains the
fireplace. In the case of the Baghdad Kiosk, a space has been added
to one recessed section and extends beyond the flanking protruding
corners, housing an additional, but separated room.

Yerevan Kiosk (Revan

Ksk), 16356
Northeast elevation of the
kiosk as seen from the
garden level.

Northwest elevation with the

water pool and fountain in
the foreground.

23

The floor plans of the Yerevan Kiosk (top) and the

Baghdad Kiosk (bottom) demonstrate the use of the
articulated envelope as a spatial device. The
meandering envelopes of both kiosks result in a
succession of adjacent exterior and interior spaces
that are differentially oriented towards and exposed
to the sun path and airflow direction over time. This
organisation and modulation of a heterogeneous
space enables the migration of activities according
to choice and preference of the inhabitants.

24

The meandering outline of the envelope of the pavilion organises

the interior into four apses. In the Yerevan Kiosk three apses are
occupied by diwans (rooms originally reserved for drinking or
smoking) directly adjacent to the windows with the fourth apse
occupied by the fireplace. In the Baghdad Kiosk all four apses are
occupied by diwans, resulting in a much more symmetrical interior
and the possibility of utilising all four apses. The glass elements of
the windows can be opened and closed. In addition there are
opaque timber shutters in the interior that can be opened and shut,
regulating the amount of light and the internal temperature. While
the Yerevan Kiosk features windows set within its doubled-layered
dome, the Baghdad Kiosk does not. It displays instead a more
continuous row of windows along its exterior walls, resulting in a
much brighter interior than that of the Yerevan Kiosk. Also, around
the Yerevan pavilion, the upper-level terrace and circulation is not
continuous, while terrace and circulation are continuous around the
Baghdad pavilion, with the exception of the protruding room, thus
offering greater choice in the use of spaces created by the
articulated meandering envelope.
For both kiosks the irregular outline of the exterior creates
different spaces that are set back and shaded by the protruding
roof overhang, as well as positioning the windows in the protruding
corners in a more exposed location to allow light to penetrate the
interior. The differentiated, meandering profile of the envelope thus
produces pockets that differ markedly in their climatic exposure,
both on the exterior of the envelope and in the interior of the kiosk.
Interestingly, the two kiosks are not oriented in the same direction.
The Yerevan Kiosk is oriented with its protruding corners along the
northsouth and eastwest axes, whereas the Bahgdad Kiosk is
rotated 45 degrees so that its protruding corners face northeast to
southwest and northwest to southeast. The kiosks ought therefore
to be seen as variations on a theme that delivers greater variety in
orientation and environmental adaptation. While they are clearly
intimately connected by virtue of the variation of this shared
organisational theme, their relation must be elaborated with regard
to their spatial connection and their relation to the ground datum.
At first-floor level some of the several kiosks of the Fourth
Courtyard are linked by an arcade and grouped around a water
basin with a fountain, a detail that greatly contributes to the
cooling of the interior space of the arcades. Together they form a
complex that elevates the importance of the outer spaces. In the
past, the arcades were either fully exposed or covered with carpets
and textile drapings, transforming the upper level into a more open
or, alternatively, more private zone. This strategy served to multiply
and distribute the various vertical thresholds that organise the
space while simultaneously modulating the environment through
the presence or absence of the provisional textile screens. However,
these screens should not be viewed as auxiliary architectures after
the manner of those discussed in Extended Thresholds III (see pp
7683), since the latter are an addition to the built environment
that was not originally part of the design, while these textile screens
are integral to the design of the complex, serving to modify its

spatial organisation relative to user needs. In addition, a

series of gardens and open spaces surrounds the complex
at the lower level, which contributes to the careful
maintenance of climate control in the Fourth Courtyard.
TopkapI Palace was built over an extended period in an
accumulative manner and did not have an underlying
masterplan. Unlike most other great palaces, TopkapI
evolved over time much as did the various settlements
discussed in Extended Thresholds I (see pp 1419), yet
with much greater emphasis on and control over the
evolving ensemble and its coordinated appearance and
performance. Where the first essay challenged the
horizontal datum and examples of settlement
organisations were discussed that rendered this datum
provisional by multiplying it or subverting it, in this essay
it is the singular vertical threshold that is under scrutiny.
The temporal or permanent multiplication of the vertical
threshold leads to a richly heterogeneous spatial
organisation with a series of spaces that at times
constitute a more gradual transition from inside to outside
and offer differing degrees of exposure to the weather.
Moreover, the Fourth Courtyard example also shows a
distinct strategy of treating the datum as varied and
working hand in hand with the spatial and environmental
strategies of the buildings, treating the latter not as
discrete entities, but rather as interdependent elements of
the built fabric. Much can be learned from the sensitive
treatment of this architecture of the extended threshold.
Further research is currently taking place in collaboration
with FFI the Norwegian Defence Research
Establishment, which focuses on the specific airflow and
thermal performance of the two kiosks. 4
We extend our warm gratitude to Hasan FIrat Diker at the Directorate
General for Cultural Heritage and Museums, Istanbul Directorate of
Surveying and Monuments, for his unwavering assistance, for making his
personal research available1 and for his support of the articles preparation.
Note
1. HF Diker, TopkapI SarayInda Revan ve Bag dad Kskleri, Masters
dissertation, Istanbul Technical University, 2000.
Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 20-1, 25(b) Michael
Hensel and Defne Sunguroglu Hensel; p 23(t) Ahmet Gnel; pp 23(b),
25(t&c) IlgIn Kleki; p 24 Drawn after SH Eldem (1986). Trk Evi
OsmanlI Dnemi - Turkish Houses Ottoman Period Vol. II. Trkiye AnIt
evre Turizm Degerlerini Koruma VakfI

Baghdad Kiosk (Bagdad Ksk), 16389

top: Southeast elevation as seen from the garden level.
centre: East elevation as seen from the garden level.
left: Interior view showing one of the four apses with a diwan.
The exterior wall openings have both an outer window and
inner timber shutters. The storage spaces set within the wall
had different functions over time.

25

Ottoman and Turkish Orientalism

Cover of Feridun FazIl

Tlbenti, SultanlarIn AskI
(The Love of the Sultans)
Istanbul, 1968
left: A typical cover for a prolific
writer of popular historical
novels glorifying the sultans as
statesmen and lovers.

Osman Hamdi Bey posing in

Oriental garb, Fritz Luckhardt
photograph studio, Vienna, c 1873
opposite: Osman Hamdi Bey was
appointed commissary to the
Ottoman section at the Vienna
Universal Exposition of 1873.

26

Since the early decades of the

19th century, Turkey has
undergone successive
programmes of modernisation
that have closely identified
reform with Westernisation and
its implied European success
and superiority over Turkish
culture. Here Edhem Eldem
reveals both the external and
internal dynamic of Turkish
Orientalism, which has proved
such a complex multilayered
process with an enduring
influence on how Turkish society
and elites view themselves today.

The Ottomans were a target and an object of Orientalism,

out of curiosity and as a Western intellectual construct of
essentialist otherisation.1 Yet they also accommodated
Orientalism as part of the Westernisation programme
they embarked upon, sometimes appropriating or
internalising it, sometimes deflecting or projecting it,
sometimes opposing or subverting it, sometimes simply
accepting and consuming it. Excellent scholarship has
already pointed to the existence of an Ottoman
Orientalism that ganged up on the Oriental within
generally the Arab, the Kurd, the Bedouin in an
attempt to emulate and deflect Western Orientalism
while at the same time exerting a form of colonial
pressure on certain ethnic or religious groups.2 Others
have stressed the aesthetic and cultural reception of
Orientalism, from a noted tendency of the Ottomans to
display themselves in Orientalist ways to Western
audiences, to the adoption of Orientalist forms,
especially in architecture, in their own environment.3
My research has mostly been concerned with one
particular Ottoman Orientalist, Osman Hamdi Bey, the
first Western-trained Muslim painter, and founding father
of Ottoman archaeology, and with mapping the mental
and cultural continuum of Ottoman, and later Turkish,
Orientalism within the broader perspective of everyday
or popular Orientalism.4 The aim here is to show that
from the mid-19th century to the end of the 20th,
Ottoman and Turkish Orientalism have formed a complex,
long-term, multilayered and multifaceted process that
still informs much of the way in which Turkish society
and elites view themselves and the world around them.

Oxymoronic as it may sound, Ottoman Orientalism has a very

strong logic behind it. From the moment Ottoman elites decided that
Westernisation was the only or most efficient way to catch up with
Western material success a phenomenon that can be dated back to
the early decades of the 19th century and which gained momentum
after the Tanzimat (Reorganisation) Decree of 1839 they had
implicitly agreed to one of the most basic tenets of Orientalism: that
the East was essentially different from the West, that it was
essentially stagnant and lacked the capacity to change without an
exogenous stimulus. In this sense, as long as modernisation was
conflated with Westernisation, a latent or overt admission of
Orientalist tropes was practically inevitable. Westernising reform was
an implicit recognition of Ottoman failure and inferiority, a mirror
image of European success and superiority.
A disturbing corollary of this is that Ottoman Orientalism is
inevitably linked to a complex of inferiority, which explains why
relations with the West have always swung back and forth between
love and hate, admiration and execration. Western Orientalism was
partly responsible for this, since it kept sending demeaning and
often mixed messages: Ottomans were barbarians who had to civilise
(Renan),5 but their aping of the West meant the destruction of their
exotic and somewhat noble self (Loti).6 Damned if you do, damned if
you dont; either way they were incapable of really pleasing the West.
The Ottoman elites had several options in order to manage the
rather heavy burden of this awkward situation. At one extreme, the
desire to prove Orientalism wrong could take the form of rebellion
against the West and Westernising reforms, by either reviving some
idealised Islamic past, or by finding a non-Western path to modernity.
At the other extreme, total submission to the West could develop into
self-loathing and a desire to convert to a Western identity. For most
of the elite, however, there was a middle ground that allowed for
27

Cover of Salih Erimezs Tarihten izgiler

(Sketches from the Past), Istanbul, 1941
The cover of this album by cartoonist Salih
Erimez depicts a Muslim priest abusing young
women under the guise of exorcism.

Cover of Karikatr, 41, 10 October 1936, by Ramiz

above: The [dark and Arab] sweet seller (in an Arab-accented
Turkish, and holding a bowl marked Syrian Mandate): Young
ladies, Ive made them for you. Made in Damascus, sweet as
sugar! The [white and Turkish] women (representing the cities of
Iskenderun and Antakya): We dont want any of it. Neither
sweets from Damascus, nor your face.

greater flexibility and pragmatism. The point was to

dissociate the term Ottoman from the notion of
Oriental; after all, the Ottomans were perfectly
conscious that their Christian compatriots were much
less targeted by Western Orientalism. The precondition,
then, was to find an Oriental Ottoman on whom
European scorn would be deflected. To some, like
Osman Hamdi Bey, who lived in the ivory tower of his
studio and his museum and frequently played Oriental,
that would be pretty much all the rest of the population;
most, however, would have to be more specific and
direct their attention towards the savage Bedouin, the
uncouth Turkish peasant or the unruly Kurd.
Not surprisingly, the system worked pretty well. By
creating the categories of the civilised Ottoman and the
savage Oriental, most members of the elite made peace
with an ideology that had been originally designed
against them. There were two glitches, though. First,
there was a limit to how demeaning one could be to
fellow Muslims; second, some non-Muslim Ottomans
had a tendency to uphold the Western clich of the
unspeakable Turk. These inconsistencies would
gradually weaken with the rise of Turkish nationalism
and would totally disappear with the establishment of

the Turkish Republic in the 1920s, following the War of

Independence fought after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire
under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha. Kemalism, named
after the new regimes leader, soon to become Atatrk, gave
Turkish Orientalism the three magic tools that Ottoman
Orientalism had lacked: the notion of a homogeneous nation that
excluded ethnic and religious minorities; the principle of
secularism allowing for the stigmatisation of Islam; and the
change of regime making it possible to relegate the negative image
of the Turk to a reinvented Ottoman past.
Under the liberating effect of these transformations, Turkish
Orientalism blossomed in the 1930s. Now that the Arab provinces
were lost, Turkish cartoonists could freely vent their scorn for their
inhabitants. The same tactic could be used against the domestic
enemy, Islam, by ridiculing the Ottoman past, stigmatised as
backwards, primitive and reactionary, much like Western antiTurkish Orientalism had done only decades earlier. In a sense, the
republic had brought Ottoman Orientalism to its extreme and
unthinkable limit: it wanted to do away with Islam, with tradition,
with the Orient, with primitiveness. Its dream was to become
modern, secular, homogeneous, united and white. One
intellectual would declare that the aim of the language reform was
to free Turkish culture and mentality from the obstacles that link
it to Oriental and Islamic civilisation, so that they can, as rapidly

28

Due to the political changes of the 1950s,

popular culture could start responding to the
frustrated need to glorify a historical narrative
that made more sense than the invented notions
of Central Asian, Hittite or Sumerian ancestry.
Le visage turc (Turkish faces), from La
Turquie Kamaliste, 19, June 1937
A typical example of the urge to convince the
Western audience targeted by this magazine
that Turks have a European physiognomy.

as possible, catch up with western culture, to which

they decidedly belong.7 Western Orientalist literature
came under heavy criticism; previously hailed for his
support of the Ottomans, Pierre Loti was now reviled
for depicting the Turks as Orientals. In fact, the
Kemalist establishment agreed with every point of
Western Orientalism, as long as it concerned the Arabs,
the Kurds, the Ottomans; in short, anybody but the
Turks. In its desire to integrate with the Western world
through modernity, the Turkish Republic had become
an Orientalist project, albeit tainted with
Occidentalism, considering that the West was to a
large extent turned into an essentialist representation
of what it was supposed to stand for.
This was the heyday of cultural authoritarianism,
when local forms of art were standardised (and often
banned) in order to be controlled, while Western
artistic norms were systematically imposed on the
population, with the rather naive expectation of a deep
cultural transformation. Acclaimed by the West for its
civilising mission, the republic had to use all sorts of
tactics to keep its image of success alive. One of these
was to use censorship and bans on elements deemed
incompatible with modernity, ranging from music to

the Arabic alphabet, or from Ottoman Turkish to the veil; another was
to maintain the illusion of success through camouflage and staging,
presenting, for example, the veiled peasant woman in such a way as to
avoid possible Islamic references.
By the 1950s, this situation came under attack from outside and
from within. The main external challenge took the form of tourism and
its expectation of an Oriental appeal rather than a show of peripheral
modernity. The Turkish state eventually played along and started using
images that flirted with an Oriental vision of the country, still under some
kind of Mediterranean camouflage, or even went the whole way and
used good old Orientalism to market its Ottoman past. At a domestic
and popular level, it was more of a backlash against the suppression of
the Ottoman past and of Islamic identity. Due to the political changes
of the 1950s, popular culture could start responding to the frustrated
need to glorify a historical narrative that made more sense than the
invented notions of Central Asian, Hittite or Sumerian ancestry.
From the perspective of Kemalist ideology, Ottoman history was
easier to accommodate than Islamic identity. All it really took was to
Turkify the Ottomans and integrate them into the nationalist construct
of Turkish greatness. What the state was much less eager to do was to
let loose the Oriental and the Muslim that lay beneath the Western
make-up of the modern Turk. The 1970s were particularly tense with
the struggle of popular culture to break free from the Westernist norms
of a still vibrant Kemalism. This was the time when an extremely
29

30

Sidney Clark, Turkey for the Best,

Turkish Information Office, New York, c 1955
This cover combines, in a single image, the blue sky, the
mosques and minarets of Istanbul, the wooden houses of
the Bosporus, a sandy beach, the sea and sailing boats, and
the welcoming smile of a Carmen-like Turkish woman.

Album cover of Pop Oryantal,

Oscar Records, Istanbul, date unknown
The cover of this LP is a caricature signed by Sinan
depicting a scantily clad belly dancer performing in
the presence of a reclining Arab sheikh.

Cover of 7 Gn, 346, 24 October 1939

This depiction of an Anatolian peasant woman by
Ratip Tahir tries to play down Islam (the veil) by
promoting the image of a healthy Mediterranean
character in a classical pose.

Arap lemi (An Arab Orgy), by Cafer Zorlu, on

cover of Akbaba, Vol 26, 1, 19 December 1973
This take on the 1973 oil crisis depicts Europe as
a half-naked belly dancer performing amidst a
group of cheering Arab sheikhs.

Turks in Retrospect, Turkish Information Office, New York, c 1955

The engraving reproduced here is Thomas Alloms Constantinople,
from Cassim Pacha, first published in Thomas Allom and Robert
Walsh, Constantinople and the Scenery of the Seven Churches of Asia
Minor, Fisher, Son, & Co (London), 1838.

popular musical genre, dubbed Arabesk, was banned from

radio and television on the grounds of un-Turkishness,
being associated with the still thriving image of the
lecherous and uncouth Arab. Under the strange effect of a
military coup, followed by the rise of liberalism and of
Turkish-Islamic conservatism, all hell broke loose in the
1980s. Oriental demons that had been kept at bay by
Kemalist policies were unleashed as Turks rediscovered
(or reinvented) Oriental music and belly dancing (quaintly
referred to as Oryantal), revelled in a nostalgic
reinterpretation of Ottoman history, and started
consuming the very same exoticism that they had begun
selling to Western tourists.
As if this Postmodern self-exoticisation was not strange
enough, Turkish Orientalism has made a spectacular
comeback in the last decade in the form of a neoKemalist backlash against the claim to political and social
power of a rising conservative-Muslim middling class,
embodied by the political success of Tayyip Erdog ans
Adalet ve KalkInma Partisi (Justice and Development
Party), or AKP. The combined shock to the white elites of
seeing the theatrical set of Westernised Turkey crumble at
the seams, and of losing their hold over the political
system, has radicalised them into adopting an aggressive
and authoritarian reaction that targets and stigmatises the
Muslim masses as a threat to secularism and to modern
lifestyles. Typical of this attitude were the so-called

Republican Meetings of the past few years, where masses rallied

against what they considered to be a threat to secularism, sometimes
implicitly invoking the desirability of a military intervention. Properly
analysing this Orientalist polarisation of Turkish politics would require
a full-length article; for the moment one can just wonder at the power
and capacity of a 19th-century Western ideology to define the terms of
a political struggle in Turkey in this new millennium. 4
Notes
1. Edward Said, Orientalism, Pantheon Books (New York), 1978 is still the basic and
classical reference on Orientalism as an ideological construct.
2. Ussama Makdisi, Ottoman Orientalism, The American Historical Review, 107, 3, June
2002, pp 76896; Selim Deringil, They Live in a State of Nomadism and Savagery: The
Late Ottoman Empire and the Post-colonial Debate, Comparative Studies in Society and
History, 45, 2, April 2003, pp 31142.
3. Zeynep elik, Displaying the Orient: Architecture of Islam at Nineteenth-Century
Worlds Fairs, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA and Los Angeles), 1992; Turgut
Saner, 19. YzyIl istanbul MimarlIg Inda Oryantalizm, Pera Turizm YayInlarI (Istanbul), 1998.
4. Edhem Eldem, Osman Hamdi Bey ve Oryantalizm, Dipnot, 2, WinterSpring 2004, pp
3967; Edhem Eldem, Consuming the Orient, Ottoman Bank Archive and Research Centre
(Istanbul), 2007.
5. The French philosopher, historian and philologist Renan (182392) was a typical, and
certainly not unique, advocate of the stigmatisation of the Turks as barbarians. A political
equivalent would be Prime Minister William Gladstone (180998) and his notion of the
unspeakable Turk.
6. The French novelist Pierre Loti (18501923) was a fervent admirer and staunch
defender of the Turks, but obsessively enamoured with an exotic and Orientalist vision of
the land and people, as illustrated by his novels Aziyad and Les Dsenchantes.
7. Falih RIfkI Atay, Notre rforme linguistique, La Turquie Kamliste, 7, June 1935, p 5.
Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 26, 28(r), 30-1 Courtesy of the
Ottoman Bank Museum; pp 27, 28(l), 29 Edhem Eldem, authors collection

31

The Story of
Istanbuls
Modernisation

Since reform started under Ottoman rule in the early

19th century, Istanbul has undergone a substantial
period of modernisation that has spanned more than
150 years. ilhan Tekeli outlines the metropolis enduring
development, characterising Istanbuls transformation
into a modern city into four distinct periods. It is a story
that bridges the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the
reconstruction of the Turkish Republic as a nation-state,
with the initial demise of the city in favour of Ankara;
and continues with Istanbul regaining its status as a
world city; as it evolves from a monstrous industrial city
to an urban region and global centre.

Lon-Henri Prost, Istanbul Master Plan, 193658

above: Plan for the years 1943 to 1953 showing a small-scale industrial
zone, a cemetery zone, an area for the Olympic Games, public squares, a
medical zone, airport, large-scale industrial zone, new housing areas, an
archaeological park and new port location.
opposite: The Bosporus Bridge and its connecting freeways today.

Postcard of Galata Bridge from the late 19th century.

Postcard of Galata Bridge from the mid-20th century.

For the last 2,000 years, Istanbul has been a world city.
Situated in an important strategic position on the
Bosporus Strait straddling two continents Europe and
Asia it has served in succession as the capital of the
Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires. Today it may
no longer be the government seat of Turkey (under
Atatrk, the capital city of Turkey moved to Ankara in the
centre of the new republic in 1923), but it remains
Turkeys largest city and very much its cultural and
commercial capital; with over 13.5 million inhabitants,
Istanbul is a megacity and the 21st largest city in the
world. Tracking Istanbuls metamorphosis into a modern
city, this article identifies four distinct periods in the
history of the citys modernisation: first, the era of Shy
Modernity, which lasted from the 1860s until the
collapse of the Ottoman Empire; second, the phase of
Radical Modernity, which commenced with the
declaration of the Turkish Republic in 1923 and ended
after the Second World War when Turkey accepted a
multiple-party policy; third, the period of Populist
Modernity, which took place during the multiparty system
until the 1980s; and finally, the period that began at the
end of the 1980s and continues to the present day,
which can be regarded as the Erosion of Modernity.

30th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire) opted for the second road, taking
Turkey into an era of Shy Ottoman Modernity.
This manifested itself in two ways: through the institutional
reforms of central government and wide-scale infrastructure
projects, and through the countrys introduction to international
trading and the implementation of capitalism. In essence this was
centrally governed, top-down modernisation. It is not possible to
give an exact date as to when Ottoman modernisation was initiated;
it can most appropriately be viewed as an accumulation of changes
over time. However, it is possible to state that the structural
changes within the countrys government began in 1826 when the
Janissary corps (the sultans troops) was disbanded by Mahmud II.
The English Trade Agreement in 1838 facilitated the growth of
capitalism and opened up the Ottoman economy to international
markets. With the Glhane Decree, declared in 1839, and the Royal
Decree, declared in 1856, ownership rights, individuals legal rights
and equality were guaranteed, activating the processes of capital
accumulation in the empire.
Changes in Istanbul influenced by these governmental
implementations became apparent during the 1860s. Subsequently,
and in addition to, the emergence of entrepreneurship in the form of
banks and corporations, after the 1880s the creation of modern
education and health-care systems resulted in the multifaced character
of the Shy Ottoman Modernity period.
At the end of the modernisation process, during the 1860s,
modern business districts started to appear alongside traditional
Ottoman town centres composed of covered bazaars, markets and port
checkpoints. While the Ottoman economy was linked to the world
economy by capitalist interests, banks, insurance companies,
commercial buildings and hotels were founded in the centres of port
cities. Economic developments such as this required the
implementation of new infrastructures and the construction of train
stations in or around Istanbuls centre, port, docks, warehouses and
post office buildings. As an effect of modernisation, and in parallel to
the formation of new state institutions and bureaucracy, government
departments were also established in the city centre, which
consequently expanded, resulting in the diversification of its functions,
and the further differentiation of its traditional and modern areas.

The Onset of Transformation: Shy Ottoman Modernity

The Ottoman state was founded by Osman I in 1299 as a
small principality. In the second half of the 15th century,
it reached empire scale, with territories both in Rumelia
and Anatolia. However its expansion stagnated at the end
of the 17th century, and in fact reversed as a
consequence of the modernisation and industrialisation in
Europe at the time. By the beginning of the 19th century,
the Ottoman Empire had reached a crossroads: would it
be allowed to dissolve into small states, each following
their own path towards modernisation, or was it to
undergo a centralised modernisation process that would
maintain its integration as an empire. Mahmud II (the
34

Galata Bridge, today.

City planning applications in Istanbul

began in the 1850s. Interestingly, city
planning in Europe was also under
development during this time in
response to the problems caused by
industrialisation.
The second important change came with the introduction
of public transportation systems such as trams, ferries
and suburban trains that replaced the once pedestrian
city transport. Also significant was the differentiation of
housing areas according to nationality and social class
the result of changes in the social stratification and the
formation of new social classes due to new economic
relations and new forms of organisation. The
suburbanisation of Istanbul was now evolving.
City planning applications in Istanbul began in the
1850s. Interestingly, city planning in Europe was also
under development during this time in response to the
problems caused by industrialisation. In the Ottoman
Empire, this affected the transformation of the traditional
city, a process in which urban planning was not
determined by masterplans but by partial site plans, put
together like mosaic tiles by cartographers, of the areas
that were burnt after the numerous fires in this city
dominated by wooden buildings. For example, the
modernisation of the central business district (CBD) was
realised on the one hand by the Historic Peninsula plans
after the 1864 Hoca Pasa fire, and on the other by the
site plan that was prepared after the collapse of the
Galata city walls during the same period. The CBD was
later expanded from Galata to Beyog lu, and spread
alongside the main transportation lines (trams, rail and
sea) in parallel with the rise of the urban population. This
city formation can be visualised as settlement bands.

Postcard of Voyvoda Street, on which bank buildings

were starting to be built in the late 19th century.

35

Improvements in quality of life brought about by

developments during the years of Shy Modernity helped
to contain epidemics, thus by 1829 Istanbuls
population had grown to 329,000. By 1864 it had risen
to 600,000, in 1877 it was 720,000, in 1885 it stood
at 873,000, in 1897 1,059,000, in 1901 1,013,466,
and in 1914 1,200,000.1
The Nation-State and Radical Modernity
The reinvention of the Turkish Republic as a nation-state
after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire challenged the
mindsets of Turkish intellectuals. Prior to this, the main
problem concerning the Ottoman elites was the salvation
of the empire. However, with the declaration of the republic
this shifted to the setting up of a new and strong nation.
The Radical Modernity process followed spatial
strategies at two different levels: first, it focused on the
transformation of the country into a nation-state; second,
cities were to become places of modernity. The first step
in the creation of the nation-state was to declare Ankara
as the capital city. Next came the construction of railway
networks to integrate the domestic market, followed by
the creation of industries in small-scale Anatolian cities in
accordance with the governments industrialisation policy.
In addition to this was the founding of Halkevleri
(community centres) in every Anatolian city in order to
introduce modern lifestyles and values across the country.2
However, these developments were, in turn,
disadvantageous for Istanbul. After the long war years, the
citys population had decreased to 650,000 by the time
the republic was declared in 1923 nearly half the
population of 1914 and tackling the problems of a
shrinking city would be no mean feat. The plans prepared
for the fire zones could not be realised due to lack of
interest on the part of their former owners, as the
decreased population meant there was no stimulus for
speculative profits in the real-estate market. In addition,
the migration of non-Muslims meant that Istanbuls
population became homogeneous and, over time, the city
lost its cosmopolitan identity.
Consequently, the government was forced to rethink
the urban planning of Istanbul. The French architect and
town planner Lon-Henri Prost (18741959), who was
responsible for the Paris Regional Plan of 192839, was
36

brought in to design the Istanbul Master Plan (193658). The

construction of new apartment blocks in the shrinking city was the
start of the reshaping of Istanbul, which created differentiation in
terms of building hierarchy and organisation. These new blocks were
densely constructed along the newly opened Atatrk Boulevard and the
surrounding areas of Taksim, Harbiye, Maka, Nis antasI and Sisli. The
open countryside between KadIky and Pendik was turned into
permanent residential areas with the development of KIzIltoprak,
Gztepe, Erenky, BostancI, Maltepe and Suadiye.

Populist Modernity Under a Multiparty Political Regime

The implementation of a Radical Modernity project with a social
engineering approach proved difficult after the Second World War,
when Turkey accepted a multiparty political regime. The result was the
implementation of a modernisation process with populist tendencies.
The transition from traditional agriculture to agricultural production
on a national and international scale, due to mechanisation,
accelerated the disintegration of a large rural peasant class of farm
labourers. Extensive investment in the service and manufacturing
industries was necessary to create job opportunities for the large
numbers of migrants who had recently flocked to the cities. In order for
these groups to be integrated and settled in compliance with the norms
of the modernity project, further large-scale investment in housing and
infrastructure was required. However, Turkeys capital accumulation
process, at this point, was far from being able to invest at this level.
Rural migrants also needed to be educated in terms of the ways and
culture of the modern city and how to use it. Having just left their
villages, these newcomers did not have such a capacity and the
inevitable outcome was the emergence of urban slums.
Istanbuls population rose from 938,000 in 1950 to 1,467,000 in
1960 and could thus no longer fit within its municipal borders. The
number of municipalities that as a consequence formed around the
city had reached 32 by 1980. If this new municipality complex was to
be understood as the metropolitan area, its population had risen from
2,849,000 in 1970 to 4,643,000 (or 10.4 per cent of the entire
countrys population) in 1980.3
Three mechanisms can be used to effectively identify the
distribution of housing at this time: the structural modification of
Istanbuls CBD; the new industrial arrangement within its urban fabric;
and the construction of the Bosporus Bridge and connecting freeways.
During this postwar period, the CBD, located in the historical peninsula,
functioned as an incubator for the citys growing production and
service functions which, as they further expanded, were forced to move
outside it. It was not possible to move the small- and medium-scale

Zeytinburnu Smer District Urban Renewal Project, by KiPTAS (Istanbul Konut imar Plan Sanayi ve Ticaret AS), 2006
The Istanbul Housing Construction Industry and Commerce Corporation (an institution of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality)
aims to demolish the existing housing blocks in Zeytinburnu and build new ones that are resistant to future earthquakes.

The Istanbul Metropolitan Area Master Plan was approved by Istanbul Metropolitan City
Council in July 2009, following lengthy discussions after its announcement in May 2006.

37

Map of the neighbourhood

employment profiles of economically
active men and women over 12
years of age in 2000.

Map of the neighbourhood schooling

profiles of the total population over 6
years of age in 2000.

38

The Bosporus Bridge and the

freeways not only connected Asia and
Europe; this new network also
radically changed the way the various
parts of the city were connected.
industrial facilities too far out of the city as it was
important that they retain the economic and market
advantages of being close to the centre. These
decentralised facilities of the historical peninsula were
thus relocated just outside the city walls and the
municipality borders along an arc between Eyp and
Zeytinburnu; 58.2 per cent of the industrial workforce
was eventually located within a ring 49 kilometres
(2.55.6 miles) away from the CBD. Istanbul at that
period was a monstrous industrial city as the distribution
of its industry did not resemble that of any other
metropolitan city in the developed world. On the other
hand, in the northern Golden Horn, the Taksim Sisli
section of the CBD expanded to and beyond Mecidiyeky.
The Bosporus Bridge and the freeways not only connected
Asia and Europe; this new network also radically changed
the way the various parts of the city were connected.
City planning zones at this time were often dominated
by the construction of apartment blocks, the majority of
which were realised by small developers who usually
demolished existing buildings to replace them with bigger
ones. Modernisation was thus becoming the result of
destruction rather than conservation.
The Erosion of Modernity
The story of Istanbul changed drammatically
after1980. Turkey began to follow a neo-liberal
direction, implementing an extroverted export-based
growth policy and leaving a conservative mixedeconomy policy behind. With the growth of international
affairs, Istanbul too shifted from a Fordist production
model to a flexible one, from an industrial society to an
information society, and on towards globalisation; its
modernity thus began to decay and Postmodernist
developments began to emerge.4
The collapse of the socialist bloc in 1989 and the
transformation of eastern Europe and Russias economies
into market economies created new possibilities for
Istanbul. Once again it had the opportunity to become a

world city. From the mid-1990s, politicians and business agreed on a

common vision: a liveable world city Istanbul, and Turkeys
application for full EU membership strengthened this effort. Istanbul
used such opportunities wisely. Despite not being one of the most
effective top-10 world cities, it has succeeded in becoming one of the
second-category world cities. It has grown and transformed through the
actions of powerful actors such as large organisations, and large capital
investment in developing mass housing projects, organised industrial
zones, educational and service campuses, and special free-trade zones.
For Istanbul, this change from a monstrous industrial city to an
urban region has required vast improvements within the municipality
and to its management approach. Over the last decade, it has started
to fulfil its potential via an increasing number of regeneration projects,
some of which have been geared towards eliminating the impact of
illegal developments such as the gecekondu settlements that took
place during the period of populist modernity. Others have included
improvements in the earthquake-resistance of buildings, and general
improvements to slum areas. Such projects have reutilised the areas
left over from the shifting of urban CBD facilities to the periphery, and
have facilitated the preservation of the citys historic characteristics
and thus protected its identity. It is in this context that the
gentrification processes in the old urban districts, such as Kuzguncuk
and Cihangir, and the reconstruction of Sultanahmets emptied zones
with its new tourism-related facilities and hotels, has occurred.
Istanbuls transformation into an urban region displayed a very
flexible, mosaic-like pattern rather than a rigid unity. This diverse and
differentiated model was how Istanbul lost the characteristics of a
modernist city. The estimated population of its urban region reached
13,500,00 in 2007. It is now housing 19 per cent of Turkeys
population. As of 2009, as the reorganisation of this urban area
continues, Istanbuls aim is to strengthen its competitive power as a
world city in the global economy. 4
Notes
1. Kemal H Karpat, OsmanlI Nfusu: 18301914 (Ottoman Population: 18301914), Tarih
VakfI Yurt YayInlarI (Istanbul), 2003.
2. ilhan Tekeli, Trkiyede Cumhuriyet Dneminde Kentsel Gelisme ve Kent PlanlamasI
(Urban Development and Urban Planning in the Republican Period of Turkey), in YIldIz
Sey (ed), 75 YIlda Deg isen Kent ve MimarlIk (Changing City and Architecture in 75 Years),
Trkiye Tarih VakfI (Istanbul), 1998, pp 124.
3. ilhan Tekeli, Yzelli YIlda Toplu UlasIm (Public Transportation in the last 150 years),
Istanbul, No 2, 1992, p 27.
4. TBA Yerlesme Bilimleri ngr alIsma Grubu (Turkish Academy of Sciences Working
Group for the Foresight of Settlement Sciences), Yerlesme Bilimleri/alI smalarI iin
ngrler (Foresights for Settlement Sciences/Studies), TBA RaporlarI (Ankara), 2006.
Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 32 Oguz Meri; pp 33-4, 35(l)
Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Atatrk Library; p 35(r) zgn alIskan; p 37(t)
KiPTAS; p 37(b) Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality; p 38 Murat Gven

39

40

THE MAKING OF
EARLY REPUBLICAN
ANKARA

Zeynep Kezer outlines the ascendancy and development of

Ankara from an obscure, central Anatolian town into a capital
city that was to become the focus of the new nation state.
Informed by German architectural and technological
expertise, it was executed to rigorous Modernist planning
principles and aesthetics, and came to represent in urban
form the polarisation of pre-republican and republican Turkey.

A 1926 map of Ankara (above) and Jansens

finalised masterplan of 1932 (opposite). Note the
contrast between the geometric layout of the new
streets and Ankaras existing urban fabric.

41

The making of Ankara is inextricably linked to the story of

the Turkish Republic. The city rose to prominence as the
staging point of the War of Independence, waged by the
Nationalists, to liberate the country from Allied
occupation in the aftermath of the First World War. In
1923, upon victory, rather than returning to Istanbul and
restoring the empire, the Nationalists, under Atatrks
leadership (from 1919), moved the capital to Ankara,
founded a republic, and embarked upon sweeping
reforms. Turkeys leaders were determined to mark a new
beginning and intended the move to physically and
symbolically distance the new regime from the Ottoman
capital and the social, political and economic order it
represented. The contrast between the two capitals could
not have been greater: Istanbul, a city of striking natural
beauty, strategically positioned on a crucial passage
between Asia and Europe, had been home to two empires
for over a millennium. Ankara was a small, impoverished
central Anatolian town which, despite its long history, had
few attractions to offer. But Ankaras relative obscurity
made it easier to frame it as a blank slate on which to
inscribe the ideals of the new nation-state.
The process was fraught with difficulties. Turkeys new
leaders wanted to build a capital comparable to its
European contemporaries, but they lacked the expertise
and means necessary to realise this goal. They were under

Ankaras first masterplan was commissioned in 1925 to

Carl Lrcher, a German planner who had previously
worked for the Ottoman government. Using the Citadel as
a focal point, Lrcher charted a web of Baroque-inspired
avenues, flanked by perimeter blocks.
mounting pressure to provide space for basic government
functions, and shelter for the exponentially growing population,
but did not have a shared conception of how to proceed. Moreover,
there were profound rifts between the incoming republican cadres,
who sought to use their newly acquired power to steer development
towards areas of their choice, and Ankaras natives, who felt
excluded from decisions regarding the future of their town. The
former were further divided among themselves due to political
differences and personal rivalries. These conflicts and constraints
had a lasting impact on the course of Ankaras development.
Ankaras first masterplan was commissioned in 1925 to Carl
Lrcher, a German planner who had previously worked for the
Ottoman government. Using the Citadel as a focal point, Lrcher
charted a web of baroque-inspired avenues, flanked by perimeter
blocks. Republican Ankaras first landmarks new administrative
buildings, banks, cultural institutions, recreational facilities and
residential structures were built along these avenues. Designed
in the Ottoman Revivalist style, these were the work of architects
such as Giulio Mongeri recruited from the Istanbul Fine Arts

above: Aerial photograph of Ulus, developing according to the first portion of

Lrchers (1925) plan which included various institutions of the new state, designed
mostly in the Ottoman Revivalist style. From BayI ndI rlI k isleri Dergisi, 1935.
left: Four ribbons of photographs comprising the ideals that shaped Turkeys capital
political Ankara, revolutionary Ankara, cultural Ankara and urbanist Ankara
converge and intersect with the implied horizontal axis of time (the numbers 200,
1800, 1937 represent the passage of years). The model and the images frame a
statement by Atatrk, the founder of modern Turkey, acknowledging Ankaras
Sacred Place in the nations history. From La Turquie Kamaliste, December 1937.

42

Academy, or those such as Kemaleddin Bey, Vedat

Tek and Arif Hikmet Koyunog lu from defunct
Ottoman government agencies. Their architecture
combined distinctly modern building programmes
with a Beaux-Arts-inspired compositional sensibility
and an ornamental vocabulary that showcased the
distinctiveness of national origins a practice that
had parallels in other areas of cultural production,
especially in music and literature, in Turkey and in
Europes other neophyte nation-states.
Lrchers proposal comprised two parts. While the
aforementioned designs pertained to areas in or near
Ankaras existing fabric, his plan also had to respond
to the inexorable push for southbound expansion
that had gained momentum as the republican elite
rushed to take up residence near Atatrks home in
ankaya. The 6.4-kilometre (4-mile) distance
between the two areas posed a challenge for any
planner, considering there was neither the
population nor building density to sustain growth as
a congruent urban whole. To integrate the two,
Lrcher formalised the path between them as a wide
tree-lined avenue (Atatrk Boulevard) and, along the
way, proposed a series of monuments and activity
hubs, the most prominent of which was the
Government Quarter.

The ambivalent adoption of Lrchers plan fomented chaos. By

the late 1920s, emphasis had shifted to the south, sidelining
Ankaras historic core. As the government vacillated between
different alternatives, slums, squatters, speculative land deals and
unsupervised construction projects proliferated all over town.
Eventually, in 1928, to reign in haphazard developments, the
government organised a competition for a masterplan and selected
the proposal by Professor Jansen of Berlin, who went on to enjoy a
longer tenure and relatively more support than his predecessor.
Lrcher and Jansen introduced planning principles that differed
fundamentally from Ankaras established settlement patterns. Both
prescribed a change in scale and new paths of movement through
the city. Whereas pre-republican Ankara had narrow and irregular
streets, the newly planned districts had a regular geometry, bigger
plots and wider streets. Rather than conforming to the topography,
the new layout imposed a geometrical pattern of preconceived paths
and nodes highlighting the new capitals monuments. In addition,
Jansen instituted the concept of zoning by clustering together similar
land uses and buffering them from each other with green belts.
Zoning was antithetical to Ankaras long-standing spatial logic, which
featured a fine-grained mix of religious, commercial and residential
uses that were not necessarily demarcated from one another.
Jansens plan, which allocated distinct zones for residential,
industrial and administrative uses, labelled the Citadel and its
environs Altstadt, as if to imply that the function of pre-republican
Ankara as a whole was to be old. This categorisation was

View towards Ulus along Atatrk Boulevard. Republican Ankaras earliest landmarks, designed
in the Ottoman Revivalist style: (left to right) The Evkaf Apartment Block (Kemaleddin Bey,
1928); the Ottoman Bank and Agriculture Bank (both by Giulio Mongeri, 1926 and 19269);
and, in the distance, Clemens Holzmeisters Modernist Central Bank (19313). On the avenues
right bank, the Real Estate and Orphans Bank Headquarters (Holzmeister, 1934) and the
cupola of the Customs and Monopolies General Directorate (Mongeri, 1928). Anonymous
postcard. From Ankara Posta KartlarI ve Belge Fotog raflarI Arsivi Katalog u, 1993.

43

ideologically expedient for it reframed pre-republican

Ankara as the perfect foil to set off the modernity of
republican Ankara, the proud creation of a progressive
state. It also implicitly legitimised the shifting of
resources towards the south, conveniently dovetailing with
the private interests of the republican elite. Ankara
subsequently evolved as a binuclear capital. KIzIlay
emerged as a new commercial centre near the new
Government Quarter, overshadowing Ulus, its counterpart
in pre-republican Ankara. While KIzIlay catered to the
high-end tastes of Ankaras new elite, Ulus served the
locals and less affluent residents, further widening and
spatialising cultural and economic divisions.
Jansen continually encountered challenges from the
speculatively minded and the authoritarian factions
within the administration, who forced their preferences on
to the plan. For instance, he retained many of Lrchers
ideas, especially for the newer parts of town and the
layout of major streets. He reinforced the symbolic
narrative along Atatrk Boulevard, which was to be
punctuated with memorials honouring key milestones in
Turkeys journey from its grass-roots independence
struggle to a parliamentary democracy. However, halfway
into the implementation, the presidential residence
replaced the Grand National Assembly as the culmination
of that narrative. Thereafter, in a shift that betrayed
broader changes in Turkeys political direction and the
ascendance of authoritarian factions, the construction of
the assembly the centrepiece of the Government Quarter
was delayed by decades and the civic space leading up
to it was blocked by buildings and monuments dedicated
to the states security forces.
Lrcher and Jansen were two among many German
architects, engineers, contractors and technicians
working on a range of projects in early republican Turkey.
Facing isolation in the international arena dominated by
Britain and its First World War allies, Turkey had turned to
its former partner, Germany, which was similarly
marginalised after losing the war. Germany aggressively
lobbied for a key role in shaping Turkeys reconstruction
and modernisation. German-speaking central European
architects such as the Austrian Clemens Holzmeister,
who designed the majority of the ministries and military
buildings in the Government Quarter, and the Austro-Swiss
Ernst Egli, whose work included the State Music
Conservatory (19279), ismet Pasa Girls Institute (1930)
and the Turkish Aviation Society Headquarters (19347)
also benefited from this shared cultural affinity.
The influx of professionals continued even after the
regime change in Germany. Paul Bonatz, the architect of
housing for civil servants in Ankara, Joseph Thorak, the
sculptor who, with Anton Hanak, designed the Security
44

left: Ankaras zoning according

to the Jansen plan (redrawn
by the author).
below: Bruno Tauts Ankara
University Faculty of Language,
History and Geography (1935).
In exile from Nazi Germany,
Taut arrived in Turkey from
Japan in 1936. In addition to
teaching, he designed several
buildings (many of them
educational) despite his short
tenure in Turkey. Anonymous
postcard. From Ankara Posta
KartlarI ve Belge Fotog raflarI
Arsivi Katalog u, 1993.

Against Lrcher and Jansens

proposals, Ankaras main axis shifted
towards the presidential residence in
ankaya, eclipsing the originally
proposed terminus of the axis, the
Grand National Assembly, the
completion of which was delayed
into the 1960s. The buildings that
were first completed in the
Government Quarter included the
Ministry of Interior and Military
Headquarters (19305) designed by
Austrian architect Clemens
Holzmeister, who had the implicit
support of the more authoritarian
factions within the republican
administration, and the Security
Monument (1935), honouring the
police. In addition, the pedestrian
portion of the now discarded
northsouth axis lost its character as
a civic space. From BayI ndI rlI k Isleri
Dergisi, 1935.

KI zI lay and the Government Quarter. In the foreground is the Security

Monument by Thorak and Hanak, known for their work for the
German Pavilion at the 1936 Paris Worlds Fair, and further back are
the new ministries under construction. To the left Atatrk Boulevard
leads up to ankaya with new residential districts flanking it. From
Fotog rafla Trkiye, 1935.

Clemens Holzmeisters Ministry of Public Works (19334). With the

support of the more authoritarian members of the administration,
Holzmeister obtained the commission for most of the buildings in the
new Government Quarter, sometimes in contradiction to Jansens
overall precepts for the masterplan. His buildings featured strippeddown masses with little ornamentation, which in early republican
Ankaras mostly empty landscape made them look rather out of
scale, reinforcing a sense of stark authoritarianism. From Fotog rafla
Trkiye, 1935.

Educational section of the Turkish Aviation Society designed by

Ernst Egli, who developed a modern architectural language
recognizable for the dramatic juxtaposition of distinct volumes. Egli
was also commissioned to design the administrative headquarters of
the same society, further down the hill, and the ismet Pasa Girls
Institute on the neighbouring site, both facing Atatrk Boulevard. As
here, the construction and completion of Ankaras new institutional
and residential structures were often publicised in official
propaganda publications. From La Turquie Kamaliste, April 1938.

Monument (1935), and the founding cadre of the Ankara Agriculture

Faculty, came to Ankara via official channels. Meanwhile, Turkey actively
recruited Jewish and other dissident German architects, artists and
intellectuals who would be seminal in laying the foundations of modern
Turkish academia. Prominent exponents of Weimar architecture such as
Bruno Taut (who also designed the Ankara University Faculty of Language,
History and Geography (1935) and the Atatrk High School (19378),
Franz Hillinger and Martin Wagner were invited to teach at Turkish
universities. And Ernst Reuter, the former mayor of Berlin, went on to
establish Turkeys first urban planning programme at the Ankara
University School of Political Science (he taught there from 1936 to
1948). Ankara thus became a site wherein architects of different political
persuasions practised concurrently, as Turkeys leaders were more
interested in the cachet of modernity they could lend the new capital than
in their individual affiliations. Personal variations notwithstanding, these
architects ushered in a strict, austere and classically inspired Modernist
aesthetic that became closely identified with the state. Importantly, their
input during a crucial stage of Turkish modernisation allowed the
Germans to set the standards of architectural practice and education,
securing their legacy long after they departed and Turkey forged new
alliances in the aftermath of the Second World War.
As even this brief account implies, Ankaras landscape may be seen as
a physical register of the formative processes of the modern Turkish state.
The relocation of the capital, the polarisation of pre-republican and
republican Ankara, the deferment of the construction of buildings to
house democratic institutions while expediting the completion of
enforcement agencies, were all inextricably linked to intense and often
contentious deliberations among the republican leadership about the
character of the new state.
Similarly, the choice of Germany as the primary source of architectural
and technological expertise was directly informed by calculations about
Turkeys place in the international arena. Finally, official representations
of Ankara in words and images were never far from considerations of
political expediency and ideological convictions. Portraying it as a city
that was willed into existence by the republican leadership denied
Ankaras immediate history. In so doing, not only did it tacitly sanction the
exclusion of the towns natives from decision-making processes, but
altogether avoided the difficult questions surrounding the demise during
Turkeys transition from empire to nation-state of Ankaras sizable nonMuslim population and the landscapes they inhabited. Today, a handful of
vineyard houses formerly owned by Armenians or Greeks, a hard-to-find
synagogue, a makeshift church and a few place names offer only fleeting
glimpses into what was, by all accounts, a diverse cultural landscape.
Critically for the historian, these artefacts, along with the Citadel and its
environs, demonstrate that rather than being a blank slate with no history,
Ankara is a palimpsest that occasionally reveals the underlying layers of
experience and memory it encapsulates. 4
Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: p 40 Courtesy of Vehbi Ko Ankara
ArastIrmalarI Merkezi; p 41 Courtesy of TC BasbakanlIk Arsivi; p 42(l), 45 Courtesy of
the Turkish Historical Society Library; pp 42(r), 44(b) Courtesy of the Library of the
Ministry of Public Works of the Turkish Republic; pp 43, 44(c) From Ankara Posta
KartlarI ve Belge FotograflarI Arsivi Katalogu; p 44(t) Redrawn by the author

45

Medium-Scale Anatolian Cities

Conceptual and Physical Routes of Urban Transformation

46

TAGO Architects, Korupark gated community

and shopping centre, Bursa, 2006
Upmarket gated communities such as this are
widely believed to meet the aspirations for a
modern, idealised lifestyle.

Banu Tomruk investigates the post-1980s

transformation of the built environment of medium-scale
Anatolian cities. She examines the subject through a
conceptual and physical framework that places as much
emphasis on populist rhetoric identity crisis,
historicisation, the making of a tourist city as on the
built structures themselves and their realisation as
standardised apartment blocks and gated communities.

Since the 1950s, the urban dynamic of Turkey has changed

dramatically due both to the increase in the countrys population and
to the acceleration of rural migration to the towns.1 This rapid and
unplanned urbanisation was initially accompanied by a housing crisis
that led to the illegal and chaotic implementation of gecekondu
(squatters dwellings) settlements on public land, and then to an
unprecedented drive to build apartments, a process spearheaded by
the development of poorly designed, poor-quality blocks. The
establishment of metropolitan municipalities in 1985 and then
Turkeys Mass Housing Administration (TOKi) in 1990 were the
catalysts for the transformation of the countrys medium-scale cities,
preparing the way for the construction of a large number of mass
housing projects, all following a similar typology. Currently, the process
of building such housing is combined with equally numerous
architectural and urban renewal projects in the most run-down areas as
well as on formerly industrial sites.
While Turkeys major cities, such as Istanbul, izmir and Ankara,
have been undergoing a cycle of transformation that was its own
dynamic, medium-size Anatolian cities have been experiencing a more
rapid urban metamorphosis. Since the numbers of local developers and
contractors are generally fewer than in the metropolitan areas,
decision-making in relation to planning permission is speedier thanks to
a lack of opposition, the only limitation on the implentation of projects
appearing to be the financial resources available to the local municipality.
Medium-size Anatolian cities such as Bursa, Antalya, Kayseri and
Gaziantep, with populations of around 1.5 million, have experienced
particularly rapid transformation since the 1980s because their
established industries (textiles, automobile, construction and food
production) and thriving economies provide local municipalities with
the power and capital necessary to effect such large-scale change.

47

Sinpa GYO, Bursa Modern housing complex, Bursa, 2007

AsmalI YalI Ottoman-style rendering on the facade of this
new gated community.

Cafer Bozkurt, Hasan Sener, ilhami Kurt, Merinos Congress Centre, Bursa, 2007
A former textile factory in Bursa city centre, a brownfield site, is currently being
transformed into a congress centre.

While they are located in different regions of the

country, the transformation of such cities occurs in the
context of physical urban environments that share certain
similarities. Their development serves to stimulate and
accelerate a parallel transformation in the smaller cities
on their peripheries. Their roots have thus been redefined
as conceptual and physical routes intended to reflect
urban transformation projects and urban scenarios, their
impact on quality of life and the city in general, and the
way in which they have interpreted their identities.

Even though not all medium-size Anatolian cities boast similar

large-scale project investments, their eagerness to be considered
trademark or brand cities is evident in project proposals prepared
by local municipalities that are then presented on official
websites or in local media.
In almost every medium-size Anatolian city, municipalities are
constructing below-ground road networks, even in the centres,
paying scant attention to the often negative impact on the quality
of urban space. Investment in transportation is one of the main
initiatives championed by local politicians and the new roads
seem to be the latest trend in the drive to make such cities
civilised and modern.

Conceptual Routes
The Trademark City Ideal
The ideal of becoming a trademark (or brand) city has
been at the top of local municipal agendas for some time
and, through local and national media, local politicians
emphasise the need for, and the potential benefits to be
gained from, such status. Meanwhile, attempts to achieve
this goal often manifest themselves in the form of large
investments in transportation, urban regeneration projects
and the construction of upmarket shopping malls and
gated communities. A recent example is Bursa, where a
disused 270,000-square-metre (2,906,350-square-foot)
former textile factory in the city centre has been
transformed into an international congress centre. From
the outset, the project was presented by the mayor and
municipality as a major investment in raising the profile
of Bursa as a trademark city.
48

Identity Crisis and Historicisation

With a multiplicity of layers, identity changes over time and with
context.2 However, the rather overworked concept of identity,
and/or the never-ending quest for personal identity may have
different connotations in terms of architecture. In medium-size
Turkish cities, in general the very high numbers of immigrants
create a heterogeneous demographic. Concerned lest the
emerging social identities prove problematic and jeopardise their
trademark status, those who push through municipal projects
seek to paper over the cracks by deploying the rhetoric of
regenerating the lost identity. With the rise of populist and
political Islam linked to Turkish ethnicity, blended since the
1980s with the invocation of a glorious Ottoman past, in most
medium-scale Anatolian cities, historic buildings are presently
undergoing restoration with the aim of regaining their lost identity.

Urban transformation, Central Garage area, Bursa, 2009

The second stage of the Bursa Metropolitan Municipalitys
transformation project for the Central Garage area.

Sivas Avenue, Kayseri, 2009

Generic investment by the local municipality: being
modern with speeded up transportation.

With this objective in mind, in Bursa, Kayseri and

Antalya museums have been opened to showcase the
citys history, but again only with reference to its
Ottoman past.
Even the new housing projects in these cities
frequently feature Ottoman facade detail, something
that could also be interpreted as an attempt to impose
homogeneity on these architectural projects.

Physical Routes
The Drive to Build Apartment Blocks
In Turkey, the high number of apartment blocks is responsible for
both impoverishing the cityscape and underpinning the negative
economic, social, cultural and political aspects of mass housing.
The apartment building is a unique type in terms of the formation of
the urban environment and of the architectural presence of a
medium-scale town. Their appearance normally prescribed by urban
regulations, such apartment buildings are usually problematic in
terms of the lack of architectural quality, with often unrelated
facade elements and inadequate spatial quality in plan organisation.

The Making of a Tourist City

Intimately connected with addressing a perceived
crisis of identity in medium-scale Anatolian cities is
the highlighting of a triumphant Turkish past by the
creation of a tourist city focused primarily on its
historic Ottoman cores. Ancient city centres in Bursa,
Gaziantep and Antalya are in the process of
restoration with the objective of regaining that lost
identity and making them attractive tourist
destinations. Reconstruction is by means of either
large- or small-scale interventions, depending on the
economic resources of the local municipality.
However, in the long term, neglecting to maintain
formerly heavily used areas in favour of such targeted
investment, which effectively shifts the hitherto
hybrid structure of city centres into designated
touristic zones, could have the effect of driving betteroff citizens into the isolated lifestyle of gated
communities located on the city periphery.

TOKi (Mass Housing Administration of Turkey)

Since the mid-1980s, the transformation of the gecekondu areas
into designed/planned housing undertaken by TOKi has been
recognised as an ambitious development creating a large number of
mass housing projects in Turkey. However, TOKi has monopolised
every aspect of construction, operating as developer, manager,
contractor and inspector at one and the same time. Thus, despite
their potential, the projects present a standard uniformity with the
same building typology replicated all over Turkey. The chance to
contribute architecturally to the country has therefore been lost.
TOKi has been overseeing the projects from a capital-based
architectural office, neglecting both user profiles and the social,
physical, economic and cultural context of the city. The high
number of such housing schemes also severely limits opportunities
for local architecture practices to obtain housing commissions for
the foreseeable future.
49

TOKi housing, Ankara, 2009

top: TOKis uniform blocks in the citys Bassan Yaprac I k settlement.

Inner-city apartment blocks, Antalya, 2008

opposite left: Mixed-used apartment blocks in the generic city centre.

Seyitgazi area, Kayseri, 2009

above: Typical inner-city scene in a medium-size Anatolian city.

TAGO Architects, Korupark gated community and shopping centre, Bursa, 2006
opposite right: Upmarket gated communities such as this are widely believed to meet
the aspirations for a modern, idealised lifestyle.

50

Gated Communities
In medium-scale Anatolian cities, communal life is largely
driven by a form of social competitiveness which is
evident in such things as the clothes people wear, the
type of house they live in, the way they decorate their
home, the car they drive. Here, people tend to think
through the eyes of the others.3 A new lifestyle in a
distinctive milieu is what people aspire to. Combined
with the hard sell of real-estate agents, the visual and
textual representations of the new luxury housing complex
set behind high walls and closed gates both in the media
and on the Internet sends out an enticing message to the
white Turk of medium-scale Anatolian cities. The mantra
of a distinctive and happy lifestyle is seen as key to
attracting the high-income upper-middle and upper
classes to such housing developments.
One reason, then, for the relatively high demand for
gated communities is that they are widely believed to
meet the aspirations for a modern, idealised lifestyle. Not
only the plan types, site plans and 3-D illustrations, but
also the manipulative advertising used in their marketing
are similar. Having the most prestigious shopping mall
gives a complex the edge over other competing gated
developments. What makes the increasing number of
gated communities particularly problematic, however, is
their isolation their lack of interaction and integration
with their urban and social context, as well as their failure
to invest in the local infrastructure. At best, these
complexes are constructed with heavy investment in their
interiors, but there is no corresponding investment in the
urban fabric, no intervention to ensure the existing
physical environment is not detrimentally affected, for
instance, by the increase in traffic.

Transformation Intensified
The most recent period of urban regeneration is creating opportunities
for cities which previously did not or could not fully implement
masterplans. Especially post-1990, Turkish cities have experienced
intensive transformation reminiscent of the mass housing project
phase (TOKi) of the 1980s. In Turkeys medium-scale cities, this
restructuring demonstrates a profound dynamism along with its
problem areas and is creating a foundation on which young architects
can literally build in the future. A crucial question is whether such
Anatolian cities will develop with the same/similar visual/architectural
language. To what extent is it possible to improve the architectural
and urban quality of the rapidly changing face of these cities?
In the midst of what is a chaotic process of urban
transformation, it is vital to maintain a distance from the populist
rhetoric which talks of the making of tourist cities, creating points
of attraction or regenerating lost identity. To be objective about
urban restructuring is to be aware of the inner dynamic of each
individual city and to plan its transformation in the light of the
needs of all its modern-day citizens. 4
This article is based on ongoing doctoral research by Banu Tomruk at Istanbul Technical
University, supervised by Ipek Yada Akpinar.
Notes
1. Turkish Statistical Institute, Statistical Indicators, 19232007, Ankara, 2008, pp 45.
2. U Tanyeli, MimarlIkta Kimlik zerine ileri Geri (Back and Forth on Identity in
Architecture) , in Arredamento MimarlIk, 02, 2007, p 7.
3. S Ayata, Bir Sanayi Odag I Olarak Gaziantepte Girisimcilik, Sanayi Kltr ve
Ekonomik Dnya ile iliskiler (Entrepreneurship, Industrial Culture and Relations with
the Global Economy in Gaziantep), in S ilkin, O Silier and M Gven (eds), ilhan Tekeli
iin Armag an YazIlar (Tribute to ilhan Tekeli), Tarih VakfI Yurt YayInlarI (Istanbul),
2004, p 562.
Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 46-7, 51(r) TAGO Architects; p 48(l)
Sinpa GYO Department; pp 48(r), 49(l) Bursa Metropolitan Municipality, Urban
Transformations; pp 49(r), 50(b) Burak Asiliskender; pp 50(t), 51(l) Arkitera

51

The Potential
of Istanbuls
Unprogrammed
Public Spaces

Istanbul recreates itself constantly. A continually evolving city, it

can be likened to a living organism. As Hlya Ertas explains it
owes much of its vibrancy and heterogeneity to its unprogrammed
spaces. These create a blank canvas for the metropolis citizens
and their activities. They are also at the essence of the citys
enviable diversity, as they provide important meeting places for a
rich mix of social and ethnic groups.

Unprogrammed space provides rich potential for a city

that is complex, crowded and ultimately difficult to
manage. Istanbul, as the largest metropolis in Turkey with
a population of 12.5 million (about one-fifth of the
countrys overall population), takes advantage of its
unprogrammed spaces to make its urban fabric lively and
vibrant.1 With its illegal settlements and unrestrained
character, it is very much subject to the activities of its
occupants and citizens.
To further open up the term unprogrammed in this
context, it needs to be clear that it should not be
confused with the Modernist notion of public space: the
space left empty to be flexible to potential uses and
functions. If space is unprogrammed it does not mean
that a function has not already been attributed to it, but
rather that it can be transformed by other external
influences, especially users. Unprogrammed space does
not require that people come and create activities within
it; it is just there waiting to be discovered and improvised.
It is self-organising, unstable and variable.
Unprogrammed space is open to transformation and
change, it is flexible, and bottom-up rather than topdown; it is public space that is open to being privatised by
the citizens themselves. To sum up, the three main
characteristics of unprogrammed space are that it is open
to transformation and change, nourishes heterogeneity,
and is open for privatisation.

Vendors selling fish sandwiches in Eminn, next to

the Galata Bridge in Istanbul. The fish is caught from
the sea, cooked on boats decorated in Ottoman style,
and served to people on the shore.

Being Open to Transformation

This said, it is pointless trying to decide whether

Zenobia is to be classified among happy cities or
among the unhappy. It makes no sense to divide
cities into these two species, but rather into another
two: those that through the years and the changes
continue to give their form to desires, and those in
which desires either erase the city or are erased by it.
Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities, 1974, p 352
Surely Istanbul is formed by its desires; by the desires of
its citizens. A metropolis of more than 12.5 million
inhabitants, it has recently (on 20 July 2009) had a new
masterplan approved, prefaced by a few years of
discussion and testing. But despite these intentions,
Istanbul is a city that defies planning and strict regulation
and control. Instead it veers towards self-formation,
randomness and chaos.
Just like Calvinos fictional city Zenobia in his Invisible
Cities, Istanbuls unprogrammed spaces just stand there,
waiting to be transformed by the activities of their
citizens. The metamorphosis of unprogrammed spaces
relies heavily on their users. Whether their features are
designed or not designed, they hold a world of
possibilities. In Besiktas, in the city centre, a huge statue
of Barbaros Hayrettin Pas a stands by the sea surrounded

One of the huge contrasts of the modern era

has been that between public and private, a
contrast that became even greater as cities
grew and transformed into metropolises.

by a square in which cannons are randomly displayed.

Here, there are a few banks to sit on, no shaded areas in
which to rest; just a vast space of hard landscaping never
intended to be used as a park. Yet this square is full of
rollerbladers and skateboarders, and their friends
watching them, even though it was not designed as a
skateboard park either. It is an undefined, unprogrammed
urban place at the very core of a crowded neighbourhood
that can be transformed as its users desire.
Balat, one of the oldest settlements in the city, is
similarly popular for leisure activities. Along the Golden
Horn here is a narrow green belt, between the sea and the
road, from which there are views of the coast and the
areas historic buildings. On spring and summer days, one
can smell barbecues as people gather together for urban
picnics on this stretch of grass, which has been carefully
positioned here to please the eyes of passers-by, either
moving in traffic along the road or walking along the
shore. At weekends the belt is full of families enjoying
this popular pursuit, unaware of the heavy traffic behind
them. However, such urban picnics are not only confined
to Balat; they take place also on the vast areas of grass
that lie between motorways and crossroads across the city.
Nourishing Heterogeneity
Globalisation and advances in communication have all
but eradicated the homogeneous metropolises of the past.
A 21st-century city, Istanbul is therefore heterogeneous,
both socially and economically, as is its population due to
the high rates of immigration from rural areas of the
country. The different cultural patterns of the multitude of
ethnic groups spread across Turkey Laz, Circassian,
Kurds and so on3 who immigrate to Istanbul4 also have
an impact on the built environment. It is no surprise,
then, to see gecekondu areas (informal housing
settlements, constructed mainly on government land) next
to modern-day high-rise office blocks.
Scaled down to urban space, this heterogeneity
causes multiple uses of unprogrammed spaces. Fishing
is just one example of an urban activity common to all
these different citizen profiles. Home to localised fishing
54

communities for centuries, Istanbuls shores are today places where

people from different parts of the city come to fish. One of the main
sites is the Galata Bridge, across the Golden Horn, connecting
Karaky to Eminn. With six lanes of heavy traffic and a tramway
path in the middle, the pavements on both sides of the bridge are
teeming with fishermen, street vendors selling and renting out
fishing equipment, and passers-by especially tourists enjoying the
views of the historic peninsula and on their way to the cafs and
restaurants on the lower floor of the bridge. Similarly at Bebek, on
the European side between the two bridges crossing the Bosporus,
fishermen, swimmers, joggers and walkers are joined by people just
relaxing along the areas banks all crammed on to a 34-metre
(9.813-foot) wide pavement. This heterogeneity, deriving from the
unprogrammed manner of the urban space, provides citizens with
opportunities to meet and interact.
Citizens Privatisation of Public Space
One of the huge contrasts of the modern era has been between
public and private, a contrast that became even greater as cities grew
and transformed into metropolises. According to Lyn H Lofland, the
city is a community made up of strangers, something that was not
experienced in villages or towns; so the individual is ever seeking to
reconcile this feeling of strangeness.5 One solution here is the
privatisation of public space, enabling citizens to develop a feeling of
belonging to the place within which they live. Seventy per cent of
Istanbuls buildings are illegal, most of them constructed on
government land. However, these gecekondu areas are not the very
dark places of the city one might think them to be. The infrastructure
they require is largely in place, and children can be seen running
about and playing outside, alongside women sitting socialising. Their
attempts to beautify the streets and gardens close to their gecekondu
houses are clearly visible. In privatising the land, and adopting it as
their own, they have created vibrant settlements that are rarely, if
ever, to be found in profit-based mass housing projects.
Similarly, in Eminn, one of Istanbuls historic trading centres,
for example, some street vendors historically mobile stalls are now
permanent fixtures along the pavements and in the markets they
have privatised and made their own. However, mobile vendors still
play a large part in transforming the areas public spaces. In claiming
their place on the pavement and becoming a focal point for
customers, spaces become crowded, noisy and vibrant in an instant.

below left: Young skateboarders and rollerbladers at

the unprogrammed park in the Besiktas district of
Istanbul transform the space into a lively area for
those looking on and passers-by.
below right: In Balat, urban picnickers enjoy sea views
from the green belt between the sea and the road.

bottom left and right: Istanbuls Galata Bridge is

one of the citys most popular spaces for fishing.
The pavements either side of the bridge are
teeming with fishermen, vendors renting and
selling fishing equipment, and tourists taking in
the views of the coast and historic peninsula.

55

56

top left and right: On the European side of

Istanbul, along the coast from Arnavutky to
Rumeli Hisar I , the area between the two bridges
crossing the Bosporus was a fishing town before
Istanbul became a metropolis. It now provides
spaces for picnicking, fishing and swimming along
a thin strip between the road and the sea.

bottom left: The informal buildings of the gecekondu

settlement in Armutlu, on the European side of Istanbul
where the columns of the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge
rise, leave space for outdoor use and nature.

Life Created by Citizens

As a lively and constantly growing city, Istanbul has
defined its own parameters. It is a city largely shaped by
its citizens. A reflection of this is the informal creation of
urban spaces that are hybrid and continuously changing,
always full of people. Although the local and central
authorities attempt to impose legislation on the city, its
citizens remain resistant to regulation, developing their
own tactics for dodging laws and bylaws and effectively
taking the power of the city into their own hands. For
example, the mobile nature of street vendors means they
can pack up their wares as quickly as possible and move
on to escape from police officers on the lookout for illegal
traders.6 And gecekondus are generally (illegally)
constructed before elections, encouraged by politicians
during their election campaigns to win the votes of those
residing in these densely populated urban areas; the same
politicians then grant amnesties legalising them before
the next elections.7
The way that citizens in these ways take advantage of
unprogrammed public spaces, and live in the city as they
want to, thus raises important questions for architects
and designers. Can an unprogrammed public space be
designed without falling into the traps of the Modernist
idea of vast spaces, or without the designers ego strictly
defining the functions? Can something in between, which
gives citizens the opportunity to make their own decisions
about their city, be designed and applied? If Istanbul is to
be our model, the answer is probably yes. 4

Notes
1. Turkeys population is 71,517,100 according to the census of 31
December 2008; and 17.8 per cent of the population 12,697,164 people
live in Istanbul. See
http://www.turkstat.gov.tr/PreTablo.do?tb_id=39&tb_adi=Population%2
0Statistics%20And%20Projections&ust_id=11.
2. Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (New York),
1974, p 35.
3. Konda Research and Consultancys November 2008 research led by
Bekir Ag Ird Ir demonstrates that 78.1 per cent of the overall population is
Turk, while 13.4 per cent is Kurdish, 0.75 per cent Arabic, 0.3 per cent of
Caucasian origin and 0.2 per cent of Balkan origin, and that 14.8 per cent
of Istanbuls population is Kurdish. See
http://www.konda.com.tr/html/dosyalar/kurtler.pdf.
4. According to the Turkish Statistical Institutes Regional In-Migration
and Out-Migration by Statistical Region Report 2000, 513,507 people
immigrated to Istanbul in 2000: 67,409 from western Marmara, 78,807
from eastern Marmara, 57,744 from the Aegean, 42,115 from western
Anatolia, 48,209 from the Mediterranean, 27,182 from central Anatolia,
57,787 from the western Black Sea, 50,373 from the eastern Black Sea,
26,600 from northeastern Anatolia, 25,969 from central-eastern Anatolia,
and 31,312 from southeastern Anatolia. See
http://www.tuik.gov.tr/PreIstatistikTablo.do?istab_id=162.
5. LH Lofland, A World of Strangers, Waveland Press (Long Grove, IL),
1973, p 118.
6. There have been many failed attempts to include street vendors within
the formal economy. In 2004, the president of the Ankara Chamber of
Commerce, Sinan Aygn, stated that there was at least 10 trillion Turkish
lira (about 5 trillion euros) of tax fraud in the street vendors sector. See
http://www.atonet.org.tr/yeni/index.php?p=187&l=1.
7. There have been many amnesties for gecekondu settlements. The last
one was legalised in July 2003, just eight months before the March 2004
municipal elections. Under the new law, public land on which gecekondus
were constructed before 31 December 2000 was to be sold to house
owners. See http://www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=82067.

bottom right: The mobile nature of street vendors

stands means these illegal traders can quickly and
easily escape when the authorities descend.

Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images zgn alIskan

57

Current Urban Discourse

Urban Transformation and Gentrification in Istanbul

In the mid-2000s, unprecedented economic growth provided a

catalyst for Istanbuls transformation. Tolga islam outlines the
background to large-scale urban development and renewal projects
that have been undertaken by local authorities throughout the city.

Zaha Hadid Architects, Masterplan

for Kartal, Istanbul, 2006
The plan transforms the region into
a new subcentre that includes a
central business district (CBD),
residential units, and cultural and
leisure activities.

TabanlI og lu Architects,
Galataport project, Istanbul, 2001
right: The project involves the construction
of a cruise-ship port and the conversion of
existing buildings for cultural and leisure
activities. Although the project has not yet
been realised due to problems that
occurred during the bidding process in
2005, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism
has declared Galataport among Turkeys
tourism goals for 2010.
opposite: The newly constructed high-rise
apartment buildings in the BasIbyk
renewal area stand in sharp contrast to the
organic pattern of the existing
neighbourhood.

Since 2000, Istanbul has entered an entirely new era with

rapid transformations taking place on an unprecedented
scale. The city has been changing continuously since the
1980s due to the major role it has played in the opening
and incorporation of Turkeys economy to the global world.
But what makes this era different is the scale of change
that casts past experiences into the shade.
The continuous economic growth at the global scale
and the political stability maintained by a one-party ruling
regime after many years of coalition governments helped
Turkeys economy show spectacular growth between 2002
and 2007, with an average rate of around 7 per cent
(almost three times the previous 10 years average),
where the gross domestic product (GDP) increased from
$350 billion to $850 billion in just these six years. In the
same period, the volume of foreign trade showed a
threefold increase, reaching $280 billion, 60 per cent of
which was realised in Istanbul. Likewise, flows of foreign
direct investment (FDI) into the country grew from $1.1
billion in 2002, to $20 billion in 2006 and $22 billion in
2007 95 per cent and 89 per cent of which,
respectively, were absorbed by Istanbul alone.1
The reflections and indicators of these dramatic
changes in the physical sphere of the city have
manifested themselves mainly as investments in the
transportation infrastructure, construction on vacant land,
and transformation of the existing built environment.
Between 2004 and 2009, massive investments were
made in Istanbuls transport infrastructure, amounting to
around half of the greater municipality of Istanbuls
budget. The investment focused on the construction of
miles of underground tunnels for new metro lines,
including the Marmaray project that connects the Asian
and European sides of the city with an undersea tunnel
60

passing through the Bosporus. A second reflection of the changes in

the citys economic base are the increased levels of new construction
by big capital on the citys vacant plots, for either commercial or
residential uses. This is best exemplified by the construction of new
shopping malls in every possible empty space: the number of shopping
centres has increased around sevenfold, reaching 72 since the start of
the decade, with an additional 49 under construction and due to be
completed by the end of 2010.2
At the residential level, the most remarkable development has been
the intensification and diversification of the construction of gated
housing communities at different scales for different social groups on
the citys remaining vacant land. Over the past few years, gating has
been so prevalent that it has become the main design principle for
almost every new residential project in the city.3 Another type of
residential development worth mentioning is the new housing on stateowned land undertaken by the Mass Housing Administration (TOKi),
which in the last five years has arguably become the biggest real-estate
actor in Istanbul. (Between 2003 and 2008, TOKi was responsible for
the construction of around 60,000 housing units in the city and is
projected to create 65,000 more by 2012.)4
In addition to the aforementioned, another, and perhaps more
significant (in terms of its impact on the social fabric of the city)
development is the transformation of the existing built environment via
urban transformation projects.
Transformation of the Built Environment
The term urban transformation has been at the centre of the public
authorities urban discourse since the start of the 2000s a magic
term used by politicians at all levels as a tool to justify how they
organise the physical sphere. The policy rhetoric surrounding it is quite
persuasive, promoted as it is to the general public as a solution to
almost all of the citys ills: it helps to avoid earthquakes, reduces
crime, decreases segregation, removes stigma, increases poor living
conditions and even combats terrorism! The highly convincing nature

of such political discourse has contributed significantly to

the formation of a legitimate base and support among the
mainstream population for the concept, and its easy
translation into Istanbuls urban space. This takes the
form of: urban design projects at the district level;
flagship projects on the citys waterfronts; the
transformation of gecekondu (squatter settlements on
public land) areas; and the transformation of historic
neighbourhoods (via urban renewal projects).
In 2006, the greater municipality of Istanbul launched
architectural competitions for the masterplans of two
districts located towards the eastern and western edges of
the city. The aim was to create two new centres at the end
nodes of the new transportation network: a central
business district (CBD) in Kartal and a recreational centre
in Kkekmece. Star architects and architectural offices
with international reputations were invited to make plans:
Zaha Hadid, Massimilliano Fuksas and Kisho Kurakawa
for Kartal; and Ken Yeang, Kengo Kuma and MVRDV for
Kkekmece, with Hadid winning the competition for
Kartal, and Yeang for Kkekmece. The invitation of these
star architects, whose presence would draw international
attention to the city, was part of a wider marketing strategy
to promote Istanbul as one of the worlds top cities.
Apart from these large-scale projects that cover the
entire districts, waterfront projects on a smaller scale are
also on the citys agenda. Among these are the two
waterfront projects along the Marmara Sea coast: the
Galataport project on the European side and the
Haydarpaflaport project on the Asian side. The projects
involve the transformation of former port areas (which
over the last two decades have lost their functional
advantages) for use by tourists and the general public:
mixed-use areas that involve cruise-ship ports, shopping

centres, hotels, offices, recreational areas and marinas. These are

envisaged as flagship projects that would have effects beyond their
immediate surroundings and add value to the city as a whole.
Another phase of transformation is evident in the gecekondu areas,
the settlements that were informally and illegally developed by emigrants
from rural areas of Turkey on public and in some cases on others
land in the post-1950s rapid industrialisation and urbanisation era.
Following the revisions in the municipality law and mass housing law in
2004 and 2005 respectively, the transformation of gecekondu areas
including BasIbyk, Glsuyu, Glensu, Derbent and KazIm Karabekir
is now on the agenda. A common characteristic of these areas is the
ambiguous and complex structure of the property rights.5 Another is the
changes in the status of their locations that have occurred over time;
the expansion of the city has meant that neighbourhoods located on
the peripheries at the time they were founded have now become innercity neighbourhoods. This acquired centrality has definitely increased
the desirability of these neighbourhoods, and thus contributed to the
pressures to transform the land for the use of more affluent populations
or, in other words, to open them to the process of gentrification.
One recent example is the case of BasIbyk, a more than 30-yearold gecekondu area located on the north of the E-5 highway on the
Asian side. The neighbourhood was declared a renewal area in 2006 by
joint protocol between the local municipality, TOKi and the city
municipality. High-rise apartment blocks are now under construction
on a former park, and the gecekondu residents have been asked to
move into the new units and pay the difference between the
construction costs of these units and the current value of their existing
gecekondu houses in instalments over 10 to 15 years. This led to high
levels of protests from local residents who did not want to lose their
previous gains. However, despite this, the first stage of construction
(the high-rise blocks) is almost completed, though residents did
succeed in keeping the project on hold by refusing to move into the
units under these terms. Following the municipality elections in March
2009, BasIbyk is now under the rule of a different political party,
but ambiguity about the future of the neighbourhood continues.
There were also other areas of the inner city which, in the eyes of
the ruling neo-liberal Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve
KalkInma Partisi AKP) should not have been deprived of this wind of
change but were beyond the reach of their powers: namely the
dilapidated, historically designated sites where disposition and control
over the built environment was in the hands of relatively independent
preservation boards. However, following the 2004 municipal elections,
the agglomeration of the local authorities, the city municipality and
the central government under one single party proved useful in
overcoming this hurdle.
Two local municipalities, Beyog lu and Fatih, lobbied for a new
legislative framework to gain powers to intervene, and in June 2005
Code 5366, Law on the Protection of Deteriorated Historic and Cultural
Heritage through Renewal and Re-use, was passed in the Grand
National Assembly, providing the local municipalities with new powers
of expropriation to implement renewal projects within historical sites
and abolishing the need to obtain the consent of the property owners.
61

above and right: The proposed renewal project for

TarlabasI transforms the area into a mixed-use
development with luxurious residential buildings,
shopping malls, cafs and hotels. The buildings in the
render are the work of three different architectural
firms: MTM Mimari TasarI m Merkezi, Tures Tourism
Planning Restoration Agency and Trading and TasarI m
DanI smanlI k Hizmetleri.
opposite: Sulukule before and after the demolition that
has destroyed the areas unique street fabric.

62

The law, or at least the way it is being implemented by the

authorities, has proved to be a good recipe for increased
gentrification via urban renewal projects in areas that
have remained largely untouched during earlier rounds of
the process. Newly declared renewal areas include
Sleymaniye, Fener-Balat, YalI, KrkbasI and many
others, but the most significant have been the pioneering
projects in TarlabasI and Sulukule.
TarlabasI is a mixed-use neighbourhood in the centre of
the city known for its high crime rates. Under the new law,
an area of around 20,000 square metres (215,285
square feet) consisting of nine blocks and 278 plots was
declared a renewal area in 2006. The renewal project is
based on a model of publicprivate partnership where
responsibility for its preparation and implementation rests
with a private company (GAP). The aim is to transform the
area into a gentrified enclave with luxurious residential
buildings and commercial activities such as shopping
malls, cafs and hotels. However, the project remains on
hold due to conflict between the developer and residents
over the percentage of the new units to be allocated to
the existing owners.
Sulukule now a ruined and deserted land is a
former residential inner-city neighbourhood in the historic
peninsula along the city walls, characterised by its
Romany population. In 2005, an area of around 90,000
square metres (968,783 square feet) encompassing 12
blocks and 382 plots was declared a renewal site.
However, in contrast to the case at TarlabasI, the project
here is based on a publicquasipublic partnership where
the local municipality and TOKi are working together to
demolish the entire area to construct new and high-quality
housing. To obtain one of the new units, existing owners
must pay the difference between the cost of construction
of the unit and the value of their current building in
monthly instalments over 15 years. Existing renters, on
the other hand, are granted the right to own apartment
units in TOKis social housing in Tas oluk, a peripheral
area around 30 kilometres (18.6 miles) away, by paying
monthly instalments of around 200 euros over 15 years.

The Sulukule renewal project has been widely criticised by activists

in the city who have created a platform for resistance and managed to
draw the attention of the media to the neighbourhood at both national
and international levels by arguing that the project will disperse the
Romany community, erase the Romany culture and create homelessness.
Despite this resistance, the municipality has already completed the
most difficult step of the project by clearing almost the entire area by
bulldozer in preparation for the construction of the new houses.6
All of the processes mentioned above form only a small fraction of
the recent attempts at urban transformation by local authorities within
Istanbul. Though there are certain differences between these processes
regarding their scale, location and implementation, their outcomes
remain the same: they all serve the appropriation of existing land for
the use of higher-status groups in other words, the gentrification of
the city. Once these ongoing pioneer projects are implemented and
emerge as concrete examples, they will form the basis of a larger wave
of transformation across the city, and serve as a model for further
transformation across the country. 4
Notes
1. For the economic growth rates and foreign trade volume figures see www.turkstat.gov.tr;
and for the foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to Turkey and Istanbul see www.treasury.gov.tr,
and the reports of FDI in Turkey for 2007 and 2006 at www.treasury.gov.tr.
2. Jones Lang LaSalle, Turkey Retail Market Overview, April 2009.
3. Based on the actual increases in the gated developments in Gkturk, a region that is
characterised by such communities, Bartu Candan and Biray Kolluog lu KIrlI speculate that
the number of gated compounds in the city may have doubled since 2005. See Emerging
spaces of neoliberalism: A gated town and a public housing project in Istanbul, New
Perspectives on Turkey, No 39, 2008, pp 546.
4. Interview with Erdog an Bayraktar (head of the Mass Housing Administration TOKi) by
isa Sezen, TOKi`den 65 bin ucuz konut (65,000 cheap housing units by TOKi), Zaman
Newspaper Construction and Real Estate Journal, 22 August 2008.
5. As a result of the amnesties granted in the 1980s, the gecekondu areas have a diverse
ownership structure: those with title deeds, and those with use rights or no rights. The
presence of diverse stakeholders with different interests and with limited legal rights (like
the latter two groups) provides certain leverage for the local authorities during the
negotiation processes.
6. In June 2009, an interesting and unexpected development took place that may have a
significant impact on the future of Sulukule. The head of TOKi, Erdog an Bayraktar, asked
the activists to present their alternative plan for Sulukule that accommodates more local
residents in the neighbourhood. As of September 2009, negotiations between the activists
and TOKi are ongoing.
Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 58-9 Zaha Hadid Architects from
IMP Istanbul Metropolitan Planning & Urban Design Center; p 60 TabanlIoglu
Architects; pp 61, 63 Tolga islam; p 62 GAP insaat

63

64

DEVELOPING
CITIES WITH
DESIGN
Over the last decade, design has come to be regarded as a
powerful and conspicuous tool for transforming cities to global
city status. This has largely focused on the commissioning of a
handful of iconic buildings by foreign signature architects.
Tevfik Balclog lu and Glsm Baydar question the value of
the design city model for Istanbul as one that potentially
privileges image over function, and spatial organisation and
the novel over practical urban requirements, while
overlooking social and environmental responsibility.

TabanlI og lu Architects, Galataport project, Istanbul, 2006

above: The government-initiated Galataport project received heavy criticism
from professional organisations who opposed the demolition of the citys
historical sites to clear the area for construction. The legal battle to suspend the
construction was won by the Chamber of Environmental Engineers in 2008.
left: Bykdere Street in Istanbul has changed radically in the last decade with
the sudden rising of tall buildings, each designed as an architectural statement.
Most bear the signature of TabanlI og lu Architects.

65

Defne Koz, Dondola seating range, 2008

Koz created this series of stainless-steel rocking seats, benches
and lounge chairs for the international design company
Megaron. New welding technologies were used to achieve
seamless volumes which fold into gentle curves. Koz currently
lives and works in Chicago, Milan and Istanbul.

Between 23 April and 10 August 2008, the largest

modern art museum in Istanbul (Istanbul Modern) staged
an exhibition entitled Design Cities 18512008.1 The
exhibition included 109 design works ranging from
architecture to fashion by 64 designers chosen from
seven cities: London (1851 and 2008), Vienna (1908),
Dessau (1928), Paris (1931), Los Angeles (1949), Milan
(1957) and Tokyo (1987). This historical parade was to
demonstrate how these cities have helped shape modern
culture through design. The chair of the executive board
of Istanbul Modern, Oya EczacIbasI, stated that the event
was intended to support Istanbuls aspiration to itself
become a design city, and claimed that the exhibition
would strengthen the relationship between Turkish design,
global design and contemporary art.2
The timing of the exhibition was directly linked to
Istanbuls selection as the European Capital of Culture for
2010.3 Headed by the Ministry of State, the
organisational board responsible for realising
improvements in the city for this purpose placed
particular emphasis on design, ambitiously claiming that
Istanbul also has the potential to become the European
Capital of Design.
The Design Cities exhibition, then, had a twofold
significance. First, the conspicuously Eurocentric focus of
the event marked the geographical priority of the
discourse on globalisation, and Istanbuls aspiration to
become a global design city needs to be understood in
this context. Second, staged at an art museum, the
exhibition emphasised the aesthetic aspect of design by
66

The purity, geometric clarity, abstraction and simplicity associated with

the shiny surface of stainless steel are harbingers of new forms with the
potential to inspire novel approaches to open-air and urban furniture.
Kozs Dondola project won the Elle Decor International Design Awards
2008 for Turkey, and the Red Dot Design Award 2009.

forging a relationship between global design and contemporary art.

These two factors link notions of the city and design at both
discursive and practical levels.
Indeed, within Turkeys contemporary art scene, the design city
idea has attracted considerable intellectual energy and has created
an arena in which cities across the country compete for this
prestigious title. A recent newspaper article announced regretfully
that although many of the citys designers have now established
successful practices in Istanbul, izmir still has a long way to go to
achieve design city status.4 Such is the prestige of the design city
term that in the last few years it has come to be used in wide and
many different contexts, ranging from the name of an e-forum of
designers to the marketing slogan of a gated community.5
No doubt the Bilbao model which championed such designers as
Frank Gehry, Santiago Calatrava and Norman Foster has been central
in relating the concept of the city to the concept of design. This
emphasis on signature designers is supported by the shift of focus in
urban planning from the overall physical order of the city to an
enterprise dealing with administration, facilitation and process. In
Cities of Tomorrow, Peter Geoffrey Hall states that:

Aziz SarI yer, The Gull, 2007

SarI yer won a design award from the professional
organisation of industrial designers in Turkey for this seat,
which embodies qualities of plasticity and whiteness, and
enjoys a carefully considered balance of form.

Aziz SarI yer, Cioccolata bookcase, 2009

Turkish designer Aziz SarI yer designs for international
companies including Italian design studio Altreforme. His work,
including this aluminium bookcase, is representative of the
minimalist approach which blends simplicity with the right
proportions to make strong formal statements.

Sometime during the 1970s, the city-planning

movement began to turn upside down and inside
out; during the 1980s, it seemed at times almost on
the point of self-destruction. Planning turned
from regulating urban growth, to encouraging it by
any and every possible means. Cities, the new
message rang loud and clear, were machines for
wealth creation.6
The intricate relationship between planning and
design, which began in the Renaissance and continued
until the mid-20th century, spreading from Western cities
to the postcolonial world,7 thus seems to have dissolved.
As contemporary urban theorists argue, the city-planning
movement reached the point of self-destruction during
the 1980s, when cities turned into machines for wealth
creation backed by capital support for unlimited growth.8
Istanbuls aspiration to become a design city despite
its seemingly unregulated growth needs to be understood
both in the context of this transformation and the rise of
global cities at the transnational scale. The worldwide
geographical dispersal of service outlets, offices and
factories results in the need for centralised management
in a few major cities clustered around major banks and

headquarters offices. These so-called global cities are not only

important nodes in the flows of finance, trade, migration and
information; they also offer unprecedented market opportunities for
the design professions.
There is thus an increasing demand for signature architects to be
producers of iconic objects rather than planners of cities. As a
striking example, a prominent avenue in Istanbul, Bykdere
Caddesi, is known popularly as TabanlIog lu Avenue, lined as it is
with monumental sculpturesque buildings by TabanlIog lu
Architects.9 Grandiose projects such as this are also supported by
political and administrative powers for the prestige they symbolise.
The political support for the construction of Dubai Towers (Dubai
International Properties, 2005) and the Galataport development
plan (TabanlIog lu Architects, also 2005) in Istanbul are two of the
most prominent recent examples.10
The Design Cities exhibition justifies this phenomenon by
linking the exhibited cities with a history of remarkable
individuals.11 This points to the image of the city rather than to its
overall function and social organization to an image that has less
to do with formal organisation than the unprecedented proliferation
of design-related conferences, exhibitions, fairs and competitions
that emanate from Istanbul and spread to other of Turkeys
aspirational cities.12 The former role of the architectural profession
in creating a citys image is now a shared one, and is gradually being
replaced by other design professions (from graphics to fashion),
arguably led by industrial design.
At one level, this may signal a positive development since our
immediate urban environments need modest human-scale
interventions by design. Development of cities with design concerns
not only architecture, urban form and landscape, but also everyday
objects, from tram and metro stations and bus stops to urban
furniture, billboard advertisements and lighting. With few
exceptions, however, designers enjoying rising international
reputations tend to privilege novel and exploratory projects with
commercial or cultural viability, which do not necessarily address
such everyday requirements at the urban scale.
67

Though the recent work of Defne Koz, Aziz SarIyer and

Ays e Birsel does not explicitly address urban issues per
se, the first two in particular exemplify perfect form and
function unity with a minimalist touch and stunning
sculptural quality. Ays e Birsels effort (with Bibi Seck) in
Senegal, on the other hand, marks a turning point where
modern design meets local culture, skill and
craftsmanship, and generates an exceptional coherence of
form, texture and pattern. This bears testimony to the fact
that the urban responsibility of the design professions
does not merely consist of beautifying cities through
design; it also involves the participation of producers and
users, and the production process itself, which need to
consider the specific characteristics of the social and
cultural context in question.
This point is particularly relevant in relation to the
2007 credit crunch that resulted in a global economic
crisis, with loss of confidence in the markets and a
decrease in consumer spending. Such developments have
serious effects on both urban growth and the affordability
of high-profile signature design products. But what is
68

their effect on the status of design in general? Citing instances from

postwar Europe, cultural commentator Stephen Bayley stated that
times of financial constraint have historically stimulated architecture
and design: The great thing about our new constraints, he says, is
that both mediocrity and excess are now intolerable. Quality in
architecture and design will, however, make everyone better off.13
If political and economic powers have supported iconic buildings
and design objects based predominantly on their visual appeal in the
past, periods of both environmental and fiscal crisis will inevitably
result in the prioritisation of other aspects of design such as
sustainability and economic feasibility, and from the UK to Singapore,
governmental departments have already made declarations in line with
these new priorities.14 Similarly, a 2009 report by the Istanbul
Municipality Urban Department Office has listed environmental, social
and economic sustainability among the primary aims of its new
development plan.15
In conclusion, developing such cities as Istanbul requires the full
participation of all of the design professions as well as coordinated and
well-planned action blended with vision and wisdom. While Istanbuls
pride and rejoicing in participating in the increasing vibrancy of the
global design scene is well justified, warning signals from the

Ayse Birsel and Bibi Seck,

Madame Dakar armchair, 2009
left: Ayse Birsel, who currently lives in
New York, is an acknowledged Turkish
designer known mainly for her Herman
Miller furniture system designs, which
were featured in the science-fiction
movie Minority Report. The Madame
Dakar armchair, produced for Italian
manufacturer Moroso, is an excellent
example of the relationship between
craft and design.
opposite: What emerges from this
project for Italian furniture manufacturer
Moroso, and the partnership of Ayse
Birsel and Bibi Seck, is a colourful
domestic environment which benefits
from the powerful traditional weaving
skills of Africa.

fast-growing fields of sustainability and

environmentalism call for a radical reorganisation of
both the design professions and urban land use.
Without social and environmental responsibility, the
notoriety of Istanbul (or any other place in the world)
as a design city risks short-lived glamour and long-term
social inequality. Sustainability in design is a relatively
new topic in Turkish discourse, with much room to
expand. Hence there is ample opportunity to establish
ground for design cities that are not only stage sets of
proliferating design events, but also exemplary sites of
social responsibility through design. 4
Notes
1. The exhibition was curated by the renowned architectural historian
and director of the Design Museum in London, Deyan Sudjic, and
moved to London in September 2008.
2. Oya EczacIbasI, Throwing Open the Door, in Design Cities
18512008, Istanbul Modern Design Museum, 2008, p 5.
3. The project was initiated in 1985 by the European Union and
included cities of member countries only. Since 2000, the title has
been granted to cities of countries that have membership candidate
status as well. For more information on related organisations in
Istanbul see www.istanbul2010.org.
4. Nedim Atilla, izmir bir TasarIm Kenti OlmalI, Aksam Ege,
18 May 2008.
5. www.tasarimkenti.com was founded on 6 June 2008 as a
moderated e-forum for designers. Atasehir TasarIm Kent (Design City
Atasehir) is the name of a prestigious gated community in Istanbul.
6. Peter Geoffrey Hall, Cities of Tomorrow, Blackwell (London),
2001, p 379.

7. Filaretes Sforzinda (Italy, c 1465); Ebenezer Howards Garden City

(England, 1898); and Le Corbusiers City for Three Million Inhabitants
(France,1922) and Chandigarh projects (India, 195165) are among the
most prominent examples of the union of city planning and design.
8. Hall, op cit.
9. The latter, led by Melkan and Murat TabanlIog lu, is a well-established
Turkish firm with international practices, and ranks among the top 100
firms in a list drawn by the prestigious journal World Architecture. See
www.tabanlioglu.com.tr/ (accessed 11 May 2009).
10. The Dubai Towers project, consisting of two spiralling skyscrapers, was
launched by the Istanbul municipality and Dubai International Properties
in 2005. The Galataport redevelopment plan involves the transformation
of a historic district into a constellation of shopping malls and hotels. For
further information see www.dexigner.com/mimarlik/haberler-g5672.html
and www.galataport.org/ (both accessed 22 May 2009).
11. Deyan Sudjic, A Time and Place, the Design Journey, in Design Cities
18512008, Istanbul Modern Design Museum, 2008, p 9. Sudjic adds that
in the last 150 years, design has moved from a mechanical, anonymous
process, to what at times looks like a celebrity-driven subset of branding.
12. Even a brief glance at the e-platform Dexigners (www.dexigner.com)
listings of design events over the past few years is indicative
of this trend.
13. Stephen Bayley, Its out with Marble and Chandeliers; in with
Polished Limestone and Glass, Observer, 11 January 2009.
14. See www.ribblevalley.gov.uk/downloads/Ribble_Valley_Annex_Report_
(2)_1_.doc and www.ameinfo.com/153447.html (accessed 28 July 2009).
15. See www.ibb.gov.tr/trTR/Documents/ISTANBUL_CDP_GENEL_BILGI.pdf (accessed
28 July 2009).
Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: p 64 TabanlIoglu
Architects, photo Ugur Cebeci; p 65 TabanlIoglu Architects, photo
Sapphire at CBD of Istanbul, Maslak/by Ugur Cebeci; p 66 Defne
Koz; p 67 Aziz Sar Iyer; pp 68-9 Ayse Birsel & Bibi Seck

69

CREATING INTERFACES FOR A

SUSTAINABLE CULTURAL
PROGRAMME FOR ISTANBUL
An Interview with Korhan Gms

View from Topkapi Palace,

Istanbul, to the Golden Horn,
showing the modern
infrastructure of the old
city, now a mix of both
new and historic
buildings.

Korhan Gms
, the Director of Urban and Architectural Projects for the Istanbul 2010
European Capital of Culture (ECOC) Agency, tells Hlya Ertas about his agencys
plans for managing the ECOC process, its intention to create a bottom-up model and
the challenges it faces. He discusses four of the agencys most significant projects
and how these are being realised in collaboration with a wide variety of actors.

In 2010, Istanbul is in the spotlight as European Capital

of Culture. The special status this confers on the city
raises significant questions about its future and its
development: should it be portraying itself as a financial
centre, a tourist destination or a city of culture? Attaching
a distinctive label to Istanbul is problematic since the
metropolis decision-making processes are highly
complex. While the municipality is a service provider for
the citys transportation and infrastructure, some major
projects for Istanbul, like Marmaray or the mass-housing
projects of the Mass Housing Administration (TOKi) are
managed by central government. This management
model, with its multiplicity of actors, makes it hard to
draw up an all-parties-agreed vision for the city.
The Model
On 13 November 2006, Istanbul was formally announced
as European Capital of Culture for 2010, and about a year
later, on 2 November 2007, the 2010 Istanbul ECOC Law
was passed, setting up the agency as a legal entity.
Involved from the outset, from the nomination stage,
Korhan Gms planned a bottom-up model for an agency
that would liaise with NGOs contributing ideas for the
regeneration of the city. Indeed, the agency not only
started work by contacting NGOs, it also called for
projects that were open to other institutions as well. The
intention was to create a body to coordinate Istanbuls
numerous decision-making authorities, which would
empower them and make them more effective. The result,
however, states Gms, was that the agency turned into
yet another authority albeit one in control of its own
budget which Gms believes has in the end caused yet
further fragmentation of the decision-making process.
The Goal
Gms finds the physical intervention of this fragmented
management model in a city problematic since it is based
on conflict between authorities and is thus incapable of
developing ideas for the city as a whole. This technocratic
approach considers as its main aim the realisation of
construction projects, and can only produce a further
fragmented city, since it lacks an understanding of the
indispensable role of a holistic approach to urban
planning. Gms believes the 2010 Agency could have
solved this problem by generating urban ideas itself and
by working as a subtle strategic tool to integrate the
decision-making process.
Of Istanbuls ECOC Agency budget, 70 per cent (about
800 million Turkish lira, or approximately 375 million
euros) was allocated to funding construction projects, and
most of this was transferred to the municipalities, since
they are more experienced at implementing building
72

The AKM (Atatrk Cultural Centre), closed

for renovation since June 2008.

programmes than at organising cultural activities. According to Gms ,

this emphasis on getting things built subordinates architecture to
construction; architecture becomes merely an extension of that
industry, whereas it could have served as a jewel in the cultural
industrys crown. As Gms states: The Istanbul 2010 Agency
focused on construction when it could have championed the researchbased, opinion-oriented culture industry by producing projects based
on urban schemes, running open urban-planning and architecture
competitions, and doing R&D to produce innovative construction and
restoration technologies for Istanbul. Construction can be
accomplished somehow or other at any time.
The invitation to NGOs, architects and contemporary artists to
participate in the 2010 process aimed to encourage the development
of independent ideas. In Gmss opinion: One of the main problems
facing Istanbul today is that intellectual production has become totally
absorbed in philanthropic ventures because public institutions require
the artist or the independent concern to toe the authorities line. Since
some architects and artists are in thrall to these charities, there is a
risk that architecture and art become disciplines that address only the
elites, and not the general public, and so foster a different kind of class
discrimination. Practitioners of the arts are isolated in the private sector,
their relationship with power either adversarial or conciliatory, thus
they cannot produce a transformative model. Gms is of the opinion
that the 2010 agency had the potential to transform this dichotomy in
collaboration with these actors, and to provide opportunities for creative
engagement within the public realm. The aim of the programme was
not based on the belief that if government cant do it, NGOs should,
but rather on the idea of fostering points of contact and common
ground for such endeavours between these actors and the state.

Archaeological excavations in YenikapI revealed

during excavations for the Marmaray project are
evidence of Istanbuls long history.

The Challenges
Gms describes three different approaches to the
Istanbul ECOC as follows:
What the authorities plan for Istanbul has serious
implications for 2010. One approach is to promote
Istanbuls marvellous history to Europe and to the world;
that is what frames the cultural programmes and
restoration projects. A historicism can be traced based on
a retelling of Istanbuls past, in an Orientalist way that
orients itself. This is in part understandable, since it is
also a prerequisite of the Turkish setting and has a ready
audience. Another approach is more finance related,
taking 2010 as an economic resource, as a tool that will
create jobs for culture professionals and provide budgets
for their projects. A third approach is to use culture not
for commercial or economic development, but rather as a
tool for generating ideas, as a strategy for transformation
an approach that has been adopted in many previous
European Capitals of Culture and many international
cultural programmes. In fact, the agency attempted to
follow all three approaches simultaneously, which Gms
feels at times seems to have produced tensions among
those trying to manage the programme.

Gms also points out the dangers of conceptualising the city

as a political object, considering the city as a tool for the
articulation of political concepts. In the case of Istanbul, this
would be to give it the appearance of a marvellous Islamic city,
which is why most of the construction work related to 2010
revolves around the restoration of buildings belonging to the
countrys Ottoman heritage. He suggests that if they had taken the
city as a political subject, understanding politics at the urban
scale, this could have started a revolutionary change.
Introducing Istanbuls cultural heritage to a global audience is
very new, since to date it is an aspect of national interest that has
been confined to domestic politics. Gms regards 2010 as a very
important opportunity to democratise the process, which is still
approached in the fundamentalist way it was during the founding of
the nation-state. He also opines that the earlier, historicist
approach is no longer relevant.
The Projects
The most high profile of the Istanbul ECOC 2010 projects is surely
the AKM (Atatrk Cultural Center) in Taksim which, having started
to attract public attention only after politicians declared their
intention to demolish it, has managed to survive. However, it
required serious renovation. Murat TabanlIog lu, son of Hayati
TabanlIog lu, the architect of the original centre, was commissioned
to undertake the work. Even though the project was approved by
the 2010 Agency and the Preservation Board, work could not
commence because of a court order for a stay of execution as the
plans were not in accordance with the original building. According
to Gms , no individual or institution really cared whether the AKM
building was functioning or whether its cultural programme was
well managed, but when work started on the project there was
neverless wide-scale opposition even though no one came up with
an alternative proposal for renovating the centre.
73

right and middle: The Hasanpas a Gashouse

in KadI ky has been left unused since 1993.
below: Concept design by Istanbul Technical
Universitys Faculty of Architecture for the
renovation of the Hasanpas a Gashouse for
use as a cultural centre.

opposite left: Archaeological excavations

in KkyalI , believed to have uncovered
the remains of the Satyros Monastery
which dates back to the 9th century.
opposite right: Atlye Architects concept
design for the KkyalI Archaeological
Park in Maltepe.

74

Another important project, under development at

Arkeo-Polis and the YenikapI Transfer Point, is centred on
the renovation of Theodosius Port, which was discovered
during the excavations undertaken for the Marmaray
development. (The Mamaray project involves the
construction of a railway tunnel under the Bosporus to
connect KadIky and YenikapI.) The archaeological
remains at Theodosius Port, including 33 ancient boats,
reveal the citys 8,000-year-old history. When work at
Marmaray is completed, YenikapI will have been
transformed into a central hub in Istanbuls transportation
network. The plan is to enrich this juxtaposition of the
ancient city and the modern metropolis by means of a new
approach that will see close collaboration for the building
programme between the Ministry of Transportation, the
Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the universities, the
municipality and the various organisations concerned with
sea transportation and subway systems, and that will
culminate in an international competition in 2010.
Hasanpas a Gashouse, located near KadIky on the
Asian side of the Bosporus, is an industrial zone that has
not been in use since 1993. The aim for 2010 is to
convert this industrial heritage site into a cultural centre
with a concept design master-minded by Istanbul
Technical Universitys Faculty of Architecture. In addition
to the renovation of the existing building, the project also
seeks sustainable ways of managing the new centre.
Renovation at the KkyalI Archaeological Park in
Maltepe is now well under way in collaboration with the
Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Istanbul
Archaeological Museum, the municipality of Maltepe and

Ko University. The archaeological remains here are believed to belong

to the Satyros Monastery, which was constructed at the time of Patrick
Ignatios (86077). It is hoped the realisation of the project designed
by Atlye Architects, will benefit from the contributions of
multidisciplinary teams and international organisations and, Gms
believes, will lead to a reappraisal of Istanbuls cultural heritage and
stimulate awareness of the historic layers of the city.
Long-Term Projections
Partly due to the effects of urban regeneration projects, partly thanks
to Istanbuls designation as European Capital of Culture for 2010,
urban issues have now become daily news. And as the citys
inhabitants start to see the impact on their everyday lives of the
decisions made about their city, they are beginning to take more of an
interest in urban issues. For Gms, what will remain from the 2010
ECOC process is a refined experience. What is important is not the
construction of buildings, but the production of buildings that will
sustain and perpetuate effective managed systems. At the interface of
Istanbuls 2010 ECOC initiatives, Gms defines his role as that of
intermediary between the involved professionals and the politicians. If
arts professionals are now prepared to cooperate widely for the sake of
their city by creating a public platform open to collaboration, he
believes some changes in the way public agencies operate can be
achieved. Eventually, technocratic management bodies, through their
exposure to a range of bureaucratic experiences, will come to appreciate
the work and benefits of a cultural agency. For now, though, the level of
management awareness remains too low to transform a city. 4
Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 70-1, 72-3, 74(t&c), 75(l) Istanbul
2010 Agency Archive; p 74(b) Istanbul Technical University Faculty of Architecture,
from Istanbul 2010 Agency Archive; p 75(r) Atlye Architects, from Istanbul 2010
Agency Archive

75

Extended
Thresholds III:
Auxiliary
Architectures
In Turkey, there exists a rich tradition of
auxiliary architecture that is supplementary to
permanent domestic structures. In hot climates, it
often provides essential shade, either as standalone shelter or as transitional spaces between the
cool interior and the sun-exposed exterior. It is a
history that offers great potential for innovative
sustainable solutions that require little or no
lu Hensel
energy. Michael Hensel and Defne Sunguro g
describe the work that they have undertaken in this
area through the Auxiliary Architectures: Membrane
and Cable-Net Systems Workshop at the
University of Economy.

Auxiliary Architectures: Membrane and Cable-Net Systems

Workshop, izmir University of Economy, izmir, Turkey, April 2009
Around a hundred students undertook experiments to develop different
membrane and cable-net systems, deploying form-finding methods
and analysing through physical and digital models the capacity of
their systems to modulate sunlight, self-shading and shading patterns.
The experiments culminated in the development of 20 different
systems at the model scale and two full-scale installations.

izmir

above: The photos show 12 of the 20 final models

demonstrating the integral relationship between membrane
arrays and cable-net arrangements and exploring the
reduction of necessary anchor points for the systems, while
maintaining their intricate articulation.
opposite left: Initial experiments focused on membrane
articulations and the proliferation of membranes into arrays
that can be set within more complex cable-net arrangements.

78

opposite right: Based on physical form-finding experiments,

digital models of the membrane and cable-net systems were
developed using Rhino Membrane software, utilising dynamic
relaxation, an iterative mathematical process, in order to
digitally form-find the respective membrane and cable-net
configurations. The digital models facilitate digital analysis of
each membrane and cable-net arrangement with regard to
environmental performance.

This third article on the design problem of the extended

threshold concerns the topic of auxiliary architectures:
architectural interventions in the built environment above
and beyond settlement patterns and building design.
Auxiliary architectures might be designed in conjunction
with settlement patterns and discrete building envelopes
or, if the built context is already a given and cannot be
modified, as a supplementary way of providing potentials
that the existing conditions do not. However, the problem
with auxiliary architectures is that they require
independent structural solutions and may thus be larger,
heavier and generally more constraining than can be
afforded in a given context, or they may have to rely on
the structural capacity of the existing fabric.
Depending on the specific context, auxiliary
architectures may also have different requirements
regarding environmental performance, which may
determine whether such interventions require more or less
mass. That these auxiliary architectures are in demand
becomes obvious when observing peoples movements in
hot climates, from one climatised interior to another or,
likewise, in cold climates where heat sources such as
external gas heating devices are required. The abundance
of auxiliary architectural devices now available ranges
from no-energy material interventions such as umbrellas
(elaborated in great depth by Frei Otto and his team) to
high-energy consumption electrical-mechanical devices
for heating, cooling and ventilation. As a result, the
design problem has shifted from architecture to industrial
design or mechanical engineering, and often from noenergy to energy-consuming solutions. This is not an
inevitable development, since architectural history is rich
in examples that offer great potential for innovation of
sustainable no-energy-consumption design solutions.
Examining the use of auxiliary architectures in Turkey,
with particular attention to its local cultural, spatial and
environmental circumstances, the Auxiliary Architectures:

Membrane and Cable-Net Systems workshop held in izmir,

Turkeys third largest city, at the University of Economy in April
2009 focused on light membrane and cable-net systems:
lightweight combinations of spatial nets with membrane
1
arrays. Both membranes and cable nets belong to form-active
tension structures that acquire their optimal structural shape
under tension, making it possible to form-find both systems.
Form-finding as a design method deploys the self-organisational
characteristics of such systems under stress, that is when
tensioned. Although nets and membrane systems, and their
related form-finding methods, were pioneered and extensively
developed by Frei Otto from the 1950s onward,2 further
systematic development of these systems, both separately and
in combination, is only now beginning to take place.
Membranes are traditionally made from textiles, and nets
from cables that together form a flexible mesh structure. Both
systems can be combined, the cable net acting as a way of
collecting tension forces from membranes and distributing
them to anchors. Typically these systems form large lightweight
and uninterrupted membrane roofs. However, in warmer
climates this is not always an advantageous configuration for
environmental modulation, as heat can accumulate under a
large membrane, especially when the perimeter consists of a
building mass that does not allow sufficient ventilation. One
solution here is to design systems that are more akin to tree
canopies that provide sufficient shelter and ventilation, and also
result in rich sunlight and shadow patterns on the membrane
system itself, below or beside it. In this case, the membrane
system can be designed as a differentiated array of membrane
patches. Membrane arrays can thus be designed with regard to
their size, density and orientation to different environmental
inputs (sun path, prevailing wind direction, and so on).
Other considerations when designing such systems include
the structural requirements of the membrane and cable-net
system and the structural constraints of the context (How many
potential anchor points in existing architectures are available?),
as well as the desired spatial organisation and environmental

79

modulation (How many and what size spaces are needed?

Which range of environmental conditions is desired?).
From these, the existing constraints for the articulation of
the membrane and cable-net system, as well as a desired
configuration concerning space and environment, can be
determined. But how can these be negotiated?
There are two ways of resolving the discrepancy
between the desired and possible arrangements of a
membrane and cable-net system. The first involves the
construction of additional compression elements, frames
or anchor points. The second involves an experimentdriven process in which the system is modified (perhaps
using evolutionary algorithms or physical models), which
often requires a shift away from planar net configurations
to spatial ones that allow wider options for the
disposition, articulation and orientation of the membrane
arrays. These two solutions may also work together where
it is possible to involve smaller compression elements that
rearticulate and reorient the system incrementally by
creating smaller local manipulations that in sum affect
the overall articulation.
The izmir workshop focused precisely on these
possibilities. Around a hundred second- and third-year
students were introduced to physical and digital
modelling of membrane and cable-net systems, first
separately and later in combination. The increasing
number of membranes in an array requires an increasing
number of connection and anchor points. The latter can
be connected by cables that begin to articulate spatial nets.

A similar context-specific digital analysis of a

shading pattern changing over time. Here the time
sequence is organised from top to bottom and the
analytical emphasis is on the intricate layered
shadow pattern that results from the layered
arrangement of translucent textiles of the
membranes, creating different shades of shadows.

80

above: Context-specific digital analysis of shading

pattern resulting from a branching cable net
inhabited by a double-layer of hyperbolicparaboloid membrane patches. The two layers of
membranes are connected by two minimal holes
per pair of membranes. The time sequence is
organised from left to right and top to bottom,
with the morning hours in the top left corner and
the evening hours in the bottom right corner,
showing the pattern and distribution of shadows
resulting from the design.

below: Context-specific digital analysis of a

shading pattern changing over time. Here the time
sequence is organised from left to right. The top
row shows a series of photos of an analysis
deploying a scaled physical model, while the
bottom row shows a digital analysis of the same
membrane and cable-net system.

81

right and below: The 20 membrane and cable-net

arrangements exhibited at the izmir workshop. Due
to the position of the models in the exhibition space,
different light reflections and shading patterns are
visible at different times of the day, showing not
only the material aspect of the systems, but also the
environmental modulation affected by them.
opposite: The full-scale installations at izmir. During
the evening hours the membranes shift from
shading to reflecting and amplifying the sunlight
penetrating the space at a low angle.

All of the workshops membrane and

cable-net systems were designed in
response to the specific sunlight
conditions of izmir, and analysed and
developed accordingly through physical
model testing and digital analysis.

82

During the 12 days of the workshop, 20 different membrane

and cable-net combinations were developed and two
installations constructed to investigate the design and
construction logic at full scale. Different system articulations
were also developed. Nets were developed as continuous or
branching systems, either more planar or more spatial, with
varying mesh sizes to facilitate the placement of membranes of
various sizes and geometries. Membranes were tested as
triangular patches in hexagonal arrays, as hyperbolic
paraboloids, hyperboloids or cones. Patches were connected at
corners or through the use of minimal holes. Additional local
compression members were added, in one instance
transforming the whole into a self-stabile tensegrity system, and
in another case the local application of bending rods enabled
system articulation and structural integrity.
All of the workshops membrane and cable-net systems were
designed in response to the specific sunlight conditions of
izmir, and analysed and developed accordingly through physical
model testing and digital analysis. In future it would also be
useful to involve computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis
to develop specific ventilation patterns. This would be

especially relevant in the case of izmir, where parts of

the urban fabric along the Mediterranean waterfront are
articulated as large uninterrupted volumes that block
ventilation from the seaside and result in unbearable
levels of temperature and humidity in the city during the
summer months. One way of addressing this could be
with membrane arrays that act as wind-catchers and
accelerators of airflow. In other parts of izmir the
suburban sprawl is unchecked, without any
consideration for the consequences on the resulting
environmental conditions. Again, solutions can be found
here that are as lightweight as they are inexpensive.
It is easy to imagine the positive impact of such
lightweight auxiliary architectures throughout the Middle
East, and Turkey is indeed the place that may begin to
accumulate the expertise, and which has the technology,
to pursue this field of research with great vigour. It is,
then, possible that auxiliary architectures may eventually
become an integral part of designing the built environment,
such that they are no longer auxiliary and are instead,
from the outset, integral to architectural design. 4

The authors would like to express their heartfelt gratitude to the Dean of izmir
University of Economy, Professor Dr Tevfik BalcIog lu, and the Head of
Architecture, Professor Dr Glsm Baydar, for making the workshop possible,
and also to our academic collaborators in the workshop: Professor Dr Gl
Kamaz Erk, Burkay Pasin, Selma Gker, Buket Ilter, zlem AkIn, Clarissa
Mendez Ersoy and especially Michael E Young for continuously solving
unsolvable predicaments. Special thanks go to the fantastically hardworking
and enthusiastic students who took part in the workshop.
Notes
1. Excerpts of the research can be found at www.membranespaces.net. Similar
research by Michael Hensel and Defne Sungurog lu Hensel on membrane and
cable-net systems was undertaken in Australia at the University of Technology
in Sydney, where the authors hold innovation fellow positions, as well as at
AHO The Oslo School of Architecture and Design in Norway, where Michael
Hensel holds a professorship position in Research by Design and where Defne
Sungurog lu Hensel is currently undertaking her PhD focusing on Integral
Design Methods for Performance-oriented Design. Excerpts of this research can
also be found at www.membranespaces.net.
2. See, for example, Frei Otto (ed), Tensile Structures, MIT Press (Cambridge,
MA), 1973. For nets see K Bach, B Burkhardt, R Graefe and R Raccanello (eds),
IL8 Nets in Nature and Technics, University of Stuttgart, 1975.
Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 76, 79(l) Michael Hensel
and Defne Sunguroglu Hensel; p 78 Gven Incirlioglu, courtesy of IEU izmir
University of Economics; pp 79-81 IEU izmir University of Economics; pp
82-3 Melih Uar, courtesy of IEU izmir University of Economics

83

Transforming Turkey
Eight Emerging Practices
Over the last decade, Turkey has experienced an unprecedented construction
boom. Many architects responded with commercial opportunism, collaborating in the
design of gated communities and coastal resorts that did not contribute to the
overall quality of the built interior. Hlya Ertas focuses on the work of eight emerging
practices whose integrity and original design approaches set them apart, and
provides an alternative path for the future of architecture in Turkey.

84

The Turkish architectural scene has changed dramatically

since 2000 a direct result of an unprecedented
construction boom and the expansion of the countrys
real-estate business. Gated communities have
proliferated, growing up on the peripheries of major cities
such as Istanbul, Ankara and izmir. The south coast has
similarly been the site of large-scale developments with
the mass building of holiday apartments and houses. With
the burgeoning market, real-estate companies have
realised the potential use of architects in the selling and
marketing of properties. Many architects offices have
responded accordingly by filling their portfolios with
schemes for corporate developments and gated
communities. Such apparent changes, in such a short
space of time, have triggered significant discussion about
the relationship between architecture and capital, and
architects new role and responsibility to the built
environment. The ways in which Turkeys young architects
are questioning these changes and finding alternative

means of commercially sustaining their offices is

illustrated by the following projects here.
The architects selected, most of them under 40,
demonstrate different approaches to design. A common
ground, though, can be perceived in their consideration of
the fabric of a site and their efforts to create new forms
in existing contexts. Though there are many more young
architects and architecture offices in Turkey, the eight
emerging practices featured stand out because they set
their own unique positions on the architectural scene in
order to create architecture that is not merely a tool for
the market economy and construction industry, but is
rather an environment that reflects the ideas and
concerns of its designers. Turkeys construction boom,
which now seems all but over due to the current global
financial crisis, will probably regain its momentum postcrisis. So this may be just the right time for architects to
reconsider their role in terms of the built environment and
to look at how they will react once building resumes.

85

Global Architectural Development (GAD)

Gkhan AvcIog lu, with his partner zlem AvcIog lu, founded GAD
in 1994. With offices in Istanbul and New York, the practices
recent works demonstrate an organic approach to architecture
that relates to its particular topographical and material context.
The Kuum Hotel, Spa and Residences complex (2008) in Trkbk,
Mug la, a tourist destination in southern Turkey, includes an
administration building, two restaurants, a spa and 11 individually
designed residences/hotel rooms. GAD here relied on computer
modelling to design the complex according to the organic

Kuum Hotel, Spa and Residences, Trkbk, Mug la, 2008

Besiktas Fish Market, Istanbul, 2009

86

topography and beautiful views. The aim was to make each

building unique according its location and site, rather than
resorting to the copying and pasting that is typical of many
housing projects. For another of the firms recent projects, the
Besiktas Fish Market in Istanbul, completed in 2009, GAD has
created a concrete shell on the triangular site. The organic design
of this concrete structure provides a column-free space that
responds to the needs of both sellers and customers by
facilitating the flow of people through the market.

TeCe Architects
Tlin Hadi and Cem ilhan specialise in the design of
educational and cultural buildings and urban schemes,
rather than housing, shopping malls or office blocks, which
have made up much of the output of the last decades
construction boom. Their project for the Vehbi Ko
Foundation Culture and Education Complex in Glck,
Kocaeli, an award-winning scheme for a limited

competition held in 2009, integrates two different user

groups: the personnel of the Ford Otosan production
plants next to the site, and the general public. To meet the
needs of both, the complex is composed of two low-rise
building blocks that are positioned to create recreational
open and semi-open areas at the heart of the site.

Vehbi Ko Foundation
Culture and Education
Complex, Glck,
Kocaeli, 2009

87

Trafo Architects
Istanbul-based Trafo Architects (Sena Birsen Otay, Sevim
Aslan, Deniz Aslan, ipek Yrekli and Arda inceog lu)
distinguishes itself through its use of materials and the
way it seamlessly interconnects buildings and landscape
design. Babylon AlaatI (2006), located in esme, in izmir,
is a multiuse project that is a beach by day and a concert
venue at night. The walls are constructed of light local
straw to let in the strong AlaatI wind for interior aircooling. The visual impact is that of yellow partitions

Babylon AlaatI , esme, izmir, 2006

88

melting into yellow sands. Another project by Trafo

Architects, also located in southern Turkey, in YalIkavak,
Mug la, is the Tekfen YalIkavak Houses and Hotel (2008).
Set on a steep hillside, the houses merge into the
topography like a continuous garden. The use of existing
rocks for supporting walls and the creation of roof gardens
extend this continuity and integrate the architecture with
the surrounding landscape, both natural and designed.

Tekfen YalI kavak

Houses and Hotel,
YalI kavak, Mug la, 2008

89

Teg et Architecture
The work of partners Mehmet Ktkog lu and Ertug Uar
can be identified by its massive forms and the spatial
experiences these afford. The Istanbul-based firms prizewinning project for the Besiktas Naval Museum in Istanbul is
currently under construction and demonstrates how such
monumental forms can interact with museum visitors. Here,
the spaces dedicated to displaying the sultans boats have
glass facades and viewing platforms on the water that set
them apart from the main museum building. The museum is an
extension to the old building and is expected to house the

Besiktas Naval
Museum, Istanbul, due
for completion 2011

90

sultans boats; one of the upshots of this approach is the ability

to take the existing situation of the old building, the sizes of
the boats and the potentials of the buildings location into
consideration to dramatically change the whole site. The same
is true also of the practices YapI Kredi Bank Academy Building
(2009), which is an addition to the banks existing campus.
Situated on the corner of the campus, the diagonal setting of
the academy building distorts the original grid plan; following
the circulation of the existing campus, it welcomes visitors from
the corner of the street to the streetwide atrium at its heart.

YapI Kredi Bank Academy, Istanbul, 2009

91

DB Architects
DB Architects is known generally for its award-winning
competition projects. Founded by Bnyamin Derman and Dilek
Topuz Derman, the office has been able to take advantage of
the various competition projects it had previously designed,
experience that, according to Derman, has helped them to
develop an understanding of urban issues and allowed them to
work on different building typologies including cultural

212 shopping mall,

Istanbul, 2009

92

centres, opera houses and public buildings. DB Architects and

asp Architektens 212 shopping mall in Bag cIlar, Istanbul,
completed in 2009, is located beside the highway that
connects the airport to the city, its facade acting as an urban
face overlooking its surroundings, and its dynamic form
seemingly blending in with and joining the traffic flow.

Yazgan Design
Started in 2003 by Kerem and Begm Yazgan in Ankara, Yazgan
Design focuses on designing the design process. The construction
of the Orange House (2008) in Ankara is based upon this idea of
systematising the design process for setting up the relationships
between different parameters such as site, construction system,
building materials, programmatic needs and climate. This provides
flexibility and sets up a strong dialogue between the architect,
client and engineering teams. A similar method was also applied

in the interior design project for the METU Northern Cyprus

Campus (2005), which covers 80,000 square metres (861,112
square feet) across the various buildings. By creating a table for
all the programmatic needs, and choosing and designing the right
furniture for the various campus locations, the architects were
able to provide a unified design within a very short period of
time. In prioritising the design process itself, Yazgan Design thus
plays with traditional methods of architectural production.

Orange House,
Ankara, 2008

93

ddrlp
Since founding his office in 2005, Bog ahan Dndaralp has
been exploring the research and development aspect of
architectural practice. By entering competitions, organising
workshops and summer schools, and writing, he seeks out new
means of production for which design research can be
undertaken. The Urban.annex project, designed with Pelin Tan
for the Bauhaus Awards 2008 competition, for example,
highlights the social and economic problems of the workers at
Istanbuls Tuzla shipyards. The intention is to make these
problems visible and present a model for the interaction of the

different actors workers, shipyard owners and architects.

Dndaralp has achieved this by designing housing for up to
2,500 shipyard workers that provides both private and
community spaces. (The workers are largely immigrants who
are a long way from their families). By rehabilitating the
lagoon next to the shipyards, and transforming its shore into a
multifunctional recreation area where citizens and workers can
interact, the project not only provides an architectural solution
to the housing needs of the workers; it also creates a socially
sustainable urban area.

Urban.annex, Tuzla, Istanbul, 2008

94

MeMA/merteyiler, mimar atlyesi

The works of Mert Eyiler, founder of MEMA, are living
environments, shaped according to the physical and perceptual
needs of their users. This user-oriented approach is
strengthened by the architects close relationship with his
clients. Most of his projects draw on collaborators from other
disciplines, such as art and sociology. His Lunchbox project
(with Sevin YIldIz for the Live the Box competition held in
2008) is a former Westinghouse factory site in Newark, New
Jersey, that is to be transformed into a housing settlement

constructed out of shipping containers. Taking into

consideration the demographics of the citys population, and
by leaving as much space for public areas as for houses,
Lunchbox proposes an urban scene in which living and
commercial activities overlap. The shipping containers are
positioned for maximum daylight and interaction with the city,
and the garden is also composed of containers since the soil at
the site has been contaminated by the former industry. 4

Lunchbox, Newark, New Jersey, US, 2008

Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: p 86(t) GAD, photos Ali Bekman and zlem AvcIoglu; p
86(b) GAD, photo zlem AvcIoglu; p 87 TeCe Architects; p 88 Trafo Architects, photos Yavuz
Draman and ipek Yrekli; p 89 Trafo Architects, photos Cemal Emden and ipek Yrekli; pp 90-1 Teget
Architecture; p 92 DB Architects; p 93 Yazgan Design Architecture Co Ltd, photos Kerem Yazgan; p 94
Bogahan Dndaralp and Pelin Tan; p 95 Mert Eyiler and Sevin YIldIz

95

To Integrate or Not
to Integrate?

96

Turkish architecture over the last 150

years has been plagued by its
preoccupation with its integration with
the West. Should it be embracing or
reflecting Western cultural, technical
and professional standards?
Ugur Tanyeli provides the
background to this pessimistic context
and describes how a new generation
of architects over the last 10 years
have transcended this predicament
by producing work that turns away
from this obsession with identity.

Han Tmertekin, SM House,

Assos, Turkey, 2006

97

Han Tmertekin, SM House,

Assos, Turkey, 2006
left: With its blanketing masonry
construction and steel skeleton,
this summer house becomes a
semitransparent box.

TabanlIog lu Architects, Sapphire

apartment block, Istanbul, 2006
below: Istanbuls future tallest
tower, and one of its most
luxurious housing projects,
Sapphire merges the skyscraper
with typical terrace housing units.

Ever since the publication of Usul-u Mimari-i Osmani

(The Principles of Ottoman Architecture) in 1873 and the
rise of the Turkish nationalist movement in the second
decade of the 20th century, every aspect of architecture
in Turkey has been focused on the problem of cultural
integration. This has manifested itself in the way both
Late Ottoman and Turkish architecture has concerned
itself with its relationship to a definite Kulturkreis that
is, the First World, the metropolitan nations, the
developed capitalist countries, the modern world. As in
almost every other realm of cultural life, architects have
positioned themselves according to their acceptance or
rejection of the modern West. On some occasions this has
been openly declared; on others it has been implied
within non-architectural discourses and narratives.
The advocates of integration have generally expressed
the desire for architecture to reach required technical and
aesthetic standards, providing professional planning
services and applying standardised morphologies in the
built environment, hence becoming an integral part of the

other the West. Others, however, have based discussions on the

presumption that the Turks should never actually merge with the
West, that they have no choice but to be themselves. Often the
proposition is that the Turks should join the other but only while
retaining their own identity, culture and values. Fervent defenders of
this line have a preference for full integration in such areas as
technology, and industrial and organisational capability, with inherent
qualities like humanitarian values that make the Turks what
they are kept intact.
In the 1930s, prominent representatives of the integrationist camp
included Seyfi Arkan (Atatrks favourite architect), and from the
1960s until his death in 2008 Sevki VanlI was a prolific architectural
writer of the same group, though he seldom built. On the opposition
front, both as a theoretician and practising architect, was Sedad
HakkI Eldem, who was especially influential in the 1940s and still
active until the 1980s. Turgut Cansever, a three times Aga Khan
Award recipient who wrote profusely on architecture and urbanism,
was a radical contributor to the nonintegrationist cause in the last two
decades of the 20th century. Without doubt, the majority of the
architects in Turkey tend to problematise integration even today.

Emre Arolat Architects, Minicity,

Antalya, Turkey, 2004
Minicity is a sort of Turkish
Madurodam (the miniature city
located in Scheveningen, The
Hague). It consists of scale models
of the monuments of Anatolian
architectural history from
prehistoric times until today. The
main building of the complex is a
small, multipurpose retail space.
Arolat here blurs the boundaries
between architectural planning
and landscape design.

100

It is not easy to discuss the reason why cultural and architectural

integration was, and still is, traumatic in Turkey. A possible
explanation is the overestimation of the power of the other. To
Turks, the Western world appears so economically and culturally
powerful that it is capable of swallowing Turkey up; all the means
and networks of information and communication are controlled by
the West. At least, the image of the other in Turkey was drawn in
this way. What made the previous generations of Turks almost
paranoid when they were confronted by the partly imaginary (and
predominantly real) cultural hegemony of the West was this unequal
relationship. Thus they pathetically feared they would never be able
to create authentic cultural products and practices, and felt obliged
to use and imitate, now and in the foreseeable future, their Western
counterparts. The atmosphere in Turkey was one of desperation.
This pessimistic context resulted in only reactionary agendas
being drawn up for modernity and architecture. The architectural
establishment, which was formed in response to these reactionary
attitudes, beginning in the first decade of the 20th century, was
deeply involved in creating indigenous and necessarily

anti-integrationist policies. This meant that, for Turkey as

for any other non-Western country, cultural opposition to
the other was, and to a limited extent still is, a vital and
existential necessity, and is why even the most ambitious
integrationists (in Turkey and elsewhere) can seldom
express a radicalism that simply acknowledges cultural
and architectural change. Thus, even the most ardent
integrationists have reservations about transformation,
limiting its parameters to an extent that is politically
correct. For them, integration with the other is a matter
of love and hate. As it is, ironically, for those who pitch
themselves against it.
However different the discourses for and against
Westernisation may seem, they are in fact reproducing the
same course of integration. Within a polarity of
affirmation and denial, what is merely problematised by
them is the modern Turkish identity, not architecture
itself. Architecture becomes instrumental in a changing
society that is trying to overcome the paranoia of losing its

identity. In these circumstances, constantly asking the questions

Should we change?, Shouldnt we change?, How should we change?,
Which is the best way to change?, always keeps the matter of identity
on the agenda; seeking answers becomes an exercise in selfpersuasion, justifying the normality of integration and transformation.
For the psyche of society, just as for that of the individual, talking
about the motives of fear lifts the fear itself. In short, by endlessly
talking on issues of integration, by continuously problematising it, over
the span of almost 150 years, at least an important part of the Turkish
architectural audience became ready to hear and produce alternative
discourses no longer centred on the subject.
Outstanding Turkish buildings of the past 20 years, if nothing else,
have at least demonstrated that the issue of integration has evolved
from being merely the psychoanalytical subject of conversation into
architectural actuality. Works that have recently been published in the
Turkish architectural media show that a certain section of Turkish
architectural production has finally achieved that all-problematic goal
of integration. The majority of buildings published in the national press
are on a par with those in the international architectural media.
101

Without a doubt, some could benefit from this

opportunity. Nevertheless, the problem of integration
remains. As Turks witness success in integration, they
may also realise that they are, in fact, reproducing their
own predicament. Constructing mentally an actuality by
considering it the other, while simultaneously wanting to
assume otherness by joining it because the other and the
self are defined as mirror images, creates a serious
psychopathological impasse.
Undoubtedly there is a possible though not easy
solution to the seemingly insurmountable problem of
identity: forgetting about the discourses that are centred
either implicitly or explicitly on integration, and starting
to rethink architecture by establishing new discourses and
different lines of thought. A very large portion of Turkish
society, however, does not seem ready to leave behind
identity-based discursive practices. The paranoia of
identity is still an important phenomenon that is expected
to be overcome through the realisation of architectural
works. For example, a new governmental programme of
102

courthouse construction has given many Anatolian towns historicist

buildings which propagate Turkishness. Municipal authorities
everywhere generally intend to express their political imagination of
national identity through the public structures they build. Mosque
architecture seldom produces buildings that cannot be defined
stylistically as Turkish or Ottoman. An explanation can be provided
with the reversal and extension of Marxs much quoted words: along
with the processes of modernisation all that is solid melts into air, but
the same processes create a desire to resolidify all that is melted.
Nevertheless, a small but influential group of architects, especially
in Istanbul and Ankara, ignore this desire and try to go behind the
established discursive practices. For them, the dichotomy of the
EastWest is not a credible or self-evident fact. The 200-year-old
obsession with inherent identities is now under threat from a new
understanding based on the notion of cultural difference rather than
the cultural diversity within a binary division of the East and the West.
Instead of the coexistence of culturally pure opposites, what is
observed in the world-historical context by them now is a constant
production of hybridity. This provides the new possibility of
enabling architecture to be discussed on its own terms without

Emre Arolat Architects, Minicity, Antalya, Turkey, 2004

repetitively discussing ideological positions and

engagements at least for a group of architects
and their clients.
Among the group of architects who have freed
themselves from the discussions about identity, Emre
Arolat, Gkhan AvcIog lu, Melkan and Murat TabanlIog lu,
and Han Tmertekin are particularly important. All in
their forties, this group forms the younger generation of
Turkish architects. Their works differ in size, content and
morphology. They share, however, the radical denial of
traditionalism and historicism. On the other hand, they all
prefer to discuss their works as mere architectural
realities without theorising them within supraarchitectural contexts. On the contrary, they problematise
or simply ignore conventions, especially the ones ardently
defended by the Turkish architectural establishment.
Without doubt, the best recent work shows the most
radical denials of convention, some of which can be
defined as Deconstructive practices. Tmertekins SM
House in Assos (2006) on the Aegean shore, extensively

published abroad, is an example of this practice: the masonry

construction becomes a semitransparent skin that does not function as
a conventional load-bearing wall, but is born like a continuous sunbreaker shell by the buildings steel skeleton. Here, Tmertekin
brilliantly problematises a traditionalist expectation dominating the
whole of coastal Turkey. TabanlIog lus ultra-luxurious Sapphire
apartment block in Istanbul (2006) is equally innovative, merging the
skyscraper with typical terrace housing units. All the apartments have a
common garden in front of them, repeating on every three floors. And
Arolats Minicity in Antalya (2004) is an exercise in blurring the
boundaries between landscape planning and building design.
In these works and numerous others, the intentions of the architects
have nothing to do with the obsession with identity, which has
intellectually castrated previous generations. What characterises
qualitatively, not quantitatively, the last 10 years of Turkish
architectural production is that the producers do not ceaselessly ask
themselves Who am I?. 4
Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 96-7, 98(t) Cemal Emden; pp 98(b),
99 TabanlIoglu Architects; p 98 (inset) TabanlIoglu Architects, photo Cemal Emden;
p 100-03 Emre Arolat Architects, photos Cemal Emden

103

Contributors
Tevfik BalcIog lu is the Dean of the Faculty of
Fine Arts & Design at izmir University of
Economics. He studied at the Middle East
Technical University, attended the Royal
College of Art, and taught at Goldsmiths
College and the Kent Institute of Art and
Design, where he established and ran the
BA (Hons) in Three Dimensional Design.
He has organised several international
conferences, edited a number of books
including The Role of Product Design in
Post-Industrial Society (Kent Institute of Art
and Design, 1998), and published many
articles and conference papers. He is the
founder of Design History Society, Turkey.
Glsm Baydar received her PhD from the
University of California at Berkeley. She
has taught various design, history and
theory courses at the University of
California, National University of Singapore,
MIT, University of Adelaide, Australia and
Bilkent University, Ankara. She is presently
the Chair of the Department of Architecture
at the izmir University of Economics. Her
work explores the boundaries of the
discipline of architecture and has appeared
in many journals. She is the co-editor of
Postcolonial Space(s) (Princeton
Architectural Press, 1997) and Negotiating
Domesticity (Routledge, 2005).
Edhem Eldem is a professor in the
Department of History of Bogazii
University, Istanbul, and has taught as a
visiting professor at the University of
California at Berkeley and at the cole des
Hautes tudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris.
Among his fields of interest are foreign
trade in the Levant in the 18th century,
Ottoman funerary epigraphy, the
development of an urban bourgeoisie in late
19th-century Istanbul, the history of the
Imperial Ottoman Bank, and late 19thcentury Ottoman first-person narratives and
biographies. His publications include:
French Trade in Istanbul in the Eighteenth
Century (Brill, 1999); A History of the
Ottoman Bank (Ottoman Bank, 1999);
Death in Istanbul: Death and its Rituals in
Ottoman-Islamic Culture (Istanbul, 2005);
and Consuming the Orient (Ottoman Bank
Archive and Research Centre, 2007).
Hlya Ertas is the managing editor of the
monthly published architecture and design
magazine XXI in Turkey and editor of the
Yeni Mimar architecture newspaper. She
completed her architectural education at
Istanbul Technical University in 2005,
where she is currently studying for her MSc
in architecture. Her research areas cover
spectacular architecture and its reflections
on the daily life of citizens, how

104

globalisation affects architecture, and the

ethics of the architectural practice.
Michael U Hensel is an architect, researcher
and writer. He is Professor for Research by
Design at AHO the Oslo School for
Architecture and Design, where he is
involved in setting up an architectural
research centre. He is founding and board
member of the OCEAN Research and
Design Association, as well as board
member of BIONIS the Biomimetics
Network for Industrial Sustainability and
editorial board member of AD and the
Journal of Bionic Engineering. He has
published, taught, lectured and exhibited in
Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australia.
His research interest and forthcoming
publications focus on performance-oriented
architecture.
Tolga islam is a research assistant in the
Department of Urban and Regional
Planning at Ylldlz Technical University,
Istanbul. He has studied the gentrification
process in the Galata neighbourhood of
Istanbul in his Masters thesis and is
currently studying state-led gentrification
processes in Istanbul in his PhD thesis. He
is co-editor of the book Istanbulda
SoylulastIrma: Eski Kentin Yeni Sakinleri
(Gentrification in Istanbul: the New Owners
of the Old City). He has also written a
number of articles and papers, and attended
several conferences on issues related to
Istanbuls gentrification processes.
Zeynep Kezer is a lecturer at the School of
Architecture Planning and Landscape at
Newcastle University. She has a Masters in
architecture and a PhD in the history of
architecture from the University of
California at Berkeley. Her research focuses
on the relationship between nation-building
processes and the transformations of space
and spatial practices in Turkey. Her articles
have appeared in edited volumes and in the
Journal of Architectural Education,
Informationen zur modernen
Stadtgeschichte and, most recently,
Environment and Planing D: Space and
Society. She is currently working on a
manuscript entitled Building the NationState: State Space and Ideology in Early
Republican Turkey.
Defne Sunguroglu Hensel is an architect,
interior architect and researcher. She has
completed her Diploma, RIBA II and MSc in
architecture at the Architectural
Association. She is currently pursuing her
PhD entitled Multiple Performance
Integration Model as a research fellow at
AHO the Oslo School for Architecture and

Design. She is a board member of the

OCEAN Research and Design Association.
She has been involved in numerous
research projects that have focused on
performance-oriented design methods,
design innovation and alternative
approaches to sustainability in architecture.
She has taught, lectured and exhibited
internationally and her work has been
published widely.
Ugur Tanyeli graduated from the Department
of Architecture at Istanbul State Academy
of Fine Arts in 1976. He completed his
doctoral thesis at the Istanbul Technical
University in 1986, and has taught the
history of architecture at the Academy of
Fine Arts, Istanbul Technical University and
Anadolu University. He received the Turkish
Chamber of Architects Contribution to
Architecture Award in 1994, and currently
teaches in the Faculty of Architecture at
Ylldlz Technical University in Istanbul. He
has been editor of the Turkish architectural
magazine Arredamento Mimarllk since
1989, and has written numerous books and
organised several architectural exhibitions.

ilhan Tekeli is Professor of City and

Regional Planning at the Middle East
Technical University and has published
extensively on this field, as well as on
planning theory, macro-geography, the
geography of migration and political
behaviour, the theory and history of local
administrations in Turkey,urbanisation and
urban policy, economic policy, the
economic history of Turkey, and the history
of cities, space and society. His
bibliography covers more than 60 books
and 500 articles and conference papers on
these subjects published in various
languages. He has won several social
science awards, including the Sedat Simavi
Award of Social Science (1989, together
with Selim ilkin) and the Mustafa Parlar
Award of Science (1994). He received the
TBiTAK Life-Long Service award in 2006,
and has been a member of the Turkish
Academy of Sciences since 1995.
Banu Tomruk is a PhD candidate at the
School of Architecture at Istanbul Technical
University. She has a Masters in
architecture from Ylldlz Technical
University. She has been a fellow of the
Bauhaus Dessau Foundation since 2007.
Her research focuses on the dynamics of
urban transformation in medium-size
Anatolian cities. She is currently working on
her PhD thesis entitled Restructuring
Medium-Size Anatolian Cities after the
1980s: the Case of Bursa.

4+

106+

128+

Practice Profile
Amanda Levete Architects
(AL_A)
Mark Garcia

114+

Spillers Bits
Telling Stories
Neil Spiller

130+

Interior Eye
Jil Sander Boutique and Derek
Lam Boutique, New York City
Jayne Merkel

Yeangs Eco-Files
Designing for Low-Carbon
Lifestyles
Mukti Mitchell and
Ken Yeang

120+

134+

Building Profile
Raven Row, Spitalfields
David Littlefield

124+

Unit Factor
The EmTech Wave Canopy 2009
Michael Weinstock

McLeans Nuggets
Will McLean

136+

Userscape
Dynamic Light: The Media
Facades of realities:united
Valentina Croci

140+

The Museum is the Exhibit

Jayne Merkel

142+

Site Lines
Library of Birmingham
Howard Watson

PRACTICE PROFILE

Amanda
Levete
Architects
(AL_A)

Like a phoenix rising from the

ashes, Amanda Levete Architects
(AL_A) is taking up where Future
Systems left off. Led by Amanda
Levete, previous co-director of Future
Systems with the late Jan Kaplicky, the
practice retains its unique sensibility
with its emphasis on new technologies,
materials, science and engineering
combined with art, design, fashion and the
organic. Mark Garcia visited AL_As Notting
Hill-based studios to review the current
projects of this 40-strong team and to talk to
Levete about the underlying design principles
and processes behind the offices work.

left: AL_A directors and Amanda Levete.

From left to right: Ho-Yin Ng, Amanda
Levete, Kwamina Monney and Alvin Huang.
News Corporations HQ, Wapping, London,
due for completion 2013
opposite: A 33-metre (108.2-foot) high
atrium carved out of the original print works
with a series of other atria along main
circulation paths to maximise natural
lighting and ventilation.

There is something quite exceptional about AL_A and

Amanda Levete. Walking into their airy warehouse office
in Notting Hill Gate one can literally feel the weight of
both past and future. Judging by the circumstances of
its birth, this very young/established practice is destined
to excel. For Levete previously headed up Future
Systems together with the late Jan Kaplicky. The
precocious old/new firm thus has an illustrious heritage
encapsulated by the re-emergence in this new venture of
the gifted and resilient Amanda Levete (a leader of the
Stirling Prize-winning team that built the Lords Media
Centre and Selfridges in Birmingham). AL_A has hit the
ground running.
Levetes work and drive exhibit a level of athletic,
disciplined training, of technical control and expertise
which never looks over its shoulder. Moving from the
entrance of the offices to the business end with its
working and meeting areas, one can understand why.
The walk is one through an architectural heroes hall of
fame, with award-winning work displayed like prizes on
tables and walls. So while the firm is linked to its legacy,
it is also on course for an increasingly long-haul journey
aboard its latest reincarnation.
The reforging of Levetes well-tempered pragmatism,
tenacity and boldness make her new firm long awaited.
AL_A has only been in existence for six months (at the
time of writing), and though some of its recent projects
(such as Hills Place and Spencer Dock Bridge) were
under Levetes lead and designed under Future Systems,
many are completely new. Her work is pitched between
the expressive, Romantic clat and imagination of the
artist and the strictly objective, technical rationality and
authority of the scientistengineer. It is this careful
poise, blending and balancing itself into hybrids of
harmonised oppositional tendencies that brands these
designs. Elegant, aerodynamic, artful and urbanely hightech, this new body of design projects exudes an
increasingly multidisciplinary and multimedia range of
influences that extends well beyond engineering,

science and high design to embrace aspects of the crafts more

informal, popular, high-performance, streamlined manifestations in
fashion, sport, leisure, entertainment and the media.
As Levete explains: What we do is who we are. AL_As 40strong,
youngish, barefoot personnel appear neat but casual, hard at work at
white desks in a single large open-plan, pink-carpeted space where the
only daylight falls in long slits of sky through the transparent roof.
Aside from Levete, each of the three directors is responsible for their
own projects, but also oversees different aspects of the firms
corporate functions. Alvin Huang, who specialises in digital design,
production and constructions, is also responsible for organising the
offices design research; Kwamina Monneys interests centre on the
more artful, handcrafted and collaborative aspects of design
processes, cultural diversity, and multidisciplinarity and sustainable
design; Ho-Yin Ng engineers the IT infrastructure and the management
of parametric, manufacturing and emerging technologies, their
processes and products.
Research Systems and Structures
The centrality of research to AL_As work is part of the reason why
Levete was sought out by the Department of Architecture at the Royal
College of Art (as external examiner and now visiting professor). This is
the height of high-concept architecture. At each scale and stage of
work, the office identifies a specific strand of research. For Levete:
Whether the research is material, geometrical, about fabrication,
a social dimension or of any other kind [it] is relentlessly
pursued. It makes the work analytical and intellectual both in
context and programme and it leads to a less object-based
result. The work is not just about form and the object, but also
about the performance of the building on cultural, social and
other less determinate dimensions What we do is not bounded
by the object in this formalist way.
What is common to the work of both Future Systems and AL_A is their
distillation of new technology, materials, science and engineering with
art, design, fashion and the organic. Part of this is evident in the
networked approach to their research demonstrated in the division of
labour and specialisms among the firms directors, part in the fact that
107+

Chteau Lacoste Footbridge, Bordeaux, France. 2009

Card model of the parametrically designed bridge. AL_As research
exploits the discursive synergies and reflexive dialectics between the
digital and the physical as an integrated trajectory of exploration in
which both methods are necessary components of each line of
investigation. Both digital and physical methods were employed in
this project to allow the designers to go beyond what might otherwise
have been a simplistic, purely parametric study of a continuously
varying, twisting and folding bridge without handrails.

Levete is a serial collaborator. She includes Antony Gormley and

Anish Kapoor among a host of others in her list of professional
partnerships and is keen to bring in economists to make the
practices research yet more relevant. It is these kinds of lateral
fusion, seasoned and tested in previous projects, that drive the firms
originality and added value. The AL_A brand of the shock of the new
is (like Future Systems was) consistently futuristic and radical in a
very welcome, sensuous, strangely familiar and friendly way,
something in sharp contrast to much other high-tech work that can
seem menacing, too alien and mechanistic. This tension between
design constraints is expressed in solutions that seem effortlessly
playful, colourful and humane. It is a fusion, updated and refined,
that is now also proving popular, for AL_A is not short of work.
The firms approach to research is exemplified in three of its most
recent projects: Spencer Dock Bridge in Dublin, and Hills Place in
London (both completed in 2009) and Central Embassy in Bangkok
(due for completion in 2013.). The lenticular, slitty oculi cut into the
street elevation have the aesthetic of Lucio Fontana slash paintings,
shark gills and (Pininfarina) sports cars or fighter-jet air-intake vents.
These oculi have something of the filleted, racy apertures in the roof
of the (unbuilt) Future Systems Masserati Museum in Modena (2004)
and remind us that Levete has worked on projects for a number of
high-profile luxury racing-car brands, including interiors and
exhibition designs for Ferrari (Frankfurt 2001 and Paris 2002). The
softer, more fashionesque cuts of these forms, reminiscent of the
slash n pull techniques of Vivienne Westwood and the Elizabethans,
are linked to their textile sensibility; unsurprising, considering
Levetes long-term relationship with fashion and retail.
AL_A Tower, Shoreditch,
London, 2009
Parametric design development
(on in-house scripted
Grasshopper software) to refine
balcony and solar-shade panel
geometries, investigate tower
height and twist, and
automate/integrate the facade
elements model to automatically
adjust to changes in the base
tower geometry (ie, floor
height/number of floors) as the
design evolves.

108+

Hills Place, London, 2009

Completed in September 2009, Hills Place is a slickly gleaming

five-storey, 1,320-square-metre (14,220-square-foot) jewel of
an office for Clarendon Properties with all the styling, detail,
and sense of prowess and glamour of minimalist couture, luxury
sports cars and high-performance racing yachts. Its main,
street-facing elevation is formed of a tongue-and-groove
system of curving 140-millimetre (5.5-inch) aluminium strips
which have been coated with a metallic silver paint, a
combination used in the manufacturing of ship hulls. Projecting
from this surface are three large windows made from selfcleaning glass, three surgically tailored dissections to create a
neat solution to the situation of its narrow, side-alley site. So
unattractive is the spatially crowding street, so limiting of
horizontal daylighting, that the building raises its eyes upwards
to maximise privacy, making the sky the most important visual
connection with the exterior. Its stealthy surface mirrors the
alley in a flattering, well-mannered way while it generously
bounces some of its borrowed light to (at times and in the right
angle) liquefy itself and simultaneously lighten up its
neighbours. The ground floor is fronted by a fibre-optically
illuminated facade of sandwiched glass, steel mesh and
dichromatic film over a semitranslucent layer that creates a
coloured, virtually 3-D moir pattern. Hills Place is the closest
Oxford Street comes to contemporary landmark architecture.

109+

Another example of Amanda Levetes original and

significant research lies in the double piers and
underdeck of the Spencer Dock Bridge. Merging into a
lean monocoque structure that swoops and dives into
and out of the water in a single surface manoeuvre to
form two conical feet in the river, the design recalls the
montage (but not the model) of the (unbuilt) Future
Systems Peoples Bridge (1996) across the Thames, as
well as the more recent Amanda Levete Drift Bench and
other furniture. The oversailing wings of the bridge
echo the earlier (unbuilt) Future Systems River Clyde
Bridge of 2005 and other details of the shearing,
flowing tiers of spaces featured in the internal massings
of many Future Systems projects. Constructed from both
in situ and precast reinforced concrete and white
limestone, the mouldings for the soffit were CNC-milled
from resin-coated polystyrene, directly from parametric
models. The bridge is currently the largest example of
this type of digitally led manufacturing process.
More of this type of AL_A research is behind the
three-dimensional topographic landscape of ceramic
tiles on the deep envelope for the Central Embassy,
Bangkok, a design solution stimulated by research
funded by a Churchill Fellowship for travel and study

Spencer Dock Bridge, Dublin, Ireland, 2009

above: 3-D parametric computer model formwork
components and geometry screen shot.
right: Cantilevering wings and feet of the
bridges single-surface underdeck.

110+

into patterns and artisanal techniques in traditional Thai

architecture. As AL_A director Alvin Huang points out,
this research resulted in a combination of indigenous
patterns, materials and fabrication methods that
furnishes unusually for a building with such a
parametric pedigree a strong and poetically contextual
twist. The effect is to bestow a consistency and coherence
on the whole envelope and form, lending them kinetic
differentiation intensified by the changing light over the
course of the day, introducing novelty and providing the
viewer with shifting sites of fascination.
The tiles are an intelligent advance on the spun
aluminium discs of the Future Systems Birmingham
Selfridges, while its cross-legged, 3-D figure-8-type
Mbius strip-like forms are also found in Amanda Levetes
slinky and sinuous Around the Corner (2008) series of
furniture and products. The continuous morphing of the
patterns generates some spectacular optical and trompe
loeil spatial effects, making this building seem at times
more virtual than real and positioning the work not just as
architecture, but as large-scale Op Art sculpture, digital
urban public artwork, and possibly the largest urban-scale
optical illusion ever designed. This is Op-Arch at its
cutting-edge zenith.

Spencer Dock Bridge, Dublin, Ireland, 2009

The 4.5-million, 40-metre (131-foot) concrete Spencer Dock

Bridge built across the Royal Canal for the Dublin Docklands
Development Authority Railway Procurement Agency carries trams,
cars and pedestrians. It is almost wider than it is long, AL_A
stretched and pulled the bridge so that its edges shear down and
away from the traffic. These edges swerve out and back smoothly,
terrace-stepped to hang suspended over the water in a finny,
curvy cantilever. The perpendicular, asymmetrical wings flap out

in a tonguey, lippy pout at the canal. The design is a mixed

typology of landscape, infrastructure, product and public
urban sculpture, as much a stopping-off point and destination
as a transit space. Sewing together the banks and the linear
park alongside it, this is a giant urban stitch in the flows of
the city: a venue in its own right, the bridge is begging for
cultural and social events.

111+

Central Embassy, Bangkok, Thailand,

due for completion in 2013

In March 2009, AL_A announced its Central Embassy project. A

140,000-square-metre (1.5 million-square-foot) retail and hotel
complex for the Central Retail Corporation, it is located on
central Bangkoks main shopping thoroughfare, Ploen Chit
Road. Central Embassy consists of a seven-storey retail block
and a 30-storey six-star hotel. The overall form is a unified and
snaking, spiralled mass so sculptural and so unlike any other
building in the city that it is set to become Bangkoks first
contemporary landmark building and a Thai icon. The
enveloping form simultaneously enfolds two vertical lightwells

112+

in the slab and diversifies itself to articulate a sequence of

staggered terraces, external courtyard and elevated garden
elements distributed around the hotel. Central Embassy is
an original solution to the major millennial architectural
problem of big-box, megastructure, mixed-use, buildingcomplex projects that require a tower and a large,
horizontal plinth to form a single isolated building on a
large open site in which no single elevation must
dominate. Central Embassy is AL_As and Levetes largest
and most programmatically complex building to date.

Central Embassy, Bangkok,

Thailand, due for completion 2013
Retail entrance elevation showing the
effect of the parametrically patterned
landscaping of tiles on the facades.

Details of the tiles and their

parametric patternings.

Flightlines of Great Futures

AL_As systematically piloted vectors of design
development are one of its core strengths, enabling the
practice to build on and extend its historic interwoven
networks of research into evolving trajectories of
investigation and innovation, trajectories that work
beyond individual, discrete buildings to extend through
projects and over time. The success of this distinctive
research sensibility is already borne out by AL_As
burgeoning portfolio and, tellingly, by the fact that most
of their clients come to them. Among current
commissions are the News Corporation headquarters in
Wapping, an exhibition on choreography at the Hayward
Gallery, houses in London and Dublin, an academy in
Southwark, and a department store in Milan, as well as
the usual portfolio of products. AL_A has high, lofty
dreams, including masterplan designs for the
refurbishment of existing cities as well as designs for
galleries, stadia, factories, stations, concert halls and
even a nuclear power station.
What is so remarkable about this practice, then, is
not just the manner of AL_As phoenix-like rise and
relaunch from the glory and tragedy of the pioneering
Future Systems. For its profile is in part recognition of

what AL_A has already achieved not just through Levetes contribution,
but through the firms current projects and the cleverly controlled
design processes, people and possibilities of its precisely researched
range of projects and partners.
Departing the office, one is struck by the idea that the workspace is
itself another AL_A signature hybrid, one programmatically somewhere
between an office, museum, laboratory, lounge, showroom, university
and shop, a space designed more like a ship or an airliner. Which is
apt, as looking back at the staff watching the sky clear after a thunderstorm, it is as if a kind of take-off as much as a rebirth might just have
occurred. A legendary architect once wrote: There is not enough flying
in Architecture.1 Well watch this bird soar. 4+
Mark Garcia is an academic, author and journalist. He has worked in industry as Research
and Development Manager for Branson Coates Architecture and has held academic research
and management posts at St Antonys College, Oxford, and in the Department of Industrial
Design Engineering at the Royal College of Art. He has taught MA and MPhil/PhD students
in the departments of Textiles and Industrial Design Engineering, and in the Department of
Architecture where he was most recently Research Co-ordinator and an MPhil/PhD
Supervisor. He is the guest-editor of the AD issues Architextiles and Patterns of Architecture,
and editor of the book The Diagrams of Architecture (John Wiley & Sons, 2010).
Note
1. Jan Kaplicky, Confessions, John Wiley & Sons (Chichester), 2002, p 62.
Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 106-8, 110(t), 112-13 Amanda
Levete Architects 2009; pp 109(t&bl), 110(b), 111 Amanda Levete Architects, photos
Gidon Fuehrer 2009; p 109(br) Mark Garcia

113+

INTERIOR EYE

JIL SANDER
BOUTIQUE AND
DEREK LAM
BOUTIQUE,
NEW YORK
CITY

The recession devastating retail

in most places is nowhere to be
found in a recently shabby area of New
Yorks SoHo, just north of Chinatown.
Among a handful of new boutiques, galleries
and at least one hot new restaurant are two
recently opened shops that demonstrate the
emerging interconnections between fashion and
architectural design. Jayne Merkel explains that Jil
Sander creative director Raf Simons, who is now
designing the Jil Sander line, also designed the
store that houses it and, a few doors away, the
much lauded new designer Derek Lam selected
one of his first customers, Kazuyo Sejima of
SANAA, to design his first retail store.
114+

Raf Simons and Germaine Kruip,

Jil Sander boutique, New York, 2008
above: The ground floor of the Jil Sander store is a
kind of art gallery intended to offer customers a
chance to view the collection in a pristine, detached
atmosphere similar to a fashion show. Garment
selection and sales take place upstairs where there
are changing rooms and cashiers.

High style is subtly nestled into a newly developing area

of SoHo, a little south and east of the now
overdeveloped main drag. Here, some shabby wholesale
outlets and small industrial spaces still coexist with the
newcomers Ted Muehling jewellery design, BDDW
custom furniture and a new space for the Museum of
Chinese in America, designed by Maya Lin, which
opened in autumn 2009, right across the street from the
simply chic Red Egg restaurant specialising in ChinesePeruvian food. The turnaround in this lost little corner of
bustling Manhattan began six years ago when the
Philippine-born art and antiques dealer Federico De
Vera opened a shop on the northeast corner of Crosby
and Howard streets in a high-ceilinged, cast-ironcolumned space with windows on two sides. He painted
the entire interior black, installed simple modern cases
and spare stainless-steel bookshelves, and then allowed
the spotlighted, varied, exotic works of art and jewellery
to bring the space to life.

opposite: The first floor of the Jil Sander

boutique is spare and elegant, too. Simple
stainless-steel hangers placed on simple
stainless-steel racks hold garments in neat,
widely spaced rows. Shoes and bags are
artfully arranged on marble shelves. Both
are illuminated by rows of Serge Mouille
arm ceiling lamps.

Across the street on the northwest corner of Crosby and Howard

streets, the new light-filled, all-white Jil Sander store is the ying to De
Veras yang. The very severe but beautifully made garments for sale are
placed far apart in this spacious 535-square-metre (6,300-squarefoot) two-storey shop that devotes the whole ground floor to a gallerylike display intended to provide an experience midway between that of
a fashion show and a regular store. Slim Carrara marble shelves hold a
few artfully displayed shoes and bags. Geometric pedestals hold clutch
purses and earrings under Plexiglass covers and pedestals hold
abstract mannequins, but the main statement is made by the veined
white Carrara marble floors and the absence of almost anything else.
At the back of the ground-floor gallery, tall vertical slats, mirrored on
one side and flat white on the other, shimmer as they rotate in unison
providing a fountain-like quality. They enliven the room, reflect images
of the customers, and shield the serene display area from a severely
geometric white marble staircase at the back of the room that leads to
the first floor. The exquisitely detailed, rigidly geometric staircase was
designed by the Dutch artist Germaine Kruip. The rotating slats were
also created by Kruip who has installed similar ones in European
115+

above: Upstairs, triangular mirrored

dressing rooms, also designed by Kruip,
penetrate the otherwise pristine space,
reflecting activity inside and outside the
windows on two sides. This part of the
space is a real store, where customers
can take garments off the racks, try
them on and actually buy them.

The ground floor is a pristine gallery

space with Carrara marble slab floors.
Most side-wall windows are covered with
plain wallboard, and at the back of the
space, tall vertical slats, mirrored on one
side and flat white on the other, rotate in
unison, partly hiding a severely geometric
white marble staircase that, like the
shimmering slats, was designed by the
Dutch artist Germaine Kruip.

SANAA, Derek Lam boutique, New York, 2009

In SANAAs new Derek Lam boutique, the
architects demonstrate their wizardry with
layers of transparency created by a series of
rounded interior rooms, or bubbles, one for
each of the designers equally dramatic and
flowing collections.

museums and galleries. She also placed rotating, opaque

white, vertical slatted blinds in the stores ground-floor
front and corner windows to create a peek-a-boo effect,
teasingly uniting the space with the street.
Kruips rotating, mirrored rear wall continues upstairs
where spare stainless-steel racks holding garments on
hangers make the space look a little more like a store,
though the same marble slabs artfully display shoes and
accessories under neat rows of Serge Mouille arm ceiling
lamps. Here there are even changing rooms, also
designed by Kruip, though it takes a while to figure out
that these elegant, freestanding, triangular mirrored
objects actually have a practical purpose. The message
clearly is that art, architecture, fashion and design are
all one thing. Certainly, the shop shares the same very
spare, beautifully detailed, geometric aesthetic as the Jil
Sander line, which is also now designed by the Antwerpbased Raf Simons, who trained as an industrial
designer, since Sander herself left the company in 2004
after selling it to Prada five years earlier.
A few doors up Crosby Street, Derek Lams first retail
store also shares the aesthetic of his collections, which

are soft, fluid and gracefully draped instead of crisp and geometric like
Sanders. Here the 260-square-metre (2,800-square-foot) space on the
ground floor of a five-storey brick loft building is even more
sensational; unsurprisingly, since it was designed by SANAAs Kazuyo
Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa. Although these Tokyo-based international
architects have been doing public buildings recently, they did design
the HH Style store in Tokyo in 2000, the Prada Beauty boutique in
Hong Kong in 2001, and the Issey Miyake by Naoki Takizawa shop and
the Christian Dior building, both in Tokyo and both completed in 2003.
Although the Derek Lam store has the same austere art gallery feel as
their first New York building, the New Museum of Contemporary Art
half a mile to the northeast, the shop gave the architects a better
1
chance to show what they can do with transparency. This deep, highceilinged, loft-like space with whitewashed exposed brick walls is filled
with a series of transparent bubbles that often glisten in the natural
light from generous street-front store windows, where mannequins face
the sidewalk in a rather traditional way.
The rounded interior partitions, with 2.5-centimetre (1-inch) thick
acrylic walls, separate one collection from another, providing an
intimacy for customers that a larger space could not, even though one
can see through them. Somehow they are comforting and exciting at
the same time. Highly polished, bare, one-pour concrete floors very
117+

above left: One elongated, double-curved space holds

aluminium benches for accessory display which curve
fetchingly along the bubble walls.
above right: Crinkly gold curtains create some of the most
dramatic dressing rooms in New York. These shimmering
dividers also provide flexibility for displays in other parts of
the store and contrast dramatically with the very smooth,
one-pour grey concrete floors they barely skim.

118+

opposite: Near the entrance, a small round

bubble housing original cast-iron columns that
were already in the space is visible from Crosby
Street in the generous shop windows. Slits in
ceiling panels provide a different audial
environment in each space, and pin lights allow
different lighting effects for each collection.

refined versions of those ubiquitous in art galleries these

days keep the space both simple and elegant, as do
plain aluminium clothing racks, staff-like mannequins,
and plants in plain terracotta flowerpots. Minimal
furnishings a few rectangular wood and aluminium
tables, serpentine aluminium display stands,
upholstered benches and stem-like display stands
evoke particularly delicate examples of mid-century
modern design, such as Eero Saarinen tulip chairs and
geometric Florence Knoll tables. Each sensuous bubble
has a different configuration (large round, small round,
amoeboid, relaxed rubber band), a different pattern of
overhead pin lights, and its own sound system for a
unique effect. Simple slits in circular ceiling panels
provide conditioned air. Crinkly floor-to-ceiling gold
curtains add glitter, offer varying options for displays
within the bubbles, and create unbelievably sensuous
changing rooms.
SANAA engaged New York architect Toshihiro Oki,
who was born in Tokyo but educated in the US, as
executive architect on this unusually sensuous project.
Derek Lam is a New York-based fashion designer who
trained with Michael Kors and founded his company
with Jan-Hendrik Schlottman in 2002. The companys
atelier, offices and a showroom are located on the upper
storeys of the 19th-century industrial building that houses

the store. They were designed by the Brooklyn-based firm Solid Objectives,
whose founders, Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu, are former SANAA
employees. They also created some of the subtle furnishings for the store.
The curved acrylic walls are similar to those used in aquariums
everywhere and were made by the same company. They were
manufactured in Thailand as flat acrylic sheets and then shipped to
Nevada where they were heat-moulded into curves before being loaded
on to wide-bodied trucks and hauled across the country in the middle of
the night many nights. US states only allow wide-bodied shipments
to travel on highways between midnight and 5 am, and the factory is a
38-hour drive from New York. Since the walls are so large and there are
so many of them, it took at least three separate shipments to deliver
the interior partitions for the store. When they arrived in New York, the
owners had to turn the heat way up so that they would not break, and
remove the transom and door to get them in, rolled on tiny titanium
casters. They create an atmosphere not quite like that anywhere else:
fluid and glistening. Because they are almost invisible from some
perspectives, a few customers have walked into them, so minimalist
mannequins and potted plants now guard dangerous un-corners.
Nothing should get in the way of the treat it is to visit this store. 4+
Note
1. See SANAAs New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, AD Interior Atmospheres,
Vol 78, No 3, May/June 2008, pp 98101.
Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 114-116 Jil Sander; pp 117-119
Benoit Pailley

119+

BUILDING PROFILE

Raven Row,
Spitalfields
Subject to many
adaptations and
reworkings over the
centuries, Raven Row in
Londons Spitalfields
displays resilience and an
enduring quality. David
Littlefield describes how
6a Architects have relied
on impeccable judgement
in their renovation of
what were once silk
merchants premises into a
non-profit contemporary
art centre, enabling them
to combine cheeky
references with authentic
craftsmanship.
(below left) 1960s view of the silk merchants premises.
Knocked into a single office after the Second World War,
the building has now been reinvented as the Raven Row
contemporary art centre. (below centre) Despite a fire in
1972, the architecture of the building remained: the
panelling was replaced faithfully, while concrete floors
were inserted elsewhere in the building. (below right) The
same view of the burned doorway today. 6a Architects
have preserved the texture of the walls, but applied an art
gallery aesthetic of white walls and timber floors.

There is a moment of subtlety in this building that

encapsulates 6a Architects approach to creating a 21stcentury gallery out of what began as an 18th-century,
Huguenot silk merchants premises. The flattened arch of
the original building does not meet its brand-new
extension with a self-conscious line or flamboyant
contrast. The moment of meeting is indeterminate; as the
orthogonal language of the extension approaches the
Georgian building, the angle between wall and ceiling
dissolves into a three-dimensional curve. Architectural
languages do not so much touch, as fuse. What the
architects have done is regard the building as a centuriesold work in progress. So many acts of revision have been
visited upon 56 Artillery Lane during its lifetime that
commonplace juxtapositions of old and new would appear
clumsy and simplistic. Even a postwar addition was
treated with a degree of respect: 1972 is as real as
1754, says practice director Tom Emerson.
These dates are significant. The pair of buildings,
constructed as adjacent shops and dwellings near
Londons Spitalfields, were built in 1754. After the
Second World War they were roughly handled, merging
into a single office premises while retaining their
Georgian facades with Regency additions. A serious
fire in 1972 triggered a major restoration
effort, although concrete floor slabs were
also introduced at ground level,

along with a new lift and circulation core at the rear. But the
biography is actually more complicated than that. Vestiges of
previous buildings, notably stairwells and fireplaces, remain from
the 1720s. More curious still, the interior of a principal first-floor
room was stripped out in the 1920s and shipped to Chicago, only
to return as a super-complicated jigsaw puzzle in the 1980s.
Stored in an Essex barn, the panelling, window shutters and fire
surround (having escaped the fire because of their US sojourn)
were retrieved by 6a and restored to their original location, with
adjustments here and there due to building slippage. The building
is, despite the abrupt changes and accidents that have occurred
throughout its history, still very much itself. Even the fire, which
was considerable, failed to cut too deeply. Despite the fire, the
architecture was still there. There was something enduring, a
certain resilience, says Emerson.
Bought by supermarket heir Alex Sainsbury, these fine spaces
have been refashioned into the not-for-profit Raven Row art space.
According to Emerson, Sainsbury was a thoughtful and sensitive
client, and together they developed an approach that blends
restoration, conservation, experiment, absolute modernity and
even, perhaps, a little knowing Postmodernism cheeky
references that manage to be both new and old, keeping English
Heritage satisfied while avoiding the need for too much slavish
reinstatement. A handrail and door knob, for example, appear as
rough metal casts of 18th-century originals. A small, concrete,
cantilevered stair (unquestionably contemporary) has been
assembled using the very same techniques Georgian contractors

6a Architects, Raven Row contemporary

art centre, Spitalfields, London, 2009
View through the additional space at the
rear of the building, through the flattened
arch to the 18th-century reception area.
The join between new and old is blurred.

121+

The rear of the building is clad

in casts of burned timbers. A
large window here provides
clear views through the gallery.

Second-floor spaces, now art galleries, retain many

of their domestic features, though the interior fitout is not from a single historic period.

122+

This first-floor room, the interior of which was

moved to Chicago in the 1920s, escaped the
fire. The fireplace remains bare, however.

above: Section through the development. The 18th-century

building can be seen on the left; the building on the right is a
newer residential building, under which sits a gallery extension.
left: Raised window lights on the green roof, under which the
new gallery is positioned. Burned timbers provide the cladding.

would have employed. This project is about, more than

anything else, impeccable judgement. 6a has managed to
respond to the prompts of the building and create
something entirely new yet authentic. No mean feat.
It has also been considerably extended. The upper two
floors of this five-storey building are given over to offices
and flats, and new spaces have been added at the rear to
add both square metres and the height required for
contemporary art installations. Filling what was formerly a
tatty courtyard, the principal gallery space runs beneath a
reasonably new residential block that had to be propped
up while structural changes were made.
The new galleries drop down below street level,
allowing generous heights to be achieved while keeping
the new green roof at first-floor level. This is the space
that meets the original building with the faded line, the
curve that saves the junction of new and old from any
sense of abruptness. But the floor plan still has a certain
quirkiness about it, caused by the fact that the
boundaries of the building are not parallel. The largest
gallery, lit from above by a pair of raised roof lights, is not
quite square. 6a, valiantly, have not corrected this slightly
flawed geometry and the result is a very subtle adjustment
of perspective. Contortions like this operate all over the
building. The floor of the Chicago room drops by 150
millimetres (5.9 inches) a drop which had increased
since the 1920s, causing the joiner who reinstated the
panelling no end of agonies. This room is, in fact,
unfinished; although the fireplace has been fitted with its
original surround, its interior is of bare (and loose) brick.

Perhaps, says Emerson, a cast-iron fitting from an appropriate period

may one day be found; but one suspects this rough and sooty opening
will remain exposed.
The architects have also explored the buildings relationship with
fire in a far more visceral way. A Japanese member of staff, Takeshi
Hayatsu, recalled that wooden structures back home were traditionally
built from surface-charred timbers, reducing insect attack and offering
fire protection. The technique is to form lengths of wood into a threesided tube, tie it with string, stuff it with straw, and set it alight. Held
vertically, the assembly burns furiously, but the string soon breaks,
causing the structure to collapse and self-extinguish; the timber is
burned sufficiently to gain a surface charring, but not so much that its
structural integrity is threatened. As a nod to the fire of 1972, 6a has
used this technique to treat the cladding on the raised roof lights.
Furthermore, metal casts of the timbers provide cladding at the rear of
the building. Again, subtlety is the order of the day. Neither of these
measures is terribly obvious; they sit quietly as clever details that repay
the effort of noticing them.
This is a project which operates at two levels: in a practical sense,
the architects have made the best of what they have; but as an act of
interpretation, they have shown history to be multilayered, neverending and not a little beguiling. This building is not quite what it
seems, and it is worth looking at it very closely. 4+
David Littlefield is an architectural writer. He has written and edited a number of books,
including Architectural Voices: Listening to Old Buildings (2007) and Liverpool One:
Remaking a City Centre (2009), both published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. He was also the
curator of the exhibition Unseen Hands: 100 Years of Structural Engineering, which ran
at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 2008. He is a visiting lecturer at the University of the
West of England.
Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 120-1, 120(r), 122(b) David Grandorge;
p 120(bl) London Metropolitan Authority; pp 120(c), 122(t), 123 6a Architects

123+

Unit Factor

The EmTech Wave Canopy 2009

Michael Weinstock describes the constraints and creativity behind
the Wave Canopy, the EmTech Masters programme construction
project for 2009, which was located on the upper terrace of the
Architectural Associations premises in Bedford Square.

EmTech, Wave Canopy, Architectural Association, London, 2009

The 5-metre (16.4-foot) long wave-like timber composite strips are
fabricated from shorter individual thin timber veneers, CNC-cut and laid
up on a jig in two layers with an interlayer of glass fibres and resin.

124+

The outboard view of the canopy on

the upper terrace of the AA.

The Emergent Technologies and Design (EmTech) Masters

programme at the Architectural Association (AA) includes
an experimental construction project each year, and in
2009 this was located on the upper terrace of 36 Bedford
Square. EmTech constructions are undertaken in
collaboration with a team of young engineers from Buro
Happold, led by Wolf Mangelsdorf. The Wave Canopy has
two principal subsidiary systems wave-like strips of a
thin timber composite, and upright timber fins that
provided local stiffening to the strips and the connection
to the existing steel columns that are a permanent feature
of the upper terrace. The upper terrace is one of the
schools most public areas, used throughout the year by
all staff and students, and so the multiple constraints of
this situation determined the initial brief the canopy
needed to provide partial shelter from the rain, shading
from the sun and modulate the wind. The fabrication
method was constrained by the size of the CNC bed and
the standard size of timber veneer and plywood panels.
Finally, the fabrication by students had to take place
within the school, and the assembly was conducted in a
very small space with limited access, bringing further
constraints on the scale, weight and assembly logic.
The 5-metre (16.4-foot) long wave strips were
fabricated by the students in the studio from two layers of
1.5-millimetre (0.06-inch) plywood with an interlayer of
glass fibres and resin, and the fins were fabricated from
three rather thicker layers. The two outer layers were 12millimetre (0.5-inch) thick plywood and the central inner
layers were 18 millimetres (0.7 inches) thick. The fins

were assembled from two separate parts joined together by a steel

flitch plate. A 20-millimetre (0.8-inch) diameter steel pin
connected each fin to the plate at the top of each column. The lower
part of the fin was positioned on the outer side of the balustrade,
and was connected to the columns by a two-part steel ring clamped
around the base of each column and extended through the
balustrade to the bottom of the fin.
The canopy project brings together two of the principal research
paths of the EmTech programme the mathematics of evolutionary
development processes and physical experiments whose geometry is
developed in relation to material behaviour. The iterative process of
design and fabrication involved advanced computational tools
whose input parameters were derived from physical models together
with manufacturing and assembly logics. The design of the strips
and fins was co-evolved together with the assembly sequence to
make the best use of the limited space and time available on the
upper terrace, and to ensure that all the assembly took place safely
inboard of the balustrade at the edge of the terrace.
The overlapping wooden wave-like strips were explored and
developed in a series of physical models that began with the initial
component and concluded with full-size joinery prototypes. The
structural capacity of the assembled strip morphology was
developed by testing various degrees of overlap between the layers
of strips, and differing patterns of simple bolted connections
between them. Exploratory physical models gave a close but still
approximate structural configuration that was refined by digital
analysis of deformations under self-weight and wind load. The
spatial arrangement and the environmental conditions of the terrace
were transformed into data inputs for the optimisation algorithms
and 20 successive iterations developed the initial surface to

125+

The first material scale

model exploring the
behaviour of the thin
timber veneer in
overlapping layers.

Fluid dynamic analysis of the global

form indicating the area of maximum
stress under wind load. In response
the openings formed between the
waves are larger in this zone.

The outboard side

view of the
overlapping timber
composite strips.

126+

The associative model diagram (in Grasshopper) indicating

the large number of parameters and their associations.

minimise wind load, and direct the rain to the drainage

points. Computer fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were
used to assess the consequences of each geometric
modification on the environmental conditions, and the
successive iterations of the associative digital model
progressively reduced the turbulence under the canopy,
increased the laminar airflows, increased the porosity to
prevent the canopy from acting as a sail, and enhanced
the structural capacity.
The physical experiments also generated the
information on the curvature radii that could be achieved
by bending thin strips of veneer. The selected material
gave the desired curvature but was insufficiently stiff, and
so two layers of wood were laminated together with glass
fibres and resin to create a much stiffer composite. Prior
to lamination the strips were laid up on the jig, curved
and clamped in order to check the precise dimension of
each curve against the digital geometry that had been
evolved with an attractor script that incrementally
increased the dimensions of the openings that are formed
by the overlapping waves of the strips, and so reduced
the wind load in the most critical areas. The lamination
process required a jig to be constructed that accurately
set out the overall curvature of the finished canopy. The
strips were laminated together and then directly curved
and bolted in place. Each strip was held in position by
clamps until the resin was dry, and then the next strip was
then fabricated on top of the previous, securing the
relative position of the two with bolts.

Once all the pieces were fabricated, the three fins were
laid out on the terrace, and the first three layers of the
wave strips were fitted to them. The partial assembly was
then lifted and bolted to the top of the columns, so that the
foot of each fin was pointing up to the sky. The remaining
11 layers of strips were fitted to complete the material
system, and once fully assembled the whole system was
rotated on the pins that hold the fins to the column. The
rotation brought the foot of each fin outboard and down to
position so that the ring clamps could be fixed. 4+
Students: Selim Bayer, Stephanie Chaltiel, Kunkun Chen, Shuai Feng, Ittai
Frank, Utssav Gupta, Konstantinos Karatzas, Mohamad Khabazi, Tamara
Lavrovskaya, Mohammed Makki, Maria Mingallon, Michel Moukarzel, Sara
Pezeshk, Sakthivel Ramaswamy, Jheny Ropero, Revano Satria, Kyle
Schertzing, Pavlos Schizas, Xia Su, Ioanna Symeonidou
Acknowledgements
This project would not have been possible without the generosity of Buro
Happold who worked alongside us in studio throughout the project. Unto
This Last trusted us to use their CNC equipment outside normal working
hours. We also thank Alec Tiranti Ltd for sponsoring 50 per cent of the
resin and glass-fibre strands used for the lamination of the wood.
Unit Factor is edited by Michael Weinstock, who is Director of Research
and Development and of Emergent Technologies and Design at the
Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. He is co-guesteditor with Michael Hensel and Achim Menges of the Emergence:
Morphogenetic Design Strategies (May 2004) and Techniques and
Technologies in Morphogenetic Design (March 2006) issues of
Architectural Design. He is currently writing a book on the architecture of
emergence for John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images Michael Weinstock,
photos Laurent Taylor

127+

Spillers Bits

Telling Stories
Neil Spiller celebrates the messier sides to architectural
discourse, which take in myth-making, collaged semiotics
and moreover the untidy art of narrative.
We all know that telling stories is one of humanitys oldest
pastimes. In architecture, Modernism put an end to storytelling unless it complied with the global meta-narrative,
that of machine production is moral, clean, democratic
and civilised the worst type of myth, if ever there was
one. For a myth so clearly wrong, it is amazing how many
architects still subscribe to this silly twaddle. But thank
goodness there are messier sides to architectural
discourse, ones that are ill-defined, personal and lacking
any official taxonomy. These are design methodologies
that include narrative, myth-making and collaged
semiotics. Maybe these notions are latent in the
mnemonics of Cicero, or the proto-Surrealism of

128+

Lautramont or Jarry. Certainly Andr Breton, Louis Aragon and the

Situationists explored them as today Iain Sinclair, Peter Ackroyd
and WG Sebald explore them. It is also clear that the influence of
Paris and Parisian actors on these ideas of ambience, situation,
event and narration has been considerable.
One of the 1980s British innovators of the narrative method in
architecture, Nigel Coates with his Narrative Architecture Today
Group, describes how the manipulation of the drawing (or whatever
representational method is used) is crucial in communicating the
intentions of such work. The drawing has to contain a filmic
hypothesis and at the same time bring this back into the moment of
the creative process. Sometimes this means drawing key pictures of
the action even bigger than the building in other words

Luke Chandresinghe, Patent Office and Archive, London, Unit 16 (Tutors: Simon
Herron and Susanne Isa), Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, 2006
above: This beautiful project is for a depository for patents held in a protected stasis for
20 years following a rigorous process of application, inspection, verification and final
granting. It deploys a postindustrial machine aesthetic, created from collaged
assemblies that are dismantled, restructured and recomposed. As with patent drawings,
information is only glimpsed. No single view or patent reveals the entire design.
Nigel Coates, Gamma Venice, 1986
opposite: Here in the heyday of NATO, Coates brings the groups powers of quotidian
dtournement to Venice. Peggy Guggenheim, gondolas and East meets West whirl in a
high-octane cocktail of fact and architectural fiction.

manipulating the context of the drawing, dialectically,

critically and synthetically.1 I for one certainly look
forward to his new book on Narrative Architecture, shortly
to be published by Wiley.
Todays brand of narrative architecture is a manyheaded thing and takes its numerous cues from all the
above, but also from many more influences, some of
which are globally important and others of which are
purely local and expedient. Projects Ive seen recently
address a variety of conditions in and around the modern
metropolis and its ethereal mythical hinterlands. They
vary from concrete propositions to polemic or poetic
allusions. On the domestic scale they might rejoice in the
rich interplay of a couples preoccupations, politics or
craft. On the federal level it might consist of looking at an
existing embassy, rereading it in terms of its embedded
symbolic meaning and redesigning it in the light of
contemporary views of the owner countrys previous
actions in relationship to war, human rights and internal
politics. Other projects include the imbuing of an existing
story on an actual space and architecturally playing the
two off against each other. Or work within cities like

CJ Lim, Virtually Venice: San Michele, 2004

This specially commissioned project for the Venice
Architectural Biennale in 2004 celebrates and adds to the
connections between Venice and China that began with the
legendary story of Marco Polos meeting with the Mongol
emperor, Kublai Khan. In these portrayals of how Khan might
have imagined Venice after their conversations, the city takes
on aspects of the East and reconfigures itself in new
architectural forms. San Michelle is a place to rest tired feet.

Berlin, which have terrible histories of persecution and truncation,

to create zones where history is not denied and instead held in a
culturally symbiotic yet new regenerative alignment.
So why now has the Lion of Narrative awakened from its, overtwo-decade slumber? Like Narnia is Architecturian Winter slowly
turning into spring? Is it that we cannot bear too much reality to
paraphrase TS Elliot? Is it what really festers in the minds of the
young: a denial of history, of the past? No, I think it is a hope for a
more interesting future. They have been brought up on TV and
video games after all. Maybe, just maybe, we want our stories back
and we will enter a new age of architectural storytelling.
Me, well I concur with something Will Alsop said to me nearly
25 years ago. I paraphrase a bit: Listen son, if you have to make
up stories of Noddy and Big Ears to make an architecture that I
like then thats fine. 4+
Neil Spiller is Professor of Architecture and Digital Theory, Graduate Director of
Design and Vice Dean of the Bartlett, University College London
Note
1. Nigel Coates, Street Signs, in John Thackara (ed), Design after Modernism,
Thames & Hudson (London), 1988, p 100.
Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: p 128 Nigel Coates; p 129(l)
Bartlett School of Architecture; p 129(r) CJ Lim/Studio 8 Architecture

129+

Yeangs Eco-Files

Yeangs Eco-Files

Yeangs Eco-Files

Designing for LowCarbon Lifestyles

Carpenter, shipbuilder and pioneer of sustainable living Mukti Mitchell
collaborates with Ken Yeang on an article espousing the widespread
adoption of low-carbon lifestyles. As well as discussing the adoption of
CO2 reductions at the individual and global levels, they look at the extent
to which architectural design can facilitate lifestyle carbon reductions.

Architects are well versed in creating low-carbon

buildings by reducing energy use and embodied
energy. We could now ask: Can building design go
further to influence peoples carbon emissions from
the other key lifestyle areas: transport, food, holidays
and manufacturing? When considering that each of
these represents around a fifth of our total carbon
footprint, it becomes apparent that architectural
design could have a profound impact in the move
towards sustainable ways of living.
The proposed approach here is Contraction and
Convergence (C&C),1 one of the most popular
strategies for global CO2 reductions, which was
conceived by the UK-based Global Commons Institute
in the early 1990s for application in intergovernmental
agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol. C&C advocates
measuring national CO2 emissions on a per capita
basis and contracting them to a sustainable level, for
example 2 tonnes per capita by 2050.2 Current annual
emissions for various countries are, in tonnes CO2equivalent (CO2e) per capita: US 19.8; Russia 12.0;
Europe 8.0; China 4.6; India and Africa 1.2.3
Carbon profiles vary widely between individuals so
carbon calculators are recommended for an accurate
footprint.4 However, the five key components of a
simplified typical UK profile are: domestic heating, 2
tonnes; personal transport, 2 tonnes; food, 2 tonnes;
holidays, 2 tonnes; products, 2 tonnes; total, 10
tonnes (CO2e per person per year).5 To what extent can
architectural design facilitate carbon reductions in
lifestyle areas apart from domestic heating, and how
might this be achieved? As a prerequisite of our
modern life, buildings can significantly hinder or
facilitate emissions cuts across the spectrum of our

130+

activities, and good design could potentially lead to an individual

halving his or her carbon footprint. Examples are given below.6
Transport
A commute of 24 kilometres (15 miles) in a medium-sized car emits
2.5 tonnes of CO2 over a 235-day working year. The same journey by
local bus emits 1.2 tonnes,7 by train 0.7 tonnes, and a car shared by
two emits 1.25 tonnes per person. Therefore buildings that
incorporate areas for public transport and car-share information,
bicycle parking, wet clothes hanging, showers and lockers for
cyclists, and a car-share scheme, could reduce transport emissions
by 50 per cent without changing commute distances. Mixed-use
developments of residential buildings that include workspaces
eradicate commuting emissions entirely. The move to using public
transport, car share, reduced distances and self-powered transport
will increase health, wellbeing and leisure time, in addition to
reducing mortality rates from car accidents.
Life changes involve the practice of communal collaborative
services such as car sharing on demand, loose systems of leasing and
sharing of equipment and tools between businesses and households,
home food services and restaurants, coordinated neighbourhood
delivery and pick-up services of people, food supplies and goods.
Food
Regional sourcing does not necessarily reduce CO2 emissions. Due to
heavy fuel and fertiliser use, much food from the US and the EU has
a higher carbon footprint than food shipped in from Africa. This is
illustrated by a parallel study from Londons Cranfield University,
which found that roses imported from Kenya have a lower carbon
footprint than those imported from Holland.8
However, intensive, hand-tilled farms and market gardens do have
significantly reduced footprints. Food eaten fresh avoids processing
and refrigeration. Dried food requires no refrigeration and is very
efficient to ship.9 Thus buildings that combine connectivity to

Yeangs Eco-Files
Yeangs Eco-Files

Yeangs Eco-Files

Hamzah & Yeang (sister

company to Llewelyn Davies
Yeang), L-Tower, 2011
L-Tower vertical buildingintegrated food production.
Proposed design for the LTower showing the spirally
integrated green corridor, an
important multifunctional
element designed to improve
passive-mode performance, as
well as providing important
food production potential.

131+

Yeangs Eco-Files

Yeangs Eco-Files

Yeangs Eco-Files

Alice Rumsey, Low-Carbon Transport, 2009

Modern human-powered, shared and public
transport systems can reduce transport carbon
footprints to a fraction of existing levels (artists
impression including the Aptera electric car).

growing areas, increased storage to reduce shopping

trips and unpowered cold stores in basements or on
north-facing elevations to reduce refrigeration, could cut
per capita emissions for food by 50 per cent without
changing dietary habits.
An example of food connectivity can be seen in the LTower design (2009) by Hamzah & Yeang, sister
company to Llewelyn Davies Yeang, which incorporates
gardens in a spirally integrated green corridor stretching
from the ground to the top floor. This vastly decreases
the carbon emissions from acquiring fresh food, a
particularly carbon-intensive practice.
Holidays
Flying 3,200 kilometres (2,000 miles) to a holiday
destination emits 2.2 tonnes of CO2e per passenger
including the return flight. The equivalent distance by
ferry emits 384 kilograms (846 pounds), by coach 192
kilograms (423 pounds), and by train 128 kilograms
(282 pounds).10 What do we really look for in our
holidays? Could some of our travel objectives be realised
more effectively closer to home?
One travel motive is discovery. Others are rest,
recuperation and self-discovery which foreign holidays
can fail to deliver because travel is often stressful.
Buildings that can offer holiday programmes consisting
of massage, sauna, detox, sport, dance, exercise,
creative activities and tranquil relaxation would
encourage individuals to take some holidays close to
home, massively reducing their annual CO2 emissions
while simultaneously achieving higher levels of
enjoyment and rest.

132+

Product Manufacture
Quality products from toys to power tools may cost twice as much
as their cheap counterparts and have twice the embodied energy,
but they often last five times as long, resulting in a life-cycle CO2
reduction of 60 per cent. Energy-saving appliances save up to 50
per cent during use. Buildings that are fitted with permanent
long-life, energy-saving appliances could save 50 per cent of
product emissions, and bulk fitting would be more cost effective.
All low-power electronic devices from televisions to mobile
phone chargers require transformers which are less than 50 per
cent efficient and consume power 24 hours a day unless
switched off at the plug. A 12-volt or 24-volt electricity
infrastructure powered by local solar/water/wind collectors and
running parallel to mains circuits could save 20 to 40 per cent of
appliance energy.
Comfort
Environmental design starts with standards. Can we achieve a
sustainable lifestyle without lowering our expected living
standards? If we are prepared to lower our living standards, then
to what extent would be acceptable?
A rethinking of standards of environmental comfort conditions
is needed for the engineering design of heating and airconditioning systems. Architectural design needs to start with
optimising passive-mode design (bioclimatic design) followed by
the optimisation of mixed-mode design.
In full-mode design, we as the users determine the level of
environmental comfort that we want. For example, if we are
prepared to lower the level of our internal environmental comfort
conditions, having a lower heating temperature in winter and
wearing warmer clothing, or the opposite in summer, we can
reduce the consumption of energy by 20 to 30 per cent.

Yeangs Eco-Files
Yeangs Eco-Files
Yeangs Eco-Files

Alice Rumsey, In-House Holidays, 2009

Buildings with facilities to offer recreational
holiday programmes can vastly reduce
holiday carbon footprints.

Low-carbon lifestyle pioneers report that most

carbon-reduction measures actually result in improved
quality of life. A vibrant, healthy workforce and
consumer base results in greater economic activity and
affluence. Architectural design has a powerful potential
to reduce national CO2 emissions by gearing designs
towards lifestyle patterns that are attractive to the
individual as well as being more energy efficient. 4+
Mukti Mitchell is a designer, boat builder and author. He designed the
Resurgence Carbon Calculator (see www.resurgence.org/energy), the
Explorer zero-emission microyacht, nominated Innovative Boat of the
Year 2005 (www.mitchellyachts.co.uk), and sailed around Britain in
2007 to promote low-carbon lifestyles, endorsed by HRH The Prince of
Wales, and Britains political and environmental leaders. His guidebook
is available from www.lowcarbonlifestyle.org.
Ken Yeang is a director of Llewelyn Davies Yeang in London and TR
Hamzah & Yeang, its sister company, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He is
the author of many articles and books on sustainable design, including
Ecodesign: A Manual for Ecological Design (Wiley-Academy, 2006).
Notes
1. Aubrey Meyer, Contraction & Convergence: The Global Solution to
Climate Change, Green Books (Totnes), 2000.
2. Based on UK government reductions targets of 80 per cent by 2050.
3. Figures from the United States Department of Energy, Environment
Information Administration (2007), taken from Rogers, McCormick and
Ridley, The Carbon Atlas, Guardian, 9 December 2008, p 21.
4. Ibid. For calculations, Mukti Mitchell recommends his own model, the

Resurgence Carbon Calculator, widely recognised as the best online, which can be
freely accessed at www.resurgence.org/carboncalculator.
5. A simplified profile to give audiences an impression of typical proportions of CO2
output from lifestyle areas, used by Mukti Mitchell during the Low Carbon Lifestyle
Tour of Britain, 2007.
6. Unless otherwise stated, figures are approximations developed by Mukti Mitchell,
based on five years experience of carbon footprinting and auditing.
7. UK Government Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs,
Guidelines to Defras GHG Conversion Factors, Annex 6 Passenger Transport, 2008,
pp 712. See www.defra.gov.uk/environment/business/reporting/conversionfactors.htm/. These figures are based on UK average passenger occupancy levels a
full bus has much lower emissions per passenger.
8. Dr Adrian Williams, Comparative Study of Cut Roses for the British Market
Produced in Kenya and the Netherlands, Prcis Report for World Flowers, Cranfield
University, 12 February 2007. See kenyanroses.trampish.net/resources/Comparative_Study_of_Cut_Roses_Feb_2007.pdf.
9. Ships emit 10 times less CO2 than lorries and 120 times less than planes per
kilogram of cargo. CO2e emissions in kilograms per tonne-kilometre of freight: HGVs
0.132, rail 0.021, container ships 0.014, air (long haul) 1.818. (UK DEFRA figures
with a radiative forcing index (RFI) of 3 for air.) UK Government Department of the
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, op cit, pp 1315.
10. UK DEFRA figures with an RFI of 3 to account for the increased global warming
effect of high-altitude emissions. Readers may wish to note that because CO2 is
largely oxygen, an aeroplanes potential CO2 output is much larger than its fuel-tank
capacity. This is further increased by the RFI to arrive at a figure for CO2e. RFI was
estimated by the IPCC in 1999 to be in the range 24, and following consultations
with experts including James Lovelock, Mukti Mitchell uses a factor of 3 for all
footprinting calculations, which he considers to be conservative. See UK Government
Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, op cit, pp 712.
Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: p 131 Ken Yeang; pp 132-3 Alice
Sophie Rumsey

133+

McLeans Nuggets
Design It Yourself
So has the era of mass-customisation
finally arrived? In the appropriately
diminutive-sounding Tychy in Poland,
hundreds of thousands of small cars
(similar, but different) are currently
rolling off the production lines. A total
of 506,000 cars were produced at the
plant in 2008 with cars currently
coming off the assembly line every 55
seconds cars which include both the
new Fiat 500 and the new Ford Ka.
Reported in the New York Times, Ron
Harbour, an American industry
consultant, with Oliver Wyman explains
that: The ideal combination of
automated robots and individual workers
has been critical to Tychys success,
and that the plants ability to rapidly
change production numbers and the
specification of any given car is about
the successful symbiosis of automation

Semantic Differentials
At a recent university consultation, a
select group of staff were asked to
partake in the generalised opiniongathering exercise of semantic
differentials.5 Slightly different to the
agree/strongly agree nomenclature of the
ordinal-polytomous questionnaire,6 this
management game consisted of
choosing between the two worlds (or was
that words) of soft versus hard, austere
versus friendly, good versus evil, and so
on. These kinds of games, or social
devices, are supposed to act as icebreakers (a management clich) and
studiously avoid the awkward territories
of a conversation. In another case of
semantic differentials, or in this case
(non) differentials, I was recently party
to the bureaucratic delights of the exam

134+

and skilled worker.1 Meanwhile, global

sportswear brand Nike offers its very
own design-it-yourself range of football
boots and trainers under the moniker of
NIKEiD.2 Choosing from a range of boot
and shoe platforms similar to the
automotive example, consumers are
able to customise their shoes: change
colour and details, add printed and
embroidered design via the Web and
receive the customised clobber direct
from the factory at 38 Guangzhou Road,
Foshan, China, within approximately two
weeks. Within the construction industry
the engineered timber sector seems to
be leading the way in the useful and
increasingly direct relations of design
and digital file output with products like
Austrias KLH cross-laminated timber
3
product and Bruce Willsons neat and
eminently customisable Birch Ply Facit
(We Print Houses) building system.4 So

board at a noted educational

establishment in London, when the
conversation (procedural semantic) had
turned to plagiarism. There had been
the suspicion of improper educational
behaviour in relation to a piece of
written work that had been submitted
for examination by a specifically
designed piece of software. The
subsequent results suggested that 12
per cent of the said work was nonoriginal, which under that institutions
rules and regulations was an acceptable
level of linguistic reuse, falling well
below the (seemingly random or
inexplicable) 30 per cent of the
plagiarist. This case posed many
interesting questions and difficulties. A
particular problem seemed to be the
softwares inability to distinguish, or set

if volume house builders continue to

prefabricate the wrong bits to cut costs
and not noticeably improve quality,
then the designer (architect) should
take his or her fabrication business
elsewhere or DIY.

A pair of custom-designed
NIKEiD football boots.

apart, the footnotes from the main

body of the text. A more interesting
question is whether it is possible to
construct an original text and polemic
through the wholesale reuse of
previously wrought language and, more
specifically, why are we not designing
software to construct and fabricate
language? In our rush to condemn the
cheat who took some short cuts are we
not overlooking the huge potential for
new modes of communication that
may articulate the thoughts and
semantic differentials of the less
linguistically inclined? We seem
perfectly happy as designers to
embrace a digitally augmented design
process so why the selective technoPuritanism?

Behaviour Stations
In the readable legacy of art
movements from the late 1960s and
early 1970s, it might be quite
understandably difficult to acknowledge
the performative dimension to some, if
not all, of the sculptural work of the
period. If architect Bernard Tschumi
recognised this, it can be no
coincidence that his first wife was
Roselee Goldberg,7 the author of the
only useful survey of the live
sculpture/theatre of performance art. In
Tschumis Parc de la Villette project in
Paris we see a kind of architecturalised
relic of the potential of such an
approach, but we may still have much to
learn from the art and artists of the
period who explored gesture, and new
kinds of spatial relations, with implicit
programmatic invention. Less concerned
with the permanent architecture of new
sculpture per se, these were tests,
experiments and actions of
ephemerality, captured usefully and
deliberately by photograph. Good
examples include George Trakas
Transfer Stations,8 Mary Miss and Alice
Aycocks proto-structures, and the
gesticular set pieces of Nice Style: The
Worlds First Pose Band.9 Unfortunately,
architecture and design seem to seldom

challenge us with any radical rethinks of

behaviour space. The table/bench seating
ensemble, rediscovered and rolled out
from John Pawsons original Wagamama
design, is an unremarkable example, as is
the seat/leaning device of the bus stop.
What might some real programmatic
invention deliver? This may not be what
something specifically looks like or how it
pseudo-functions, but what something
actually is and how that design may
speculatively function. This reappraisal of
the indeterminate might get us closer to
the unfilled potential of the much and
easily maligned multipurpose, of which
the name as much as anything leads to so
many programmatic and spatial
disappointments. A recent project in
Wolverhampton is a good example of a
new, or at least souped-up, building type.
The Youth Shelter by Sjlander da Cruz10
Architects in partnership with artist Gwen
Heeney provides a place to hang out, sit
and lean for the restless youth of a
skatepark. Designed in collaboration with
the young locals and organised as a part
of the MADE (Midlands Architecture + the
Designed Environment) initiative, the
youth shelter is one of many similar
projects currently under way and could be
the basis for any number of new spatial
and programmatic relations. 4+

McLeans Nuggets is an ongoing technical

series inspired by Will McLean and Samantha
Hardinghams enthusiasm for back issues of AD,
as explicitly explored in Hardinghams AD issue
The 1970s is Here and Now (March/April 2005).
Will McLean is joint coordinator of technical
studies (with Pete Silver) in the Department of
Architecture at the University of Westminster.
He recently co-authored, also with Pete Silver,
the book Introduction to Architectural
Technology (Laurence King, 2008).
Notes
1. Nelson D Schwartz, To Shrink a US Car,
Chrysler Goes to Poland, New York Times, 14
July 2009.
2. http://nikeid.nike.com.
3. www.klhuk.com.
4. www.facit-uk.com.
5. CE Osgood, G Suci and P Tannenbaum, The
Measurement of Meaning, University of Illinois
Press (Chicago, IL), 1975.
6. HJ Adr, GJ Mellenbergh and DJ Hand,
Advising on Research Methods: A Consultants
Companion, Johannes van Kessel Publishing
(Huizen), 2008.
7. Roselee Goldberg, Performance Art: From
Futurism to the Present, Thames & Hudson
(London), 2001.
8. Roald Nasgaard (ed), Structures for
Behaviour: New Sculptures by Robert Morris,
David Rabinowitch, Richard Serra and George
Trakas, exhibition catalogue, Art Gallery of
Ontario (Toronto), p 128.
9. Goldberg, op cit, pp 1778.
10 http://www.sjolanderdacruz.co.uk/
Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. IImages:
p 134 Will McLean; p 135 Sjlander da
Cruz Architects

The clay, soon to be brick, base of

the Wolverhampton Youth Shelter
project by architects Sjlander da
Cruz and artist Gwen Heeney.

135+

Userscape

Dynamic Light
The Media Facades of

realities:united
Valentina Croci reviews the recent work of realities:united, who first came into the
spotlight in 2003 with their media facade for the Kunsthaus Graz. She highlights
how recent projects, such as the Crystal Mesh for the Iluma Building in Singapore
and the exterior of the C4 in Cordoba, Spain, transcend the notion of the digital
facade as billboard. Lighting is dynamically applied, in order to enhance the threedimensional experience of architecture rather than to flatten it.

realities:united, Museum X, Mnchengladbach, Germany, 2006

above: This temporary (one-year) installation was created during
the restoration work on the Abteiberg Museum, on the site of the
Mchengladbach Theatre. Similar to a large urban sculpture that
could also be used from the exterior, Museum X did not use a
digital media facade, but instead focused on the foyer, which was
fitted with lighting devices on the walls and ceiling to transform
the perception of the space.

136+

realities:united, C4, Espacio de Creacin Artstica

Contempornea, Cordoba, Spain, 2010
opposite: The winning project by Nieto Sobejano Architects
(Madrid) integrates the solutions proposed by realities:united in
the facade as a sort of light and dynamic skin of illumination
along the facade facing the Rio Guadalquivir. The GRC units
(glass-fibre reinforced cement), individually illuminated from
the interior by compact fluorescent lights, are irregular and
with varying dimensions that create variegated patterns. This
is not a simple mediatic layer visible only at night, but an
imposing facade that also captures attention during the day.

Tim and Jan Edler founded realities:united in Berlin in

2000, coming to international attention in 2003 for their
contribution to the Kunsthaus Graz in Austria where they
used dynamic lighting to animate the external facade of
the building designed by Peter Cook and Colin Fournier.
After this project they continued to pursue research in the
world of so-called media facades, developing their own
idea of dynamic architecture. In fact, their most recent
projects highlight the communicative abilities of
buildings by focusing less on advertising or the
construction of architectural landmarks as much as on
the aesthetic exploration of spaces and architectural
exteriors that are transformed through lighting design and
digital technology.
The concept of the media facade is nothing new, but
the application of digital technologies has brought it back
to the centre of attention. In historical architecture there
are many examples of a media facade that deals with the
transmission of a message and a vision through the
physical building, Tim Edler explains. These include, for
instance, the Santa Maria Novella in Florence (1470) by
Leon Battista Alberti, the facade of which expresses a
precise division and a morphology that reinterprets the
medieval tradition of autochthonous Dominican churches:

cultural references, expressed in the architectural composition, that

refer back to a precise vision of the context as understood by the
designer. The primary differentiation between the facade of yesterday
and that of today is not the use of technology, but the speed with which
we transfer information, above all when dealing with the succession of
figures. Furthermore, the dynamic element means that architects also
study the rhythm of sequences of variations, Edler continues.
After Graz, realities:united worked on various projects that develop
the same basic philosophy; first and foremost that the external surface
is not a traditional envelope or a screen, it is not the support for
televised images or advertising. The facade, composed of a threedimensional grid of dynamic lights, communicates in an entirely
different manner. While the facadescreen renders the architectural
substrate inexistent in favour of the information presented by video,
applications such as those proposed by realities:united seek the exact
opposite, reinforcing the architectural experience using new
compositional morphologies. There is often confusion between this
notion and the facade covered with conventional TV media surfaces.
This depends on the lack of understanding of this new approach, which
has different aims and for which we are still defining an aesthetic,
Edler points out. At Graz, realities:united has progressively abandoned
the regular grid that organises its luminous pixels and has begun
working on the dimensional scale of these units. This new approach is
apparent in the Crystal Mesh (2009) for the Iluma Building in
137+

realities:united, Crystal Mesh facade, Iluma Building, Singapore, 2009

above: An exterior surface composed of large, backlit polycarbonate crystals questions traditional perceptions of
the facade and screen. The different sizes of the crystals create a special three-dimensional texture that is also
visible during the day. The structure also functions as urban lighting and a ventilated facade. The Iluma Building,
designed by WOHA Architects, is part of the masterplan for Singapores new urban entertainment centre.
realities:united, Contemporary Architecture, Artistsspace gallery, New York, 2007
opposite: This minimalist installation makes reference to neon artworks of the 1970s. It is composed of a series of
lights that create a display screen that projects time like a digital watch. As the only source of lighting in the
space, it is also functional. Traditional lighting fixtures industrial fluorescent lamps were chosen for their
ability to add a new content to current technology.

138+

Singapore and the exterior of the C4 in Cordoba (in

progress), where the elements of the facades are irregular
in form and of different sizes. These surfaces are
animated at night, creating highly effective designs; by
day they define the morphology of the exteriors,
transforming traditional concepts of facades and screens.
The users perception of this kind of architecture is
altered, not only because the facades assume different
configurations, but also because the environment is
loaded with mediatic content. Furthermore, unlike digital
simulations in the virtual world, these kinds of facades
can influence and modify the users experience of the
built environment. Still, the investigation of this latter
issue is still in the preliminary phase. I am not sure that
this type of experience can have an influence on the
direct needs of the user, Edler continues. At present
we are investigating the aesthetic and design potentials of
this type of architecture. We have yet to study the
question of interactivity, because currently the contents
intended by this theme are of little depth and often can
be reduced to a sort of game. Most clients commission
media facades to communicate the modernity of a
building. When dynamic architecture has constructed its
disciplinary essence, the possibilities tied to interaction
will become clearer.
Another crucial theme of realities:uniteds dynamic
architecture, which they call media architecture, is the
obsolescence of the technology used and the consequent
ageing of buildings. This is a question that belongs to
design. In fact, many buildings appear out of place after
only a few years. The factor of technological obsolescence
may, however, become an interesting aspect of design.
For example, installations such as Contemporary
Architecture (2007) employ approaches to lighting design
that have already been surpassed and use the aesthetic of
retro. This choice aims at underlining the difference
between media architecture with a basic content and
high-tech instruments that, if they communicate

technology in a self-referential manner, become old-tech in a short

period of time. The building in Graz has, by choice, an image that is
somewhat 1970s, because we did not want attention to remain
focused on the high-technology characteristics of the facade, Edler
explains. Nonetheless, media architecture ages more rapidly than its
traditional counterpart and to this problem is added the obsolescence
of technical instruments and the relative problems of maintenance.
The projects in Singapore and Cordoba represent a significant step
forward in the application of lighting and digital technology. The next
step for realities:united is the design of an entire building with a
dynamic quality, expanding the basic concept to the whole plan. We
think of a building as an acting body, where the control of the
dynamism of the facade extends to the entire complex, varying the
taxonomy and relationship between spaces, and conferring greater
functional flexibility on the building, says Edler. It is thus possible to
hypothesise dynamic morphologies for interiors. This has been partially
developed in the practices Museum X (2006) installation in
Mnchengladbach in Germany, where the spaces of the foyer were
transformed into dynamic lighting instruments integrated within the
architectural structure. In my opinion, we are progressively moving
towards the change of architecture from a static discipline similar to
sculpture, to something variable that is more related to choreography,
Elder concludes. This presupposition implies the reconsideration of the
traditional tools of design, where the architect also becomes the
director or set designer of an experience that users have in spaces with
such dynamic characteristics. A multidisciplinary approach is thus
required that lies along the margins between art and architecture,
between a utopian vision and programmatic action, which has yet to
express its full potential. 4+
Translated from the Italian version into English by Paul David Blackmore.
Valentina Croci is a freelance journalist of industrial design and architecture. She graduated
from Venice University of Architecture (IUAV), and attained an MSc in architectural history
from the Bartlett School of Architecture, London. She achieved a PhD in industrial design
sciences at the IUAV with a theoretical thesis on wearable digital technologies. She also
coordinates the Design for Living commission at ADI, the Association of Italian Design.
Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: p 136 DACS 2009; p 137 2006/09,
realities:united, Berlin; p 138 2009, realities:united, Berlin; p 139 2007,
Artistsspace New York; courtesy realities:united, Berlin

139+

The Museum is the Exhibit

Frank Lloyd Wrights bold spiralling building on Fifth Avenue in New York City is still, 50 years
after it opened, the Guggenheims most popular attraction. Surveys show that as many as a
third of the visitors come to see the building itself, rather than the exhibitions or permanent
collections on view. And yet, as Jayne Merkel explains, the New York Guggenheims recent
retrospective exhibition of the architects work was the museums first
No American architect was more talented, original or
influential than Frank Lloyd Wright, who lived from 1867
to 1959 and practised architecture for 72 years, so it is
somewhat surprising that half a century passed before the
Guggenheim Museum devoted an exhibition to his work. It
held shows of Zaha Hadid in 2006 and of Frank Gehry
(who designed its Bilbao branch) in 2001. That was its
most popular exhibition ever. But finally, this spring, just

months before the New York buildings 50th anniversary, this very
selective but impressive exhibition took place, focusing primarily on
public buildings and city plans, instead of on the houses which are his
best known and most significant works.
Despite his fame, Frank Lloyd Wright did few public buildings. He
was a maverick, unwilling to compromise enough to work with a full
partner or realise many corporate or institutional commissions. He
practised with a group of apprentices students and former students,

Frank Lloyd Wright, The Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York, 194359
This coloured sketch in ink and pencil on tracing paper (51 x 61 centimetres/20 x
24 inches) was one of several with which the architect experimented with different
colour schemes once the overall form of the building had been determined.

140+

Frank Lloyd Wright, The Reception, sketch of the interior of the

Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York, 15 April 1958
This perspective in graphite and coloured pencil on paper shows the
lower floors of the interior of the rotunda, with the circular entry area
and the lower ramps that surround the drum. Although there are a few
small rectangular galleries adjacent to the ramp, most of the exhibition
space is on this narrow, winding, skylighted path. In 1992 an addition
with considerably more traditional exhibition space, designed by
Gwathmey Siegel and Associates, was built on the museums northeast
corner, roughly where Wright had projected one might eventually go,
in the same vertical slab form he had once proposed.

who were more like apostles than employees at his

studio, the Taliesin Fellowship, in Arizona, where the
school, with its work in the manner of Wright, still goes
on, and where his archive is housed.
Wright did manage to build a wonderful light-filled,
atrium-plan office building for the Larkin Company in
Buffalo, New York (190206, demolished 1950) and
another with a research tower attached for SC Johnson &
Son in Racine, Wisconsin (19369) which is still being
used. He also built a magnificent, but now threatened,
Unitarian church, Unity Temple, in Oak Park, Illinois
(190508), the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo (191322,
demolished 1967) and the Marin County Civic Center
near San Francisco (195762), which is still functioning.
All these buildings figure prominently in the show. So do
a number of little-known, unrealised projects such as the
Gordon Strong Automobile Objective and Planetarium for
Sugarloaf Mountain, Maryland (19245), a dome-shaped
structure encircled by an automobile ramp and parking;
Crystal City, a large complex of high-rise apartments for
Washington DC (1940); the Pittsburgh Point Park Civic
Center (1947); and a fanciful Plan for Greater Baghdad
with an opera house and cultural centre (19578).
The show does include some wonderful drawings for
houses and suburban development schemes, fascinating

period photographs and superb models. A new one for Wrights own
property in Wisconsin, Taliesin I, shows how the land was developed
over time with particular sensitivity to the topography. But the
exhibition does not quite convey the number and impact of the
extraordinary suburban houses he built from 1889 until his death. All
over America, single-storey, open-plan houses that spread out over the
land owe more to his influence than anything else. If only they had
been built with the same sensitivity to site and materials as his! One
thing the exhibition shows is that Wright suggested building on the
corner of a plot so that the majority of the land was left open. But most
American houses are plonked down in the middle, surrounded by lawns
which offer little privacy or opportunity to restore the natural landscape.
The exhibition is impressive nevertheless. It took real restraint to
display only 200 of the 22,000 drawings in the Frank Lloyd Wright
archive, as this is one architect who was a stellar draughtsman. The
shows purpose was clearly not to elucidate the architects long and
peripatetic career. Hundreds of books do that. Frank Lloyd Wright:
From Within Outward primarily provides the background for
understanding the sensational building that is the Guggenheim
Museums New York home. It ends by showing how the buildings
design evolved between 1943 and 1959: from a hexagon to a spiral;
from a form that truncates towards the top to one that expands as it
ascends; from gold, yellow, blue and red facades to a white one; and
from several shapes to one predominating cylinder. And, the curators
managed to pack a good deal of material into the museum without
overwhelming the most valuable object in its collection: the Frank
Lloyd Wright building itself.
Wrights commission became a Guggenheim tradition. Although it
was the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) that made architecture part of
its programme from the beginning and built the first modern museum
in New York, an International Style structure designed by Philip
Goodwin and Edward Durell Stone in 1939, it was the Guggenheim
that became the most dramatic patron of architecture, first with the
Frank Lloyd Wright rotunda on Fifth Avenue and then with Frank
Gehrys Bilbao Guggenheim of 1997. Gehry is also designing the
Guggenheims Abu Dhabi museum. The Guggenheim in New York also
commissioned a reading room from Richard Meier in 1978, a major
addition from Gwathmey Siegel in 1992, a new restaurant from New
York architect Andre Kikoski in 2009, and dramatic exhibition
installations from Zaha Hadid in 1992 and 2006, Jean Nouvel and
Frank Gehry in 2001, Michael Gabellini and Enrique Norten of TEN
Arquitectos in 2004, and Jacques Grange in 2005. Although MoMA
has additions by Philip Johnson, Cesar Pelli and Yoshio Taniguchi, they
are all quiet background buildings intended to support and not
compete with its exhibitions, a significant percentage of which have
also been devoted to architecture and design. The Guggenheim has
made the buildings themselves the star players. 4+
Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward, was at the Guggenheim Museum, New York
City, from 15 May to 23 August 2009, and is at the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, from 21
October 2009 to 14 February 2010.
Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images 2009 The Frank Lloyd Wright
Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona

141+

SITE LINES

Library of Birmingham
Howard Watson applauds Mecanoos designs for a new library in Birmingham
and the aim to bring coherence to the city centre, but questions the
destruction of the nearby Central Library, an unusual Brutalist building by
John Madin, which is to make way for a further retail/leisure scheme.

Mecanoo Architecten, Library

of Birmingham, Birmingham,
due for completion 2013
Concept design for the library
with the glass facade encased
in metal filigree.

142+

right: Artists impression of the proposed amphitheatre

in front of the librarys overhanging, frontal projection.
below right: Concept design for Centenary Square and
the Library of Birmingham, which will be linked to the
existing Birmingham Repertory Theatre (left) to form a
collective centre for creativity and education.

British urban planning may often appear to be beset by

extraordinary short-termism, with projects realised in
seemingly blinkered isolation, regardless of an
overarching rationale to solve major problems. However,
Birmingham City Council has initiated a far-sighted
approach with a 20 billion, 20-year Big City Plan to
overhaul the centre of the second largest city in Britain.
At the heart of the plan to shake off Birmingham s old
image as an unfocused, cultureless, concrete jungle will
be the largest public library building in Europe. The
councils level of ambition is typified by the
appointment of Dutch architects Mecanoo Architecten,
responsible for the highly acclaimed library at Delft
Technical University.
Mecanoos approach is to dismiss any idea that there
should be a contemporary library typology. Consequently,
the 193 million, 31,000-square-metre (333,681square-foot) development, due to open in 2013, will be
inspired by the librarys specific resources, which
include an enormous local archive. The architecture will
also be linked to the design traditions of Birmingham
and its industrial past. The receding and projecting box
shapes of its glass facade will be covered with a metal
filigree of overlapping circles, inspired by local ironwork,
while the cubic volumes will reflect the buildings
neighbours on either side the 1960s concrete
Birmingham Repertory Theatre, which will also undergo
some redevelopment and share a foyer with the library,
and the 1930s stone Baskerville House office building.
Both the outside frame and the interior rotundas play on
the idea of pushing sections out from a core volume.
This will aid circulation, natural light and ventilation
inside, while also creating a projected balcony for
viewing events on the square as well as three levels of
elevated outdoor/garden areas with panoramic views.
The library will have a significant role in the
reformulation of public space in the heart of the city.
Francine Houben, a founding partner of Mecanoo, says
that the aspiration is to Bring coherence. Dont add
another icon bring coherence! She also feels that the
responsibility to bring the public to the outside space is
as important as the interior. Consequently, Centenary
Square, which sits in front of the library and its two large
neighbours, will be redeveloped as a destination
currently it is just a broad pedestrian thoroughfare which

offers no sense of place. The section in front of the library will look
down into an outdoor, sheltered amphitheatre below ground level. In
tandem with the adjacent Symphony Hall and the Rep, the library will
bring a unified cultural and social focus to the centre of the city.
Mecanoos design for the library is both considerate and original,
but the fate of the nearby Central Library leads one to be wary of the
evangelism behind the plan to create a new identity for Birmingham.
Local architect John Madins building, a unique inverted ziggurat
completed in 1974, may not be beloved of all but, as one of
Birminghams most famous buildings and an unusual example of
British Brutalism, it is worthy of thorough consideration for
redevelopment and reuse rather than obliteration. It is to make way for
what Clive Dutton, Birminghams Director of Planning and
Regeneration, calls another Brindley Place, which, like the original
Brindley Place a canalside retail/leisure project that helped initiate a
reappraisal of Birmingham 15 years ago will be masterminded by
property developers Argent. In retrospect, Brindley Place offers very
little sense of architectural legacy, while its chain shops and
restaurants are almost entirely devoid of uniqueness or local
character. One can admire the determination to address the need for
metropolitan development, but vigilance is required to ensure that the
bravura does not threaten the citys established urban character and
sense of place. 4+
Howard Watson is an author, journalist and editor based in London. He is co-author, with
Eleanor Curtis, of the new 2nd edition of Fashion Retail (Wiley-Academy, 2007), 34.99. See
www.wiley.com. Previous books include The Design Mix: Bars, Cocktails and Style (2006) and
Hotel Revolution: 21st-Century Hotel Design (2005), both also published by Wiley-Academy.
Text 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 142, 143(b) Courtesy Birmingham
City Council; p 143(t) Mecanoo Architecten

143+

4 Architectural Design

Turkey: At the Threshold

, Michael Hensel and Defne Sungurog lu Hensel
Guest-edited by Hlya Ertas
All eyes are currently on Turkey with Istanbuls status as European Capital of Culture
2010. It makes it a pertinent moment to take stock and to look at Turkeys past, present
and future, bringing the nations cultural renaissance and evolution to the fore internationally. Since the early 2000s, Turkey has undergone a remarkable economic recovery,
which has been accompanied by urban development and a cultural flowering.
Positioned between an expanding European Union and an unstable Middle East, the
country provides a fascinating interface between the Occident and the Orient. Taking
into account the current political concerns with consolidating Eastern and Western cultures, Turkey is poised at a vital global crossroads:
Tackles aspects of globalisation and the potential threat that a rapid rolling out of an
overly homogenised built environment poses to rich local building traditions that are
founded on specific, climatic, knowledge and cultural diversity.
Provides an analytical approach that highlights specific aspects of Turkeys rich heritage and current design culture.
Features work by established and emerging design practices in Turkey.
Contributors include Tevfik BalcIog lu, Glsm Baydar, Edhem Eldem, Tolga islam,
Zeynep Kezer, Ug ur Tanyeli, ilhan Tekeli and Banu Tomruk.

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Practice Profile Amanda Levete Architects (AL_A)
Interior Eye Jil Sander Boutique and Derek Lam Boutique, New York
Building Profile Raven Row, Spitalfields, London
Unit Factor The EmTech Wave Canopy 2009
Userscape Dynamic Light: The Media Facades of realities:united
Site Lines Mecanoo Architects Library of Birmingham
Regular columns from Will McLean, Neil Spiller and Ken Yeang