MİMARLIK . 323 . July-August 2005

NEWS

.. From the World of Architecture

The UIA 2005 Gold Medal jury announced this year’s laureate as Japanese architect Tadao Ando. The jury commented, “His tireless and powerful passion have been enhancing his ideals through his simple, strong and beautiful architecture as well as on the socio-cultural level, practicing throughout the world both as a architect and a teacher. His tremendous contribution to global contemporary architecture, architects and even non-architects, make him, without any doubt, a deserving recipient of the Gold Medal of UIA”. The award ceremony will be realized on July 6, during the UIA 2005 Congress.

.. Towards UIA 2005 İstanbul

We have fast approached July and completed the final countdown for the UIA 2005 Istanbul Congress! The academic program of the Congress including presentations, keynoter speeches, forums and exhibitions is announced in June and there is growing number of keynoters. On July 4; Cengiz Bektaş, Denise Scott Brown, Odile Decq, Glenn Murcutt, Joseph Rykwert, Zaha Hadid, Sumet Jumsai, Mario Botta, on July 5; Kengo Kuma, Peter Eisenman, Aziz Lazrak, Alexandros Tombazis, Zvi Hecker, Hans Hollein, Dominique Perrault, on July 6; Massimiliano Fuksas, Greg Lynn & Ross Lovegrove, Francesco Dal Co, Mikhail Piotrovsky, Charles Correa, Tadao Ando, on July 7; Robert Venturi, Shigeru Ban, Paolo Portoghesi, Moshe Safdie, Ken Yeang, Rem Koolhaas will be speaking at the Lütfi Kırdar Convention Center. We wish all colleagues a lively reunion at the Congress Valley and best experiences in İstanbul! For further information do not hesitate to visit www.uia2005istanbul.org.

ACTIVITY

.. 17th Building-Life Congress Convened with the Theme: “…and Architecture” / Melih Türa

The 17th Building-Life Congress convened on May 19-21, 2005 in Bursa under the theme “…and Architecture” with the participation of academicians and professionals from all disciplines participating the creation of the built environment. The aim of the congress was to take up the relation of architecture with city planning, urban design, conservation and interior design, as well as engineering disciplines participating in the building construction. The sessions of the organized in different themes: “Decoration, Interior Architecture…and Architecture”, “Engineering Services…and Architecture”, “Conservation, Restoration…and Architecture”, “Landscape Design, Environmental Arrangement…and Architecture” and “City Planning, urban Design…and Architecture”.

CHAMBER’S BUILDINGS

.. Chamber of Architects Alanya Representative Office Building: Semiha Köseoğlu House / Burhan Taneri

Beginning from our preceding issues, we have started to publish articles on the Chamber’s Chapters and Representative Offices that restore the historical buildings in their regions to use them for their office and service facilities. One of them is the Alanya Representative Office, which recently restored a house characteristic of Alanya. The building, which had stood up without any significant damage for years, has considerably ruined after a fire broke up 10 years ago. Rather than demolishing the ruined building, restoration was preferred with the initiatives of the architects. The documentation, restitution and restoration projects for the building were prepared by architect Şükran Ural Gülücü. After the completion of the restoration, the building will be occupied by the Chamber of Architects Alanya Representative Office and ALSAV (Alanya Culture History Art Foundation).

CITY MUSEUM

.. Kayseri City Museum / Sencer Erkman

The city museums that were published in our previous issues were all located in renovated historical buildings, however this time we are introduced a new building designed and constructed to contain the Kayseri City Museum. Kayseri is the city where the great architect Mimar Sinan was born and therefore the building was organized to serve both for the city museum and the Mimar Sinan Museum. Sencer Erkman discusses on the concept of “city museum” with the case of Kayseri.

ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION

.. A Glance at the International Documents Regarding Architectural Education / Ayşen Ciravoğlu

.. Shaping the Curriculum for a European Higher Architectural Education: A Trans-Atlantic View / Stanford Anderson

The establishment and development of the European Higher Education Area has been one of the leading issues on the EU agenda, as it created a wide ranging debate both among different EU member and candidate countries and also among different disciplines trying to keep their own specific situations and conditions. Ayşen Ciravoğlu makes a very general outline of the seminal texts related with the European Higher Education Area including Bologna, Prague and Berlin declarations, as well as Magna Charta Universitatum. This brief introduction to the European education texts is followed by Stanford Anderson’s views on the creation of a curriculum within the target of European Higher Architectural Education presented during the 7th meeting of Heads of Schools of Architecture in Europe that took place in Crete / Hania on September 4-7, 2004. According to Anderson, in order to proceed with the European Higher Education area in the field of architecture, it is necessary to make clear definitions of profession and discipline, so as to develop a well operating system supported by both education and research at the European universities.

RESEARCH

.. Eskihisar (Stratonikeia) / Eylem Kazıl

Eskihisar (Stratonikeia), which is part of the town Yatağan in Muğla City in the Aegean region of Turkey, is a settlement, which has hosted many civilizations from antiquity to modern times. The city was under the dominance of Hellene, Roman, Byzantium and Ottoman empires consecutively and was decorated with magnificent architectural pieces. The city of Eskihisar was introduced to Turkish Culture in the 11th century. According to Evliya Çelebi, the city was captured by Ahmet Gazi at 1354 and over time it came under the control of the Ottoman administration. The construction of the original works of arts during the Ottoman period was performed by master builders that came from the Aegean Islands of Rhodes, Karpathos and Cyprus. The article sets forth this rich history of the city to give a message that; “It is a duty of humanity to protect and transfer the city of Stratonikeia (Eskihisar), which has brought the past uninterrupted, although now a ghost city and under deconstruction, to the future generations”.

.. Facades in the Traditional Midyat Houses / Neslihan Dalkılıç

Midyat, a settlement in the city of Mardin in South Eastern Anatolia, displays a very rich and diverse cultural heritage in its urban fabric. This richness and diversity is mostly due to the cultural and religious variety in the region. The architectural projections of this variety can be seen in religious spaces (monastery, church, mosque), as well as caravanserais, trade units and numerous traditional houses. The officially registered architectural heritage in the old Midyat region consists of 2 caravanserais, 7 churches, 199 traditional houses, a mosque and a monastery. Neslihan Dalkılıç provides readers a rich visual documentation regarding typologies in the traditional houses of Midyat underlining that these houses should be conserved to details and transmitted to the future generations. The major problem threatening Midyat is the very dynamic internal and external migrations, which cause an imbalance of population.

SERIAL: ARCHITECT’S STATE OF MIND

.. An Architect at Public Service: Çelen Birkan / Serial Editor: Kubilay Önal

The architectural profession, which was traditionally defined with its artistic, technical and cultural functions, has transformed in time to become a part of service sector with the introduction of management, supervision, control and counseling functions. Furthermore, the profession has to be redefined after the growing specialization of some construction related fields such as engineering and city planning. Departing from this transformation, MİMARLIK started a new series concerning the “States of Architect”, which aims to present and discuss alternative professional fields of practice. In this issue, an interview with Çelen Birkan, who worked for years as “an architect at the public office”, will draw a picture for the readers on the profile of this “state of architect”.

FROM THE WORLD

.. Sign Beyond Space: Re-visiting Las Vegas / Ekim Tan

Ekim Tan summarizes views discussed during a seminar of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown organized at the Netherlands Architectural Institute (NAI). The main topic of the seminar was the just published book of the architect couple, “Architecture as Signs and Systems: For a Mannerist Time”. Venturi and Brown underlines in the seminar that they are against an architectural approach in which the requirements of the occupants are sacrificed to symbolism. Instead, they underline a social concern that symbolism should be used as a means to communicate with the society and the function should be an equally important input in the creation of architecture. Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown will also be present in İstanbul during the UIA 2005 Congress. They will be making their speeches respectively on July 7 and July 4, 2005, at the Lütfi Kırdar Convention Center.

PUBLICATION REVIEW

.. Content: “Magazine Like a ‘Book’ Like a Magazine” / Derin İnan

Rem Koolhaas is undoubtedly one of the most significant figures of the contemporary debates on architecture and urbanism with underlying social and cultural transformations and his book “S, M, L, XL” was influential both in the architectural theory and criticism in the same extent. In his more recent book “Content” published in 2002, Koolhaas continues his ironic language to question the authority of architecture in directing social and cultural changes and traditional definition of architectural profession and project offices in relation with the impact of globalization. The book, more like a magazine in terms its content, represents the temporariness and mobility of the current era. Derin İnan, who attended the meeting of Rem Koolhaas at the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA) on February 17, 2004, on the occasion of the promotion of “Content”, makes a review of book. Rem Koolhaas, as one of the keynoters of the UIA 2005 Istanbul Congress, will be presenting his works and views on July 7 at the Lütfi Kırdar Convention Center.

MEA ARCHITECTURA MEA CULPA

.. The Architecture of Victor Hugo… / Gürhan Tümer

“The Ana Britannica Encyclopedia describes Victor Hugo as “the most significant novelist, playwright and poet of French Literature in the Romantic Era” and in addition “a political figure with his writings against repression, […] Bonapartism”. Of course this information is correct, surely. But a little bit lacking. It is lacking, because Hugo was at the same time a painter, fond of architecture. The majority of his paintings or sketches were about buildings. Furthermore, he had also some theoretical writings on buildings. For example in one of these writings he was saying: “[Great architectural works] are social creations; born out of the societies, rather than arising out of the minds of genius people; they are accumulations of nations. […] Great buildings, just like huge mountains, are an outcome of centuries”.

MİMARLIK . 324 . July-August 2005

English Summary by Tuğçe Selin Tağmat