AGENDA

“Photos Poured Down on the City” in ULISfotoFEST Istanbul 2007

Organized by Photography Foundation and many other foreign organizations, ULISfotoFEST Istanbul 2007 provided a ground for many photographers to come together between May 12th, July 1st. The opening ceremony of the festival, which housed photography exhibitions and performances, discussion panels, conferences, film screenings, workshops and readings in many diverse fields, was held in one of the significant cultural and historical icons of the city, the historical Şan Theatre, burned down anonymously in February 7th, 1987. Besides 58 exhibitions, 26 photography shows, 5 discussion panels, 19 film screenings and 3 workshops, the author of many distinct works the famous Belgian photographer Anders Petersen was the leading guest of the festival.

AGENDA

Declaration of the Chamber of Architects on the World Environment Day: “Melting Ice – A Hot Topic?”

World Environment Day, commemorated each year on June, 5th is one of the major vehicles through which the United Nations stimulates worldwide awareness of the environment and enhances political attention and action. In support of 2007, International Polar Year, the theme selected for the World Environment Day is “Melting Ice – A Hot Topic?”. Tromso, Norway will house this year’s events which will focus on the effects that climate change is having on polar ecosystems and communities, and the ensuing consequences around the world. In the Press Release made by the Chamber of Architects of Turkey, it is stated that global climate change should be raised to the contemporary agendas of the world instead of being an ongoing discussion topic.

CHAMBER BUILDINGS

Chamber of Architects Trabzon Branch Service Building

Located in Kemerkaya Region of Trabzon and with an extended view to the sea, Chamber of Architects Trabzon Branch has renovated a historical 19th century house for its new service building. The building is among a few examples left in the region that still preserves Greek architectural style. The authors outline the restoration process with visual materials.

ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN ASSEMBLIES

The Fifth Meeting Took Place in Gaziantep: “Cultural Change and Architecture”

The fifth meeting of “Towards an Architectural Policy for Turkey”: Architecture and Urban Assemblies took place in Gaziantep, a city located in the intersection of Mesopotamian and Anatolian cultures, under the theme “Cultural Change and Architecture”. The participants discussed the architectural problems and potentials that this particular cultural geography presents and the discussion sessions aimed to provide input for the Architectural Policy text, which is still in the process of development. There was a crowded attendance to the meeting held in May 12th -13th where the president and members of Chamber of Architects and Engineers of Saudi Arabia were also present.

ARCHITECTURAL POLICY

* Why Do We Need Architectural Policies? / Katarina Nilsson

Architects’ Council of Europe (ACE) has been an effective organization working for the betterment of the built environment for the sake of society thus trying to draw political interest towards the issue. Especially with the publication of “Architects’ Council of Europe Policy Book 2004: Architecture and Quality of Life” and the associations it makes with current agendas of the EU, like the arrangements in the professional services, what was tried to establish was the link between contemporary issues and architectural profession. The author who took active role in this publication, comments on the “Towards and Architectural Policy for Turkey” text and the significance of architectural policies in general.

* Baukultur for a Sustainable Urban Development: Notes on the European Forum for Architectural Policies Meeting in Hamburg / Tuğçe Selin Tağmat

* Good Examples for European Cities: “Baukultur” as an Impulse for Growth / Ed. by: Tuğçe Selin Tağmat

European Forum for Architectural Policies (EFAP), founded in Paris in July 2000, has been working for sustaining cooperation and association in architectural matters between EU member countries. One of the recent event that is organized by EFAP took place in Hamburg in April 26-27th, 2007 under the theme “Baukultur for a Sustainable Urban Development”. The Chamber of Architects of Turkey, which is a member of the Forum, attended meeting as a delegation that also includes the Turkish Ministry of Public Works and Settlement at the undersecretary level. The author summarizes the discussions that took place in the forum, where the impact of building culture was analyzed through its effect on the growth of European cities.

FILE: ARCHITOURISM: “Architecture” as the Object of Tourism

/ Editors: Hüseyin Kahvecioğlu, Ayşen Ciravoğlu

It won’t be wrong to state that architecture and tourism are concepts interrelated to a great degree. The buildings that serve for tourism are also the buildings that constitute the design and production field of architecture, to a degree thus bringing out “tourism architecture” as a special professional field. However there is also a different side in this so-called architecture-tourism relationship. What we bring forward in this issue is this second dimension, that we call “architourism”, a concept that is not really discussed in Turkey, yet has a significant position in world architecture. In most of the developed countries the tourism potential is often triggered by architectural products. Therefore architectural tours are the inevitable part of tourism programs. Furthermore it is not always the historically valuable buildings that attract the visitors but the contemporary buildings also do play a similar role. The related activities like architectural conferences, exhibitions, workshops, also help some cities to become a major attraction for tourists as we can observe from amount of people attended for example to the London Architecture Week or Venice and Rotterdam Biennales.

The file attempts to look at the relation between architecture and tourism from this reversed angle, where; the role and value of architecture as an object of tourism, the contemporary changes in Turkey and the situation in the world were among the issues discussed and carried to the agenda. In this context, Namık Erkal, states that contemporary architectural designs, which carry a desire to be spectacular, vary in scales either iconic or kitsch. Abdi Güzer, evaluates architourism through its diverse projections in various cities while discussing the limits of architecture as an object of consumption. Hakkı Yırtıcı on the other hand, tries to provide an econo-political approach towards architecture, which for him is already an object of tourism. Ertuğ Uçar, examines the relation of tourism architecture to architourism through the example of “panoramic tent”. Finally Deniz İncedayı, focuses on the practices of “preservation” and “transformation”, which for her should be discussed in order to be able to present architecture’s touristic value.

COMPETITION

Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality, Dicle Valley Landscape and Urban Design Competition

The city Diyarbakır has suffered from the rapid rise of population after 1960s. The increase in uncontrolled immigration and population caused a decrease in the urban quality of the city.

Added to that there isn’t enough green area within the built environment or vast planned green areas with trees, or recreational spaces or forest fields around the city’s closer peripheries. Dicle Valley and its surroundings constitute a valuable site with its natural environmental qualities and recreational potentiality. In this context Dicle Valley needs to be reconsidered by an urban project that evaluates its geomorphologic, topographic qualities with its current water supplies, hydrogeologic characteristics, its vegetation –flora, fauna and its existing relations with the city, as a whole. To this aim the competition organized by the Diyarbakır Municipality has valuated the projects presenting such tendencies and has given 3 awards, 5 mansions and 9 purchase awards. The first prize was given to the project of Devrim Çimen, Sertaç Eren and Sinan Burat, by the success in the strategic schema, ecologic approach and the division of activities in the whole area. The second prize, was given to the project of Sunay Erdem, Günay Erdem and Mehmet Nazım Özer where the third was given to the project of Murat Bektaş, Ahmet Özer Karaaslan and Alper Biçer.

ARCHITECTURE OF THE REPUBLICAN PERIOD

The New Anatolian City of the Republic; Zonguldak and the Industrial Heritage/ Nimet Özgönül

Definitions and approaches on preserving the industrial heritage, republican architectural heritage and modern architectural heritage are novel concepts in the field of conservation. Since the built works and environments of recent history, are not familiarized by the society at large, new approaches and strategies should be developed to protect and conserve these built environments. The section focuses on new strategies and discussion on how to designate the architecture of the republican period as an architectural heritage. To this aim the author highlights Zonguldak coal mine settlements, being one of the early and major industrial heritage of the country, its history and the present condition of the place.

AWARDS

Architecture Students are Producing:

* Gürel Awards 2007

Organized by Sedat-Güzin Gürel Science and Art Foundation, the Gürel Awards 2007 aims to support the design studio projects of undergraduate architecture courses in Turkey and Northern Cyprus and to emphasize the significance of design studios in architectural education by analyzing the creativity and the potentials within these student projects. Among 157 projects from each year, the first prize was given to a 5th year project; “Multi Functional Architectural Office” of Can Dinlenmiş from ITU. The second prize was given to the project of Hakan Demirel and the third, to the project of Eser Ergün. Apart from these 3 encouragement prizes were also given.

* Urban Dreams 1: Revaluating Ankara Ulucanlar Central Prison Project, National Student Ideas Competition

Many students of architecture from Turkey and Northern Cyprus have attended to the evaluation of the Ankara Ulucanlar Central Prison project competition, which was organized by the Chamber of Architects Ankara Branch and Ankara Bar of Lawyers, as the first phase of a competition series called; “Urban Dreams”. The competition aims to encourage the architecture students to gain certain awareness towards empty and unused spaces within the city s/he is living in and to be able to revaluate the existing structures, to open them to daily use of citizens. Added to that it is aimed to extend the limited ideas towards the future of cities and to be able to bring together the professionals, local managers, civil initiatives and other organizations to think collectively on possible strategies towards the future of our cities. In this aim the first competition has finalized and the first prize in the undergraduate category was given to the project of Hasan Deniz Sabri Gökmen, Başak Özden, Çiğdem Sivri, İrem Uslu, where the project of Gürem Özbayar Zeynep Kutlu, Figen Kıvılcım has won the first prize in the graduate category.

PRESERVATION – REVITALISATION

Akdamar Church; Restoration and Excavation Studies / Şahabettin Öztürk, Hanifi Biber, Rafet Çavuşoğlu, Yalçın Karaca

Located in the Akdamar Island in Van Lake, the restoration process of the historical Armenian Church has started in April 2005 by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism and finally opened to public view by a ceremony in March 2007. The work carried out in the Memorial Museum Akdamar Church, which consists of a church, palace, service rooms, terrace gardens and harbor in the historical evidences and archives, the restorators tell the story of this process.

MEA ARCHITECTURA MEA CULPA

Narkissos Buildings/ Gürhan Tümer

Gürhan Tümer looks at some buildings together with their reflections on the water and refers to a story of Publius Ovidius Naso in his book “Metamorphoseis”, which is the mythical story of the Narkissos, who falls in love with his mirror image reflected on the water.