ARCHITECTURE WEEK

Celebrating Architecture! Are Architects the Only to Celebrate Architecture? / edited by Tuğçe Selin Tağmat

Celebration of the Architecture Week is an important occasion for architecture to get in the public agenda of diverse social groups, as well as posing an opportunity for professionals to make a self-evaluation about inherent problems of the profession. In this respect, activity programs for the celebration should be based on the theme of interaction between architecture with an aim to achieve a common comprehension of problems, and on the other hand to give an opportunity for architects to become aware about the social infrastructure they are working with. The Architecture Week, which was celebrated in Britain on 18-27 June 2004, gathering architects, artists, children, families and people from different professions in its activities, is a very striking example to show how these ideas were concretized. As the Chamber of Architects of Turkey has just announced the program for the occasional Architecture Week to be celebrated on 4-11 October 2004, in line with Turkey preparing to host the UIA 2005 Congress, we hope to see similar exciting images from these activities.

FILE: What Will Recent Legislative Arrangements Bring to the Profession?

* Law is a Guarantee also for Architecture... / Oktay Ekinci

* Recent Legislative Arrangements Related with Architectural Profession and Professional Field / prepared by: Mehmet Bozkurt and N.Müge Cengizkan

* A General View About the Legal Arrangement Regarding the Restructuration of Public Administration / Cevat Geray

* The Final Situation of Laws on the Restructuration of Public Administration / Özcan Altaban and Feridun Duyguler

* Whose Interests will be Protected by the Amendment in the Law of Development Plan? / Besim Çeçener

* Legislation Processes for Development Plans, Current Law Has Many Dimensions and Many Actors: It can not be Limited with the Development Plan / Buğra Gökçe

* New Law about Conservation Plans Will Still Remain “Alone” and “Weak” / Oktay Ekinci

The file covers the recent legislative arrangements in the fields of public improvement, environment, culture, municipalities and urban planning. A list of legal arrangements that are directly or indirectly related with the architectural profession and the professional field gives brief information about their content and current status. The list includes both laws and regulations that are already realized or currently in draft form. While Cevat Geray reviews the current situation of local administrations and argues for the main principles that should be considered in the restructuration process, Özcan Altaban and Feridun Duyguluer present a brief outline on the legislation processes for the restructuration of the public administration. Besim Çeçener draws attention to the danger that some articles of the new amendment proposed for the Public Improvement Law can be used for the interests of certain groups. Reviewing the draft laws on “Public Improvement and Urbanization” and “Urban Transformation”, Buğra Gökçe elaborates the discussion by considering not only its relation with the Public Improvement Law, but also by underlining some of the dangers and problems that might come out in relation with the recent legal arrangements for public and local administration. Oktay Ekinci states that the Law on the Conservation of Cultural and Natural Property remains alone in terms of implementation, for the coverage of other laws on public improvement, environment and forests, do not support this law.

CITY MUSEUM

Ahmet Piriştina City Archive and Museum:

A Well-Designed Museum-Archive that Suits İzmir

* Ahmet Piriştina City Archive and Museum / Fikret Yılmaz

* İzmir City Archive and Museum / Hülya Yüceer

* The Figure who Stays in the Background of the Urban Improvement of the City of İzmir: Architect Mesut Özok

As part of the establishment of city museums in different cities of Turkey very recently witnessed, a new city museum was inaugurated in İzmir by the beginning of this year. İzmir City Archive and Museum was opened to visitors after a successful transformation of the modern fire station building, designed by the architect Mesut Özok initially in 1932. Historian Fikret Yılmaz, who is the founder-administrator of the museum, and architect Hülya Yüceer, who planned the transformation project, explain the transformation process of the building. An interview with Mesut Özok, which was published in our journal in 1984, presents a small section of the architect’s professional life in İzmir.

CURRENT AGENDA:

“Architecture in Turkey 2004” Published / Interviews: N. Müge Cengizkan and Tuğçe Selin Tağmat

* Interview with Editor Mine Kazmaoğlu on the “Architecture Yearbook 2004”

* Interview with Abdi Güzer: From the Yearbook 2004 and National Architecture Exhibition and Awards to the Contemporary Architecture in Turkey

The second Architecture Yearbook published in 2004, together with the first yearbook in 2000, became an important source that presents the architectural works in Turkey since 1998. The yearbook and its web site (www.mimtoloji.com) constitute an extensive database for the contemporary Turkish architecture. Our interviews with the Yearbook’s Editor Mine Kazmaoğlu and the Selection Committee member Abdi Güzer explore the creation process of the yearbook and its significance for the architectural community in Turkey.

CONSERVATION

The Sleeping Beauty of Cappadocia: Mustafapaşa – Sinasos / Aslı Özbay

Mustafapaşa (Sinasos) is a historical settlement in Cappadocia, a locus of cultural reconciliation, where tolerance and humanism were the main constituents of the daily life of the people for hundreds of years in the Central Anatolia. A development plan for conservation of the settlement, which consists of stone buildings constructed on the edges of five valleys housing 1,300 people, was put into practice by the beginning of this year. Aslı Özbay, one of the authors of the plan, outlines the historical background of the settlement, as well as its current condition, and explains the main principles followed during the formation of the plan.

ARCHITECTURAL CRITICISM

Monument and Anti-Discourse: From Bennelong’s Hut to the Opera House / Selen Morkoç

The article attempts to rethink the Sydney Opera House after Jørn Utzon’s reception of the Pritzker Prize in 2003, long years after the brilliant days of his carrier. A recent anti-war demonstration that used the Opera House as a scene was a driving force to question the representative position of the building. Selen Markoç questions the status of monument in the contemporary society, saying that today monumentality still tries to maintain its autonomous position, however it now faces a difficulty in representing the unquestionable power and becomes exposed to attacks. According to her, the Opera House, which was constructed on a site where once aborigine Bennelong’s hut was located, on one hand celebrates the art, multi-culturalism, social equality and the victory of geometry and engineering, and on the other, it attempts to surpass, ignore and eliminate the “other”, as represented by the figure of Bennelong.

URBAN SPACE

The Formation of Housing Areas in the Globalization Process and its Effects on Urban Space: The Case of İzmir-Çiğili / Yasemin Sayar and Dürrin Süer

By means of mega projects like giant shopping and business centers and gated residential areas, which are indexed on consumption and have the characteristic of being anywhere, the geographical boundaries begin to be disconsidered in global terms, in local terms, the spatial boundaries seem to get even more definite, thus the urban space gets even more divided and those who can not get acquainted to this process are in turn increasingly excluded. In the article, this context has been analyzed with reference to the luxurious residential areas of Izmir, Çiğli-Mavişehir, as they are thought to exemplify the interaction-areas that stand between architecture and the globalization-localization processes.

English and Turkish translations by Tuğçe Selin Tağmat