MİMARLIK AGENDA

• On Professional Associations / Yavuz Önen

Professional associations that are defined as public institutions within the administrative regulation of the state as established in the 135th article of the 1961 Constitution are being targeted due to planned unlawful legal arrangements concerning the workplaces. The writer focuses on Associations and Chambers, which are in a multidisciplinary relationship network with relevant institutions in the national and international professional environment, in order to emphasize that the powers that are being taken away from them are both their rights and their duties.

• Who Would Gain What by Suppressing Professional Associations? / Ruşen Keleş

The unlawful legislative amendment planned for constitutional professional associations that are public institutions has recently been brought to the agenda. The writer points out that it is necessary to proceed with the knowledge that the constitutional rights of the chambers of professions that look out for the interests of the professionals and the working environment in the public interest are also the duties of these institutions.

AGENDA

• Our Projections for the Post-Quarantine Period

/ Yiğit Acar, Aydan Balamir, Bilge Bal, Cihan Uzunçarşılı Baysal, Ömer Selçuk Baz, İhsan Bilgin, Olgu Çalışkan, Enise Burcu Derinboğaz, Neslihan Dostoğlu, Senem Doyduk, Erdem Erten, Dürrin Süer, İlhan Tekeli, Hakkı Yırtıcı

Our cities bear the traces of all epidemics and disasters that have happened to this day. So, what kind of traces will the current COVID-19 outbreak leave behind? We had to quickly adapt to the changing reality of our lives, and we feel the painstaking effects of this new order in many different areas. Following this change in the way we relate to the city and the emptying of public spaces, the access to education and work through screens, and the creation of a new publicness in our personal space, 'home', are just a few of the many issues we will talk about in the coming period.

We, the journal of Mimarlık, wanted to have a brainstorm concerning the uncertain environment we are living in. What are our projections about the epidemic and beyond? What kind of utopias, perhaps dystopias, are we imagining about the future? What will the consequences of the measures taken on location during the epidemic be for the post-pandemic period? What kind of a social environment will be there after the physical distances that have entered our language and life with the concept of ‘social’ distancing and that we voluntarily accept? How will all these developments affect architectural practices? Or, how will the architectural education continue remotely, the type of education which has been based on one-to-one relationships? And how will it evolve in the coming period?

In this review, you can find opinions about the current reality according to the people we have asked these questions. We would like to thank all our writers who have been kind enough to convey their ideas even though it is challenging to project the future within a distance while still living in it.

• Is Disaster Blessing? Notes on Distance Education / Altuğ Kasalı, Fehmi Doğan, Tonguç Akış

In this period when we strongly feel the effects of the epidemic in every area, the issue of how the theoretical and practical dimensions of design education can be carried out by distance education is an important challenge. Focusing on the transformations that studio education, which is the heart of architectural education, has experienced or is going through in the processes carried out online, the authors aim to develop a questioning perspective on the distance education methods that almost every school has started to implement.

• The Streets We Cannot Reach, The Terraces within Our Reach / Haluk Zelef

The process of restricting access to public spaces due to the pandemic brought about the search for ways to bring our outdoor habits into our immediate surroundings. Approaching these actions through examples, the writer discusses the spatial features that are sometimes "discarded" but are now the focus of our inquiry.

• I Know What You Did Last Spring: The Atlas of Ecological Disputes during the Pandemic Period / Ceren Gamze Yaşar

Although our lives slowed down during the COVID-19 outbreak, projects that cause environmental damage continued without slowing down. Compiling the events that have occurred in the past months and the general public is informed about, the writer draws attention to the necessity of developing new social practices in the post-pandemic recovery process.

• Just Another Irremediable Environmental Destruction: The Salda Lake / Recep Sönmez

While the threats related to the Salda Lake in Yeşilova district of Burdur have peaked due to the increasing number of visitors, the national garden project, which has recently been brought to the agenda, has added an extra layer of pressure. The writer, addressing the area and its surroundings in which the construction works continue despite the critical warnings of relevant institutions, draws attention to the importance of the region within the context of natural and cultural values.

EVENT

• Documenting Interiors with Pluralism: Docomomo_tr Modern Interiors in Turkey Symposium / Pınar Sezginalp

Docomomo_tr carried out the first “Modern Interiors in Turkey Symposium”, held on 15-16th June 2020 and sponsored by the Özyeğin University as an online event. Reviewing the event with researchers and participants connecting from various interiors by staying at home, the writer states that the sum of the accessibility, visibility, invisibility and being distant with the aim of documenting “the modern interior” is a quite ironic and thought-provoking experience about the new period we are in.

• Traces of the Past: Architects’ Association 1927, Cinnah 19, Nejat Ersin and His Archive / Selda Bancı

The exhibition "Architect Nejat Ersin", organized by Architects’ Association 1927, opened its doors to visitors between February 19th and 29th, 2020. After the exhibition, this article facilitates a close look at the history of a professional organization which is almost 100 years old, and also to get to know the headquarters of the association which constitutes an intersection between the association and Nejat Ersin. Moreover, thanks to the access to the architect’s archive, we can have a closer look at the life of Ersin, who was a prominent actor in the modern architecture scene in Turkey.

BIENNIAL

Serendipity: Venice Biennial Archive, “Ambiente” and a Composition / B. Beril Kapusuz Balcı

At the independent exhibitions of architecture and visual arts held every two years within the scope of the Venice Biennial, in recent years, artists and architects have been shifting their roles/places in a curatorial sense, and the practices shaped by the phenomenon of exhibition resemble each other in terms of spatiality. In this context, the writer reconsiders the "ambiente" produced by Bernhard Lüginbühl for the 1975 exhibition by looking at the archive, in a composition where it could be brought together with another "ambiente" Darzanà produced for the biennial in 2016.

PRESERVATION / REVITALISATION

• The Concept of Shared Heritage: Gökçeada (İmroz) / Ayşe Ceren Güler

Addressing Gökçeada within the framework of the "shared heritage" theme set in the framework of the "European Cultural Heritage Year", the writer draws attention to the importance of establishing a common awareness and cooperation in maintaining and preserving local values.

• The Mardin Informal Architecture Atlas: The Documentation of Architectural Products Generated by their Users in Mardin and the Discovery of Spatial Tactics / Zeynep Ataş, Nurcan Güneş, Figen Işıker

The urban texture that has lasted for years in Mardin features location-specific qualities with its organic character. The writers, whose goal is to generate the Mardin Informal Architecture Atlas by the end of the research (the aim of which is to document the outbuildings shaped according to the needs of the users) look closely at outbuildings, which they see as remarkably unique in the context of their relationship with existing structures, spatial richness, types of attachment, building materials and construction stories, but which are unfortunately planned to be demolished.

CULTURAL HERITAGE IN DANGER

Rentier Capitalism Outbreak: İmrahor Valley / Emel Akın

In this chapter of Cultural Heritage in Danger, a series which began in our 405th issue, Emel Akın wrote a piece on İmrahor Valley.

URBAN TRANSFORMATION

A Controlled Growth Model for the City Center: Küçük Armutlu / Senem Doyduk, Betül Orbey

Approaches that consider urban transformation projects as “cleaning” have devastating consequences both in the physical environment and in social life. The writers, addressing the Küçük Armutlu (F.S.M.) neighborhood, a shanty town that has resisted the threat of destruction and displacement since the day it was founded, examine the dynamics of development in the area and the approaches we can learn from the local setting.

INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE

A Clock of the Modern City: the Sivas Railway Workshop / Gülhayat Ağraz, Esma Eroğlu, Merve Ertosun Yıldız

The Sivas Railway Workshop, which started operations in 1939 to repair steam locomotives and freight wagons used by TCDD (Turkish State Railways), appears as a prominent example of the architectural structures that support the development of technology and industrialization in Turkey as it underwent modernization. The writers, approaching a structure that creates “an architectural chronology that can be read in the city historically, by being incorporated to the traditional texture of Sivas”, focus on the role of the structure in socioeconomic change.

CONTACT

A Little Touch to the City: Micro-Nest / İrem Baz

The Tengyuan Design team has come up with two micro structures designed for the city of Qingdao in China that can be used by citizens: a resting area for cleaning staff and a reading space for city dwellers. These two city additions, go beyond being urban furniture and aim to create a sharing ground, to activate the unused areas of the city, to ensure that city workers have a place where they can rest and be sheltered in difficult weather conditions, and to reawaken citizens’ interest in reading in their daily lives.