EVENTS

… 2nd Disabled Council: Evaluations, Proposals / Berrak Seren

The 2nd Disabled Council was gathered by the Prime Ministry Administration of Disabled, at two meetings realized early June and late September, in Ankara. Physical environment, engaging the disabled to productive labour market, social service and assistance, social rehabilitation and trust services and financial support were the main topics of discussions during the meeting. Berrak Seren summarizes the issues that are of importance in creating possible targets for accessible physical surroundings as well as criticizing how the issue is being disregarded by many institutions of the society and why the council was incapable of generating new solutions for these problems and for the subject in general.

AGENDA

… 10th Cycle of Turkish Architecture Awards and Exhibition Announced

In commemoration of Mimar Sinan, the Chamber of Architects of Turkey organizes National Architecture Awards and Exhibition in every two years since 1988. Being a pioneer institutional attempt in generating contemporary agendas for architectural profession and architectural culture, the program tries to introduce, promote, document and encourage architectural practices nationwide. This year, the deadline for project submission is set at March 1, 2006, and the selected projects will be exhibited in April. The projects are going to be evaluated mainly in two categories, the Grand Award (Sinan Award) and the Achievement Awards. The latter are categorized under five themes, namely, Awards in Contribution to Architecture, Building Category, Preservation–Revitalization Category, Environment Category and Presentation of Ideas Category. Added to these, there is also a Commemoration Award that foresees the promotion of the works of a late architect, whose work had put a milestone in architectural milieu. This year’s selection committee consists of Günkut Akın, Cengiz Kabaoğlu, Hüseyin Kahvecioğlu, Mehmet Konuralp and Yıldırım Yavuz.

… Awards as a Representative Setting of Cultural Disputes in Architecture / C. Abdi Güzer

A kind of diversity has always existed between the issues that are regarded to be of importance within the context of architectural discipline and that of the everyday practice of the profession. This becomes even more obvious when one looks at the theoretical and critical matters discussed in most of the literature on architecture that are incapable in identifying with the actual practice. Abdi Güzer discusses the potentiality of the 10th National Architecture Awards and Exhibition organized by the Chamber of Architects of Turkey in filling this gap. Departing from this idea, Güzer also emphasizes the role of the Chamber, as being the representative figure of the ongoing cultural disputes on both sides and the potentiality of this event, which offers not only a setting for crediting end products but also a progressive ground for the discipline and profession of architecture to be discussed.

URBAN DESIGN

… Dubai’s New Urban Landscape: A Critical Look at Emerging Housing Forms / Karim Hadjri

Dubai, a city-state and the second largest city of the United Arab Emirates, is a fast growing hub with increasing need for infrastructure, housing and public facilities. Dubai is trying to market itself as an attractive holiday destination, which brought the implementation of large scale housing developments. Some of these include reclamation of vast land areas along the city’s coast line, in addition to creation of artificial lakes and the introduction of the sea inland to create more coastlines. Karim Hadjri reviews the latest development in the creation of housing for both the local and foreign population of Dubai. In particular, he examines housing forms borrowed from attractive European holiday destinations and critically reviews the increasing spread of high-rise housing, and the reason behind its popularity in this part of the world.

FILE

… “Sharing” Cities?

Being both the title of our file in the previous issue and the theme of UIA for the World Architecture Day 2005, “Sharing Cities”, is going to be discussed this time on different grounds. Public spaces of cities, which are thought to belong to citizens and to common public use, are being re-shaped with a different mentality on “sharing”, “division” and “separation”. In different parts of Turkey, starting with an attempt to bring new programs and functions to railway buildings and their surroundings, the focus now is on re-shaping of ports, coasts and such public spaces for the sake of a private and privileged usage. What's more is that the decision-making process is not transparent to public. By giving priority to private profit and completely neglecting public rights, the real owners of these public spaces as well as the ethical principles of planning are being disregarded. The forum in this sense tries to encourage urban debates regarding these concerns and create public/legal awareness to such contemporary issues. Cânâ Bilsel, Özcan Altaban, Sema Erder, Baykan Günay, Necati Inceoğlu, Ruşen Keleş and Hülya Yıldız put their ideas upon the topic.

Cânâ Bilsel argues the urban transformations, dismantled cities and the fragmentation of public space under the influence of global and economic activities, which also loosened the significance of previous urban boundaries of the nation state. The recent projects such as Dubai Towers, Galataport and Haydarpaşa are being regarded as the latest stage of urban politics under the dominance of foreign capital, leading to spatial fragmentation and social segregation within the cities. She further argues the possibilities of urban strategies, directed by an emphasis on public spaces within this realm.

Pointing out to a dual understanding of UIA’s famous theme “Sharing Cities” from sharing to marketing cities worldwide, Altaban emphasises the need for ‘strategic planning’ in an urban level for the current speculative environments. ‘Strategic planning’ in his words merits from transparent decision taking policies, which is open to the integration of diverse public opinions and participation.

Sema Erder highlights the old-fashioned understandings both in municipalities, in their regulations and the relations of such municipalities with planning politics in trying to generate a democratic urban environment. The argument refers to possible strategies for diverse institutional organisations within the society for an efficient political management in an urban level, through the example of Balat project financed by EU.

By stating the significant effects of tourism on urban policies, Baykan Günay stresses that sometimes there are unnecessary negative criticisms towards emerging projects of such tendencies. Through analysing significant international examples from Paris, New York, Stockholm and Singapore, he stresses different appeals of the ‘rent of field’ as a quality of the land belonging not only to the prior condition of the land but also to the added qualities after the realisation of the project.

İnceoğlu draws attention to the value of urban land and architecture for politicians and planning administrators, who are in custom tendency to leave lasting edifices behind. Mentioning the effects of Menderes and Dalan administrations in Istanbul, he draws out how incoherent some urban projects can become when the idea of departure rests on single motives and propositions of either planners or bureaucrats but not of any civil opinion.

Ruşen Keleş states how the saying “World City Istanbul” is being abused as a political tool for opening Istanbul to the capitalist market and its consequences, whose main motto is “From Plan to Market”. Even tough the necessity for transparent strategies has been legally approved; public and civil indifference towards urban transformations and big scale projects is leading urban transformations to solely profit sharing grounds.

By stating the inevitable association between urban politics, planning and urban rehabilitation, Hülya Turgut redefines the role of the architect and architectural products within the capitalist milieu. In her words the architect instead of dealing merely with the single objects and its architectural qualities, should in fact, try to widen his/her scale of interest to larger urban scales.

COMPETITIONS

… Urban Design Competition for Van-Beşyol Square, Hastane Street, Milli Egemenlik Street and its Surroundings

The results of the Urban Design Competition for Van-Beşyol Square, which is organised by the Municipality of Van regarding one of the most important centers of the city, were announced. The first prize was given to the project of Hamdi Dostoğlu and Aslıhan Özaslan. The project of Nimet Aydın and Gizem Turgut was awarded the second and the third prize was received by the project of Günay Erdem, Sunay Erdem, Pınar Özyılmaz, Volkan Müftüoğlu and M. Nazım Özer.

… Service Building Design Competition for İstanbul Pendik Municipality

The competition, which was opened by the İstanbul Pendik Municipality for the design of its service building, was resulted in July 2005. The competition was looking for economical and functional solutions for the new building to house municipality units. Among 56 submissions, the jury has honored 3 awards, 5 mentions and 5 purchases. The first prize was for the project of Deniz Dokgöz, Ferhat Hacıalibeyoğlu and Orhan Ersan, who have tried to emphasize the future image of the municipality by integrating the proposed building with open spaces such as urban parks and wide terraces.

ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY

… An Attempt for Alternative Ways of Writing Architectural History / Gürhan Tümer

Writing architectural history has a significant priority in current architectural discussions both at national and international platforms. Tümer tries to analyse the architectural historiography by means of the two-fold exception that either presupposes ‘the history had already been written and everything had been pre-arranged’ as a faithful presumption, or states that ‘there are many alternatives and possibilities that all have equal chances to have a place in history’. In the search for an alternative way of writing architectural history, Tümer tries to answer “What would have happened if there was no Ayasofya, or if it was build in another way?”

ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION

… Five Critical Horizons for Architectural Educators in an Age of Distraction / Frank Weiner

The European Association for Architectural Education (EAAE) awards in every two years, successful research papers based on specified themes or questions on architectural education. The theme of 2003-2005 was “How will the demands of the information society and ‘new knowledge’ affect the demand for relevant or necessary ‘know-how’ in architectural education?” The winner of the prize Frank Weiner tries to instigate a vigorous debate about how we might find shared horizons in a time of great distraction. The essay establishes five horizons, namely; teaching, history/theory/criticism, philosophy, literature and sensibility to the education of an architect and attempts to form a legitimate and shared vision for architectural educators.

MEA ARCHITECTURA MEA CULPA

… The Project and the Hand of the Architect Who Put His Hands on Paris / Gürhan Tümer

The second part of the 19th century had witnessed the demolition and flattening of Paris by Baron Haussmann, who laid down his hands on Paris with the backing of the 3rd Emperor Napoléon. The decadent streets of the Middle Ages gave their place to flat, long, wide and broad boulevards, changing the face of the city. By early 20th century, this time it was Le Corbusier, who put his hands on Paris. Plan Voisin not only proposed cleaning the historical sites of the city, but also envisioned many skyscrapers on this created ‘tabula rasa’. It is really not very difficult to find the drawings of this unrealized plan, which was left on paper; you can find it in many books. However the photograph here is very interesting, because it shows not only the plan itself, but also the hand of the architect, who created the project by laying down his hands on Paris.