EVENTS

About the “Basamaklar” (Stairs) Exhibition

The “Basamaklar” (Stairs) exhibition of Gül Ezen, consisting of her black & white photographs on the sculptural aesthetic elements of buildings’ staircases was opened to public view in March at the Ankara Museum of Painting and Sculpture. The exhibition, which is going to be reopened in the forthcoming 17th International Aesthetics Congress during 9-13 July in Ankara, was also exhibited in New York Arts Club in 2002 and later in Mexico City at the house of Luis Barragán in 2004. Özdemir and Sağdıç comment on the work of the artist.

AGENDA

2007 Pritzker Architecture Prize Winner Richard Rogers

Having won the 2006 Stirling Award and Golden Lion Award, Richard Rogers has been chosen as the 2007 Laureate of the most prestigious award in architecture, the Pritzker Prize. Richard Rogers, being the fourth UK based architect getting the Prize, is an architect with major projects all around the world, including Pompidou Centre in Paris, Lloyds Building in London, National Assembly for Wales in Cardiff, Millennium Dome in London and recently completed Terminal 4 building in Barajas Airport, Madrid. The article summarizes the qualities of Rogers’ architecture through his work while making references to the jury quotations of the Prize.

AGENDA

Istanbul (Urban) Museum Project and Darphane-i Amire

Istanbul still doesn’t have its city museum. Turkish History Foundation having started using the Darphane-i Amire (Imperial Mint) buildings in the historical peninsula for this mission, has been expelled from the buildings in March. The reason was stated as the risk of “total collapse” these buildings carry. Even the Foundation proves the opposite with a scientific report it couldn’t help to stop the ongoing process. Today, the most significant enterprise and project of the 2010 European Capital of Culture Istanbul; the Istanbul City Museum project is under threat. The future of Darphane-i Amire buildings are also under threat.

ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN ASSEMBLIES

The Fourth Meeting Took Place in Muğla: “Planning the Coasts and Architecture”

The fourth meeting of “Towards an Architectural Policy for Turkey”: Architecture and Urban Assemblies took place in Muğla, a city at the intersection of Aegean and Mediterranean coasts, under the theme “Planning the Coasts and Architecture”. In the meeting, which was held at the Muğla University on March 10-11, the participants discussed problems the coastal cities face, the condition of their historical and archaeological values, the environmental effects of tourism on the natural setting of the landscape and the legislative issues in the planning policies of coastal cities. In the Forum section the participants tried to evaluate the prior discussions with reference to the Architectural Policy text which is in the process of development.

FORUM

Opinions on the Architectural Policy of Turkey

Chamber of Architects aims to open a discussion ground in the progress of an Architectural Policy for Turkey, whose major goal is to produce an architectural policy specific to the country that will be in the service of public and urban health. In this regard, the Chamber stresses the need for focusing on lasting and contemporary environments with an identity as an urban planning principle in the light of the Architectural Policy that is prepared in the light of local conditions, propositions and foreign experiences. This Forum section of our journal is a ground for bringing together the views, proposals and opinions on the Policy text.

ARCHITECTURE OF THE REPUBLICAN PERIOD

A Chamber of Architects Project: Documenting, Preserving and Evaluating the Architectural Heritage of the Republican Period

The Chamber of Architects, stresses the significance of the project, which aims to preserve and document the architectural heritage of the Republican period. The fundamental goal is to trace down the currently documented works, to report on their present condition and to discover the unregistered buildings in order to track their registers by using the current inventory model. Consisting of two phases, the first phase of the project focuses on the already registered buildings built in a time period between 1920 and 1970. The second phase of the project focuses on the buildings, which are not yet registered but due to their architectural qualities are expected to be registered as part of the architectural heritage. The article highlights the details of the ongoing project and how the subject is going to be emphasized in the future issues of the magazine.

FILE:

QUALITY IN URBAN LIFE: Theories, Policies and Operations

As the urbanization process of world cities increase, the quality in urban life has become the new agenda of globalism. The concepts like “urban” and “life quality” have become two inseparable issues with the rise of researches which focus on measuring the ratios of urban population to quality of life each citizen has. Therefore life quality has become a subject, which covers all the issues regarding every service responding public needs, the ratios between the demand and supply, public and private spaces and variety as well as the quality of every public service within the city. All the articles in the file, which is edited by Hülya Turgut Yıldız, try to uncover the practical and theoretical aspects of the issue, in an interdisciplinary manner and question which indicators can be used in evaluating the quality of urban life and what can be the possible practice grounds of these studies?

The first article of Robert W. Marans, “Measuring Urban Quality of Life” presents the studies he made with his colleagues, where they explore quality of life issues from a conceptual and empirical perspective. Their contention has been that quality of life in a particular geographic setting is a subjective phenomenon, and that each occupant of a setting may differ in his/her views about it. The article, furthermore, introduces certain models that were being applied to measure the profile of communities and the researches made with these models. Derya Oktay, in her article “Sustainability, Livability and Quality of Urban Life: From Theory to Practice” stresses that concepts like ‘Livability’ and ‘Sustainability’ provide an insight for us to observe what are the significant aspects of the quality in urban life for the inhabitants of this or that city and how these will affect the future generations. Under these concepts the article looks at various examples from Curitiba, Bogota, Toronto, Portland, Heidelberg and Copenhagen. Sanjoy Mazumdar in the next article, as opposed to the researches setting subject to common issues like dwelling, transportation and employment, the argument in this article rests on analyzing the ‘sense of space’. From this point the article highlights certain qualities of the urban landscape both by mans of how it respond to human senses, cultural values and customs. The research made by Handan Dülger Türkoğlu, Fulin Bölen, Perver Korça Baran and Robert W. Marans on “Measuring Quality of Life in Residential Areas of Istanbul”, was undertaken as part of the Istanbul Strategic Plan prepared by the Istanbul Metropolitan Planning Office and partially supported by Istanbul Technical University and aims to provide useful information for developing planning/design strategies that will foster sustainable urbanization through enhancing quality of life, which is one of the most important principles of sustainable urbanization. The article presents the initial findings of this study, which consists of a questionnaire administrated to over 1600 residents through face-to-face interviews in order to map out the satisfaction levels within communities, identification of problematic areas for households and mapping regional preferences. The final article of Tuğçe Selin Tağmat explores the approaches of European countries towards urban life quality. Summarizing the European Union policies towards the urban quality, the author highlights the principles set by the organizations such as the Architects’ Council of Europe (ACE), European Construction Technology Platform (ECTP) and European Forum for Architectural Policies (EFAP) on the subject.

ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY

A portrait of an Architect: Ekrem Hakkı Ayverdi / Gürhan Tümer

Ayverdi is a conservative architect who has produced many works in late 1950s. He was known more with his writings than his architecture. An enemy of the west as far as saying “Renaissance is neither an art nor a science”, also being against modernism to a degree that states “Here is Hilton, placed as flatted timber curtain next to the …..” Ayverdi was a fan of Ottoman architecture. Gürhan Tümer introduces the interesting life of the architect, who has displayed an individual approach and style towards every field.

PRESERVATION-REVITALISATION

TWO NEW RESEARCH CENTERS

* Tepebaşı İstanbul Research Institute / Sinan Genim

* Manfred Osman Korfmann Library / İsmail Erten

In the beginning of the year 2007, two historically significant buildings, one in Istanbul and the other in Çanakkale, have gone through a restoration process and started to serve as research centers. One of these buildings is the Tepebaşı İstanbul Research Center and the latter is Manfred Osman Korfman Library. The writers, who also took active roles in the restoration process of the buildings, provide brief historical facts and information on the course of restoration of the two historically significant projects.

ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY

Thoughts on the Anıtkabir Project and a Proposal / Enis Kortan

The international competition opened for the design of Atatürk’s Mausoleum in 1941, has decided on the proposal of Emin Onat and Orhan Arda. The project selected had gone through radical revisions which in the end became nothing but a version of a “Western Neo-Classical Parthenon Originated Style”. Being a student of Onat in his education years, Enis Kortan transmits the ideas of his tutor while questioning the process of the Anıtkabir project. With a belief that the final outcome has neither reflected the personality of Atatürk nor his values, he presents his alternative branding idea which will shelter the building.

MEA ARCHITECTURA MEA CULPA

Buildings with Holes / Gürhan Tümer

“[…] I have seen the “Hole Island” close to Isuzu, where Köyceğiz Lake meets the Aegean Sea. Like its name it was a hole, where when looked through one can see across. Years passed, and I have come across some buildings with holes in a book, and thought they all are MEA ARCHITECTURA MEA CULPA … […]”