istanbulmetro . istanbul architecture design

Istanbul nominated Best City in Wallpaper* Design Awards, REX Architecture designs Vakko headquarters, Mike Berg sculpture

Wallpaper* Design Awards 2010

Web  videos on Istanbul in Moncole and Wallpaper, Istanbul nominated as Best City by Wallpaper
The two bastion’s of international in-the-know cool, Monocle and Wallpaper were working the Istanbul theme this week with web videos. Monocle focuses on Arab tourists attracted to Istanbul by popular Turkish soap-opera NOOR, a flop in Turkey but a craze amongst middle and upper class Arab women lured by the rags to riches storyline, Istanbul scenery and the blue eyes of heart throb Kivanç Tatlıtuğ.  Wallpaper* magazine video features the less sexy but still hip Autoban design duo of Seyhan Özdemir and Sefer Cağlar as they expostulate the same old yada yada on east/west, old/new, chaos/order themes in a neat production centered largely in the Beyoğlu area. The City video was a part of Istanbul’s nomination as Best City in the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2010 (which was eventually won by New York).

http://www.monocle.com/sections/culture/Web-Articles/Soap-Opera-Tourists/

http://www.wallpaper.com/video/travel/city-short-istanbul/61718743001

http://www.wallpaper.com/designawards/2010/istanbul

REX Architecture, New York, completes Vakko and Power Media headquarters in Altunizade, Istanbul, January 2010

REX Architects of New York finish Vakko headquarters in Altunizade
REX Architects of New York (ex-Rem Koolhaas, OMA staffers) have finally after a long and arduous process about to complete construction of the Vakko headquarters in the Altunizade district of Istanbul. Vakko, a venerable textile brand led by the Hakko family, reached out to the New York firm to give them a brave new world look for Vakko and the Power Media group. Working with the existing half-built foundations of a hotel project,  the REXers led by front man Joshua Prince-Ramus transformed the concrete box using a plan they had originally design for an office building for Caltech University in California. REX’s design, a glass base surrounded by a jumbled grouping of steel boxes in the interior, presents a dynamic face to a company known more for it’s traditional textile designs.  After London’s Foreign Office Architects Meydan Shoppinging Center REX’s Vakko building becomes one of the few meaningful examples of international architects working in Turkey’s insular building culture. Thanks to REX’s effort and Vakko for the vision, Istanbul has a contemporary piece of architecture worth talking about.

http://www.rex-ny.com/work/vakko-fashion-center/

Mike Berg exhibition, "Heavy Metal", Galeri Nev, Istanbul, January 2010

Mike Berg, Heavy Metal art exhibition opens at Galeri Nev
American artist Mike Berg has been living in Istanbul for almost a decade.  His work concentrating on pattern, abstraction and gesture has seen this native of Washington state delve into the details of eastern and Islamic based geometric abstraction and handicraft. In his latest show HEAVY METAL at Galeri Nev in the Misir Apt in Beyoğlu, Berg shows large rusted steel sculptures and wall hangings that explore the tension between the ephemerality of momentary gestures of the hand and the solidity of the material.  The introspective Berg has long been obsessed with the ma thematic systems in the patterns of the architecture and decorative arts of Islamic cultures.  This can be seen in the apocalypticaly named wall paintings made from chalk lines, From Barbarism, To Decadence, Culture, which surround the viewer in a captivating abstraction that is Berg’s systematic reworking of eastern thought.
Mike Berg, HEAVY METAL, Galeri Nev, through February 6, 2010. Misir Apt., Istiklal Caddesi, Beyoğlu

http://www.galerinevistanbul.com/

Add comment January 18th, 2010

Some thoughts on the nomadic in İstanbul - Sébah & Joaillier

So there is not a whole lot out there in terms of analysis of the dynamic urban systems of Istanbul.  These would be the manifestations of the nomadic economies of Asian and African origin in Anatolia and Eastern Europe.  Specifically those last 19th century actors of a civilization that had been active for more then 2000 years.  The Euro-Asiatic synthesis based on the micro to the macro movements of people in urban forms of habitation.  From village to town to regional capital to Istanbul the fluid relations coursed threw a dynamic decentralized network adapted from the fluid movement sytems of the steppe and the desert.   The performance of this culture, this ethos, in and by the Anatolian peasantry represented a uniqe synthesis that had its most vociferous exposition in Constantinople/İstanbul.  Of course there is the important work of Stefanos Yerasimos on urbanism in Istanbul.  His analysis of the transformation of the meydan concpet from the Ottoman period into the 19th century.  Maybe you can throw in Zeynep Çelik’s streetwise analysis of a block in Sultanahmet.

Or perhaps one can accept the fact that most persuasive creative statement analyzing 19th century İstanbul comes from artists who lived at the time, the work of   the photographers  Sébah & Joaillier.  From their offices on 493 Grande Rue de Pera they honed a surgical if not fantastic eye on 19th century İstanbul.  Their capturing the systems of the nomadic economy, the various peddlers, hawkers, deliveryman, religious figures and mendicants provide the first and last glimpse to an ancient world that would quickly then disappear.

Sébah & Joaillier

Photograph by Sébah & Joaillier, "Professor and his students"

Add comment March 8th, 2009

Ross Lovegrove exhibit, PRIMORDIAL, at Galerist

Ross Lovegove, Cetacea, 1822 x 705 x 635mm, copper, photography courtesy of Galerıst by Bariş Özçetin

Ross Lovegrove exhibition Primordial shown at Galerist in January/February 2009  features some of the designers signature work produced over the past few years. Utilizing handicraft combined with high technology materials such as aluminum and carbon fiber the designer continues to pursue his interest in abstract geometric forms. Showcased in this exhibition are a number of pulsating and undulating works produced by hand in the shape of benches, tables, chair and a prototype for a motorcycle.  Throughout the exhibition Lovegrove’s mastery of form is evident in the almost supernatural character of these limited edition design objects that could easily also be seen as sculpture.

Lovegrove’s career in design has seen him go through a remarkable development where today he is becoming more known for the creativity of his forms rather then the end products. His disciplined fascination with organic forms and craft  over a career that now spans over twenty years has reached a nadir where one feels that the whole point of what exactly these objects are is beyond the point. Exhibited as they are in an art gallery such as Galerist, the works of the the Primordial exhibit are at the edge of contemporary ideas of form and shape at their most abstract.

Lovegrove’s career in design has seen him rise to beyond the design world to a position as one of the more innovative minds in form. Ross Lovegrove was born in Wales in 1958. After having studied industrial design at the Manchester Polytechnic, in 1980 he entered the Royal College of Art of London. After graduation,  he worked with leading industrial design company Frogdesign in Germany, participating in the design of the Walkman for Sony and computers for Apple. In Paris he worked in the design team of  the furniture manufacturer Knoll International, designing the Alessandri office system, a work which brought him attention in global design circles. Also in France, he was part of the Atelier de Nimes with Philippe Starck and Jean Nouvel, and worked as a consultant for leading brands such as Cacharel, Luis Vuitton, Dupont and Hermès. In the second half of the 1980s Lovegrove returned to London and by 1990, he had opened his own Studio X in Notting Hill. Since setting off on his own  he has worked for international clients, developing a style inspired by the forms of nature combined with a thorough knowledge of ergonomics and advances in technology and production. Armed with these experiences he arrived in Turkey 2004 starting to work with the ceramic and bath fixtures for Vitra. Since his first Istanbul series for Vitra in 2006, Lovegrove has been one of the few international designers and architects with a constant presence in Istanbul.

With Primordial, the Istanbul public has a chance to see first-hand a different approach to design that is part of the current worldwide trend where art and design have almost become the same thing. As Lovegrove himself declares, “I’m an evolutionary biologist, more than a designer.  I don’t know what design is anymore, I create form, I understand form and I’m enjoying the digital age to create it.”  Entering the gallery, one is confronted immediately by one of these art/design hybirids, the amorphous copper Cetacea piece which is the one “art” work in the exhibition.  Cetacea is an elongated tube like structure perforated by lateral openings whose complexity can only be understood upon close inspection. Does one sit on this? Is it sculpture? The relation between observer and object is at once immediate and powerful because of the form and material but is ultimately an indefinite and tense one because what does not exactly what do with this object. Are we supposed to observe and appreciate it, sit on it, can we touch it?

Moving through the gallery to the other “design” objects, two benches, two sets of tables and a bike form, the functional aspects of each of these pieces starts to become to mind in relation to their striking forms . Expertly lit in the gallery installation to produce reflections of their dynamic shapes, the objects are complemented by video projections, digital prints and the dramatic lighting. Expanding beyond their immediate shapes, these objects explode out into the gallery.  It is here in the experience of form itself that one sees the power of the object. It would be absurd to think of using any of these objects on a daily basis. If they have any function at all it as indications of new direction in man’s quest to create physical versions of contemporary culture.

In Primordial, as the title of the exhibition emphasize, Lovegrove is trying to get at the basics of form and shape through innovative materials and techniques.  His evolving design practice has led him to this point where he is almost a god-like form creator producing modern day monoliths to this age’s  ideas on technology, material and shape. Undoubtedly, for the Istanbul public more used to seeing Lovegrove through his Vitra bathroom furnishings, a designer working in this way will seem odd. These objects are all well and good but the question many will ask is…why?  Why a table that will never have anything on it? (Which in fact would probably not look good with something on it.) Why a bench whose materials would be too precious to sit on?

The works in Primordial, all limited edition handcrafted masterpieces,  are important not for any other reason beyond the fact that they are powerful objects.  Their value as creative originates from the fact that they give back to the object an importance that has been lost in our contemporary consumer culture where material objects in the form of products are quickly bought, consumed and discarded. Works such as Lovegroves  reinvest objects with a degree of power they once had before they were mass produced and made anonymous and superfluous. In this exhibition the fascination with the shapes and forms stems partly from the detailed handcraft that was undoubtedly required to produce them. The power of the human hand to create and the human mind to innovate has been actively involved in the conception of these objects that look back deep into the past as much as they point dynamically forward into the future.

Add comment February 10th, 2009

Design Cities exhibit at the Istanbul Modern. I don’t like it. And if you read the discussion I have here with the curator Deyan Sudjic, you can tell why.

Poster, Design Cities, Tasarım Şehirler, İstanbul Modern

Design in Turkey does not seem to have a long or meaningful history. When it is mentioned most people are surprised that contemporary design from Turkey even existed at all. Didn’t Turkish designers just copy from the West? Wasn’t Turkish design just a second rate or third rate version of what was going in Milan, London etc? What of interest could possibly have been created in Turkey of the 1930s or 1950s, 1960s….?

Design in Turkey has for many years been part of a general importation of knowledge and culture from the West. The elites of the Turkish Republic and the Ottomans before them have for centuries imported knowledge and culture from the West in the belief that it was more advanced and hence more valuable. This sort of cultural imperialism worked well for both sides. The local elites were able to justify themselves as leaders pointing to their embrace of this “better” universal culture, agents of the West profited from the sale of ideas and products to Turkey. This scenario which started after the regime Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s initial radical efforts to incubate local ways of doing things continues until today.

It is in this light that I would like to frame the below discussion I had with the curator of the Design Cities exhibition, Dejan Sudic of the Design Museum in London. I believe that this exhibition no matter the great value of the objects displayed here is ultimately another example of the long and still somehow active cultural imperialism that goes on in Turkey. In terms of design, I have no problems with the objects themselves. My issue is that as the first formal exhibition on design and design history by the leading gallery of modernism in the country, this exhibition is completely inappropriate. Whatever value these objects might have for young designers and the general museum going populace is outweighed by the fact that this exhibition does not advance anything but the tired canon of Western design history.

Let me be clear here in my description of this history. The history of design in the West is one that is tied closely to industrialization and excludes elements of the vernacular and everyday, what I would call anonymous design or design by non-designers. In a country like Turkey where most objects lack design pedigree, different social and designs traditions of local origin are more relevant to object making and design then one this closely tied to the canon of Western design history, industrialization and capitalism. For example, the recognition of the sensory dimensions of the environment seen in design from places like Brazil or Mexico or the efficacy of handicraft and materials in Scandinavia, these contexts show another history of design outside of industrialization and ultimately more relevant to this Turkish context then the cities shown in Design Cities.

In an era when there are serious ecological and cultural matters are pressing in from all sides, what good is this exhibit to Turkey and the Turkish audience? What cause or idea does it advance? These are questions that I fear have no answer beyond the curator’s own aesthetic judgements concerning these objects. With so much in our own history and design history still waiting to be explored and identified, exhibition’s like Design Cities seem to be more of the flashy regurgitation of Western models that ultimately is doing local design and our cultural contribution to universal culture no good.

Discussion by email between me, Gökhan Karakuş and Deyan Sudjic published in Galerist newspaper, May 2008. Some of my questions were answered, some not.

Questions for Deyan Sudjic regarding Design Cities exhibit, Istanbul Modern.

Gökhan Karakuş / Galerist
Istanbul April 10, 2008

Gökhan Karakuş. Where did the idea for doing this exhibition emerge? How did you get involved? You have a challenging job in London as head of the Design Museum, why did you feel it was important to do this exhibition?

Deyan Sudjic. I have been aware of Istanbul Modern since before I started work at the Design Museum. It has a beautiful space, and it is operating in an extraordinarily interesting context which makes the chance of curating an exhibition there particularly attractive. We discussed the idea of an architecture exhibition which did not materialize. But then design came up as a topic and it seemed to make a lot of sense in Turkey. Ataturk after all was very much aware of the power of design as an element in constructing a modern state. Think about his impact on every aspect of the way that Turkey looks: from its capital city, to the architecture of that capital, the country’s adoption of the Latin alphabet, even its dress. All of these are design decisions.
And Turkey today is making use of its industrial capacity to move up the value scale by beginning to use sophisticated design.

Gökhan Karakuş. The exhibition, Design Cities, uses cities as the vehicle to organize a certain history of design that could be labeled the Canonical History of Design in industrialized countries. Why did you decide to use cities in this way and not countries or movements?

Deyan Sudjic. I am as interested in the story of cities as I am in the history of design. And in fact as well as my role as the director of the design museum, I am the co chairman of the Urban Age project, a partnership between the London School of Economics and Deutsche Bank which has spent the last three years exploring the future of the city –
I think it is impossible in the contemporary world to define design in purely national terms: think about one of the exhibits in the London 2008 section, the Mini for example: Its supposedly a quintessentially British design, but it is owned by a German company, and the original engine was made in Brazil by an American company. And of course the original Mini was designed by Alec Issigonis – born in Turkey, of Greek origin, who settled in Britain. We show a work by Hussein Chalayan in the London section: he was educated in Britain, and works in London. We show several pieces by Zaha Hadid, born in Bagdad, educated in Beiruit, now a London resident. You would not call her a British architect, but you could plausibly describe her as a London architect. Cities after all have mostly been around a lot longer than nation states. Movements don’t always help understand the contradictory currents of design. London in 1851 was both rejecting the industrial revolution in the shape of William Morris, and embracing it in Christopher Dresser. Showing them side by side perhaps conveys that sense better

Gökhan Karakuş. Your exhibition is sort of the “greatest hits” of western design with a short stop in Japan for contrast. You have all the great names, great objects, great schools, what is the purpose of organizing this kind of exhibit for Istanbul? Why does the general Istanbul and Turkish audience need to know this history? As a popular and intellectual exercise what can be gained from this exhibition? Why are your pushing this particular history of design and its agenda at this time? In other words, why do you think it is relevant to manufacture this identity around design at this particular moment in Turkey when the concept of design and design values are still under debate, where the history of design in Turkey has yet to organized?

Deyan Sudjic. I think that I have touched on the answers to some of these questions in my earlier answers. I am not sure that I have an agenda, other than to say that I find many of these objects beautiful in their own right, and that understanding how some of them came into being, can provide pointers to understanding the world around us. I certainly think that what an exhibition with real object can do that nothing else can is to provide a physical tangible sense of the materiality of things. I have never seen all these objects together in one place before, and its not the same as making a list, or reading a book.

Gökhan Karakuş. What would you hope Istanbul’s design and architecture community would gain from this exhibition?

I hope that they will find enjoyable, provocative and engaging.

Gökhan Karakuş. What is the connection between this exhibitions program and its intended audience here in Istanbul?

Gökhan Karakuş. The history of design codified in this exhibition is one that is tied closely to industrialization and excludes elements of the vernacular and everyday, what I would call anonymous design or design by non-designers. In a country like Turkey where most objects lack design pedigree, don’t you think an exhibition open to different social and designs traditions would’ve been more relevant then one this closely tied to the canon of Western design history, industrialization and capitalism? For example, the recognition of the sensory dimensions of the environment seen in design from places like Brazil or Mexico or the efficacy of handicraft and materials in Scandinavia, would not these contexts be more valuable contributions to another history of design and ultimately more relevant to this context?

Deyan Sudjic. Which particular elements of Brazilian design are you talking about? It would I agree have been fascinating to look at the differences between Brazil and Turkey, and to wonder why Brazil has produced a Niemeyer, or a Campana, - or Mexico a Barragan, and Turkey has not, so far done so. It could easily have done so: During the 1940s, Turkey saw Bruno Taut, and Margarete Schutte Lihotsky as visitors, just as Brazil had Le Corbusier. And it is also true that both Brazil and Turkey are becoming increasingly important exporters by making use of contemporary design. But that would have been a different exhibition. One that would usefully be done one day soon.

If you look at what William Morris believed, I think that you will find that he was as implacably opposed to capitalism, and industrialisation as anybody. He was a revolutionary socialist, who believed passionately that machines were dehumanising. He was an ecologist before the word was even invented. And this exhibition opens with him. The work of Josef Hoffman and Koloman Moser were also based on workmanship and handcraft. So in fact was the Bauhaus, despite its rhetoric about the machine age.
If you look at the choices I have made in my cities, you will see that I have avoided , for example the work of Raymond Loewy, and Philippe Starck.
Design is of course a huge subject, and to make an exhibition like this work, some kind of framework is essential. The theme of craft vs industry, local vs universal is there , and I hope that you are able to see beyond what appear to be your preconceptions about the nature of this exhibition.
What your question seems to suggest is that this exhibition is some sort of imperialist propaganda effort, which I would vigorously deny. I am myself deeply concerned about the avalanche of stuff that is sweeping over the world, as we are all encouraged to consume more at every level. I certainly believe that design cannot be allowed to become simply a form of three dimensional marketing. But design is I believe fundamentally the product of industrialisation. And since all of us, wherever we live, are shaped by industrial production, its important to understand how it works.

Gökhan Karakuş. Today because of the ecological crises the notion of universal or standardized concepts of living promoted by industrialization and capitalism is starting to lose validity. Instead we are starting to see that there are certain efficiencies to be gained from an individual’s built environment in the history, culture, and climate of his or her immediate surroundings. Your exhibition seems to be promoting these universal/standardized concepts of modernity. In the first years of the 21st century, in seemingly a new era, what do you think is to be gained from the continued promotion of this agenda and history? In the light of the ecological crises don’t you think the canon needs to be adjusted to accept other ways of living and social practices not visible in your exhibitions works?

Deyan Sudjic. While rejecting your assertions that I am promoting ecological catastrophe, I am not unsympathetic to your suggestions. But it is a fact that in Istanbul, and Beijing, as much as Mexico City or Johannesburg, there are both shared assumptions, and very distinctively different things going on. The ipod, Manchester United, the Airbus, colour imaginations everywhere. I think also by structuring around the idea of cities I am also emphasising their differences.

Add comment May 19th, 2008

This is design in Turkey, a manifesto. With thanks to Ilhan Koman for leading the way

Ilhan Koman, PI Series of experimental forms derived from mathematical formula, 1980-1983. photograph by Tayfun Tunceli. Courtesy Koman Foundation.

The history of design in the West is one that is tied closely to industrialization and excludes elements of the vernacular and everyday, what I would call anonymous design or design by non-designers. In a country like Turkey where most objects lack design pedigree, different social and designs traditions of local origin are more relevant to object making and design then one this closely tied to the canon of Western design history, industrialization and capitalism. For example, the recognition of the sensory dimensions of the environment seen in design from places like Brazil or Mexico or the efficacy of handicraft and materials in Scandinavia, these contexts show another history of design outside of industrialization and ultimately more relevant to this Turkish context.

Today because of the ecological crises the notion of universal or standardized concepts of living promoted by industrialization and capitalism is starting to lose validity. Instead we are starting to see that there are certain efficiencies to be gained from an individual’s built environment in the history, culture, and climate of his or her immediate surroundings. In Turkey today this question of the role of universal/standardized concepts of modernity is being questioned. I believe this questioning, in these first years of the 21st century, in the light of the ecological crises the canon of design is an extremely valuable contribution to the global discourse in design. We can no longer be so concerned with a particular style or idiom mordern or not, we instead need adjust this addiction to only the modenr to accept other ways of living and social practices.

These premodern social practices are those that need to be studied today to create a new value system for contemporary design and object creation in Turkey. We need to focus on a combination of environmental, social and mental realities existing in the cultures found in Turkey’s geography for thousands of years. Cultures such as the nomadic Turkic culture, Selcuk, Byzantine and Ottoman civilizations, Islamic philosophy, Shamanistic religion, Anatolian peasant society and Sufi traditions are just a few of the many premodern practices that should be accessed. I want to be clear that the cultures should be accessed not for any aesthetic or cultural agenda. Instead what I am proposing is that in an era when basic resources such as oil, food, water, are beginning to dwindle, we need to figure out other ways of doing things that are not as wasteful as industrialized capitalism. The source for other ways of doing things are these premodern ways of doing and creation that are still found in great number and still in use in Turkey and Anatolia.

Turkey’s geography is a great source for these practices relying on hand-made and craft and for natural, organic and authentic materials. From soap to silk, ceramics to candles, marble to iron, there is abundancy of local materials and techniques that can be be utilized that are valid today. The task is to combine these materials and technical practices with contemporary ways of doing things in technology especially that also provide similar efficiencies. The resourceful combination of the two, the premodern practices with the very contemporary technologies and methods will yield new and valuable ways of doing things. These ways of doing and creating will be extremely important as a change in the way industrialized capitalism works. Turkey is at a position now where it has the resources to articulate this agenda, advanced know-how and technology on one side, valid premodern ways of doing things on the other. It is a matter of combining the two to create a new vision for 21st century living based on the unique perspective afforded by Turkey’s geography and cultural heritage.

Add comment May 12th, 2008

Zorlu Gayrimenkul invited competition for Karayolları plot in Levent…gossip

Update: February 18
My sources are telling me that the results from the Zorlu competition will be announced this week. From what I can gather there will be no one winner but instead parts of the project will be awarded to three architects, Arolat, Bozkurt and Tabanlioglu. This is my assumption for the moment.

Some people are asking me for the latest on the nebulous process that is leading up to the design of the old Turkish Highways Administration, Istanbul Directorate plot in Levent. I had a few months back report on the sale of this plot to the Zorlu conglomerate, one of Turkey’s largest industrial group. According to what I’ve gleaned from gossip in various internet discussion groups the short list goes like this…

- Cafer Bozkurt Architecture Ltd. + Asp Architekten Stuttgart Partnership (Mete Arat, Cem Arat)
- Mimarlar Tasarım (Han Tümertekin) + Hashim Sarkis + George Hargreaves Consortium
- Tabanlıoğlu Architects Ltd. (Murat and Melkan Tabanlıoğlu)
- EAA Emre Arolat Architects

Alternate

- ERA Urban Planning & Architecture Ltd. (Ali Hızıroğlu)

Amongst this group, Tabanlioglu seems to be the favorite with Tumertekin second choice. Stay tuned for more…

Add comment January 31st, 2008

istanbul design and architecture, istanbul architecture and design, istanbul design and architecture…

Sorry, it’s been crazy for me the last couple of months. I’ve been writing the history of post WWII Turkish design, no mean feet I would have to say. The old Istanbul Metro has suffered as a consequence. But I am back and there’s been a lot to write about. Here’s the quick and dirty version…

1. Istanbul Design Week, the annual hodge podge aggregation of design activity in Istanbul which though quite lively ultimately lacks the focus or direction to make it a meaningful event. The city and the design scene here deserve better.

Stray tray, Gökhan Karakuş, Barbarians’ Banquet, Barbar group, 2007

2. Barbarians independent design initiative of which I am a part. We put together an exhibition entitled, Barbarians Banquet, of abstract objects and prototypes using 3D printing technologies, SLS. Our goal was to attempt to the synthesize local practices with universal techniques. We received some attention from the likes of ID and others. My inclusion in the exhibition, the Stray tray was an attempt to pull apart the parts of a traditional Turkish tray, geometry and pattern, mathematics and object, into a new combination of the very old and the very new which I call hyperarchaic. In my method I produced a new pattern through writing a computer program in Processing which I then extrapolate into a 3D shape. The pattern once objectified is then pushed through a double disc tray, straying through the tray as an object onto itself. Pattern, mathematics, geometry and objectivity are aspects of the traditional Turkish handmade tray that are now reorganized using the techniques of 3D Rapid Prototyping. The Barbarian group is set to organize new exhibits of similarily produced products in 2008…

3. I’ve been writing a lot these days. I’m the Updates Editor of the Wallpaper/Phaidon Istanbul city guide. In addition, I’m on the editorial board and the primary architecture critic of Icon magazine, Turkish edition. Just thought you all should know. I will be posting my articles for Icon in a new section as soon as I clean them up, subjects include, santralIstanbul / Emre Arolat, Nevzat Sayin, Han Tumertekin, curated exhibitions of contemporary Turkish design (Ilk in Milano, Ilk in Istanbul, Sex and Design / Erdem Akan, Barbarians Banquet), Sulan Kolatan, Zaha Hadid, Kocaciklioglu Mimarlik / Otomotion and my history of Turkish furniture design,1950s, KareMetal-Sadi Öziş, Şadi Calık and İlhan Koman, 1960s, Azmi Koz, Bediz Koz, MPD, Şark Mobilya, Ali İhsan Şark, Yıldırım Kocacıklıoğlu, Interno.

4. More shopping centers, M1 Meydan by Foreign Office Architects opened in September. Istinye Park in October, and City’s Nisantasi set to open next month. Look for my full review of Meydan soon.

5. Zaha Hadid was in town last week. She first spoke to a befuddled group of real estate developers at the Forum Istanbul conference at the Swissotel organized by the Turkish branch of the Urban Land Institute dramatically walking out of the lecture room when her presentation was cut-off prematurely by some coot that was leading the session. Despite the theatrics, Hadid could be seen at the conference the next day hustling for business with players and big whigs from Istanbul’s ever expanding real estate sector. Later on in the week, she was comfortably back in her element lecturing to a group of primarily young designers and architects at an event organized by the Arkitera people sponsored by the office furniture company, Nurus. The gossip is a version of her exhibitions from the Guggenheim in New York and the Design Museum in London will land in town next year the Istanbul Modern. Her Kartal urban design master plan seems to be stuck in the typical conflicting interests that usually bog things down here. More on Hadid and Kartal in a later post.

Add comment November 20th, 2007

Jan Nahum and the Anadol Böcek

Anadol Böcek, designed by Jan Nahum, produced 1975-1977

In the limited history of Turkish industrial design, the work of designer and business man Jan Nahum represents one of the first serious effort to create Turkish cars from the ground-up, from design to mass production. And of Nahum’s designs for a number of automobiles during the early 1970s, none stands out more then the Anadol Böcek, a golf cart on steriods based on the Anadol, Turkey’s first mass produced passenger car. This month’s ICON magazine in Turkish has an article on Jan Nahum and these first attempts at car design in Turkey. There is also a decent article on the Anadol in the Wikipedia.

Add comment August 9th, 2007

Swedes in Turkey

The noted Swedish architect Thomas Sandell along with a couple of other senior names in Scandinavian design, Gert Wingårdh and Einar Jarmund and Håkon Vigsnæs of Norway are carving out a bit of the north in an idyllic location in the south, on the Aegean coastal city of Bodrum. Specifically, they are designing snappy vacation homes for Swedes in the village of Gümüşlük about 20 minutes west of Bodrum on the tip of the peninsula. The project is being developed by Istanbul developers Berggruen Construction under the name of Berggruen Gümüşlük. The project has been under the radar but a mention in ex Wallpaper editor Tyler Brulee’s new mag of the moment, Monocle, will ensure some hefty exposure. 

Add comment August 1st, 2007

Istanbul for Sale: Dubai Towers, IETT Bus Garage & TCK Directorate of Highways sites sold

The long awaited sale of the IETT Bus Garage site happened yesterday in a lively event and auction broadcast nationally live on television. Sama Dubai (Dubai International Properties) owned by the Sheikh of Dubai with a bid of $705 million USD won out over second place Zorlu Group, one of Turkey’s largest conglomerates, manufacturers of TVs, appliances etc. Zorlu was the same company that created a stir a couple of weeks back when their bid of $800 million USD gained them a parcel in Zincirlikuyu that currenctly is home to the Istanbul branch of Turkey’s General Directorate of Highways, TCK.

Sama Dubai’s victory brings to an end a long negotiation between the Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai’s minions and Istanbul and Turkey’s ruling AKP Party leadership. It was almost two years ago that the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality announced their intention to create a $5 billion joint venture with the Dubai group with the $500 million USD IETT Garage being the corner stone of the deal.

It seems Sama Dubai’s intention is to build something close to the twisting tower they had proposed in the original annoucement. Architecturally the twisting tower concept is closely related to Sama Dubai’s Dubai Tower project in Dubai which in itself is a superficial copy/paste of Santiago Calatrava’s twisting torso concept in Chicago and completed building in Sweden. The whole twisting motif seems to be a secondary by-product of the vogue in the blobular forms created by CAD software programs over the past decade.

Dubai Towers, Levent, Istanbul, Sama Dubai, 2005

I can not say i am not unhappy that this deal is going through as I think any and all internationalization of Istanbul and Turkey’s economy especially with this type of serious capital behind it is a good thing. I’m not going to quibble with the architecture of Dubai Towers because frankly I don’t think there is much hope in Sama Dubai or for that matter any other real estate developer in the Gulf creating anything original in architecture these days. This statement comes from my experiencing debating this point with these types of developers in the MIPIM real estate fair a couple of years back. Also it would also be correct to say that nothing original would’ve come out of the Turkish developers bidding for this deal as they are all fairly new to real estate development and architecture.

One of these deep pocketed neophytes, is the Zorlu Group, an electronics manufacturer with no experience in real estate development, in a similar bid and auction paid $800 million USD for a prize lot at the entrance of the Bosphorus Bridge owned by the State Highway Adminsitration, TCK, just a couple of weeks back. After the sale, Ahmet Nazif Zorlu, the head of the Zorlu Group, made some vague remarks about bringing a noted international architect to design the project. Most probably I’m guessing they will bring in some large SOM, KPFish corporate firm who will come up with a boxy agglomeration of volumes in steel and glass.

We are at the beginnings of an urban expansion in Istanbul. As with most things in Turkey, the process will be largely trial and error with hopefully the errors in architecture not being as heinous as those terrible examples that line the boulevards in Levent and Maslak today.

2 comments March 22nd, 2007