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

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

Turkey Cinemascope, exhibition of Nuri Bilge Ceylan photographs at the National Theatre, London

Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Curved street in winter, Istanbul, 2004


Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Stormy weather on the Galata bridge, 2004

Filmmaker and photographer Nuri Bilge Ceylan has a show of photographs currently at the National Theatre in London. The exhibition, Climates: Turkey Cinemascope, is shown in parallel with his latest film, Climates/İklimler, which he directed and acted in (interestingly enough his character in the film was a mean architectural historian). The photographs in the exhibit were taken as a part of location scouting for the film and hence of a highly cinematic flavor, very close to the films photographic vision. Aesthetically they also owe something to the legendary photographer Ara Güler who was the first photographer to delve into the labyrinth of Istanbul to come up with artistic gems out of the urban mishmash. The city being as photogenic as it ends lends itself easily to this slighly aestheticized documentary style of photography. In the hands of a good photographer like Ceylan, his stern eye is able to capture the play between the fleeting flows of people and traffic against an urban backdrop of dark geometric beauty that are hallmarks of Istanbul’s urbanism.

[from artkrush via BldgBlog]

Add comment March 26th, 2007

Raimondo D’Aronco exhibition at the Pera Museum

Raimondo D’Aronco, Mosque

Istanbul is home to major works of the Art Nouveau by the Italian architect Raimondo D’Aronco. Having lived and worked in Istanbul from 1893 to 1909 as architect for the Ottoman court and state, D’Aronco’s unique fusion of the fluid lines of the Art Nouveau with Ottoman and other eastern motifs were unique in the era.

Continue Reading Add comment October 9th, 2006