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ISTANBUL PARA-DOXA / Conversations on the City and Architecture
Boğaçhan Dündaralp, Asli Kıyak İngin, Nilüfer Kozikoğlu
Editor: Pelin Derviş
Garanti Galeri 2010, İstanbul
ISBN 978-9944-731-21-8
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This book was prepared as part of the London-Istanbul Exchange Programme conducted by The Architecture Foundation in 2009-2010 with the cooperation of Garanti Gallery and Arkitera Architecture Center, and was published with the support of the British Council.
From the editor’s introduction:
“Istanbul: A metropolis where millions of people live. Construction work in Istanbul never ends, and the horizon line is almost invisible now. Its boundaries keep growing, so much so that it is no longer a city but a region. The historical accumulation of thousands of years comes alive adorned with new faces, or dies, depending on single restorations, the attribution of new functions, demolition and rebuilding projects, as well as numerous urban interventions on varying scales. Even this limited view makes it possible to talk of the existence of a very strong architectural production potential in Istanbul… There are ten universities with architectural faculties. Most of the architectural publications (periodical and otherwise) are printed in Istanbul. What does it mean, one wonders, to exist in this architectural environment in terms of intellectual or physical production and contribution or simply as a witness? If three Istanbulian architects, all under 45, of different architectural practices and approaches started to talk, what issues would come up in this conversation where they brought in their personal experiences and discussed this metropolis and its architecture? How subjective or objective would those issues be? How would these relate to the discourses voiced in Istanbul? “istanbul para-doxa” does not aim to define a perfect architectural environment or to develop new discourses. “istanbul para-doxa” is the product of a discussion unfettered by such concerns, and its most meaningful aspect is that as such, it offers a cross-section of the present.”
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Eski İstanbullular, Yeni İstanbullular
Edited by: Murat Güvenç
İstanbul, 2009
ISBN 978-9944-731-18-8 |
Old Istanbulites, New Istanbulites
The Ottoman Bank Museum has launched a new symposium series that examines Istanbul from an economic, social and cultural perspective. The opening symposium, Old Istanbulites and New Istanbulites aimed to shed light on the unknown demographic structure of Istanbul during the process of modernization.
After an accelerating population growth in the 19th century, certain developments in the second quarter of the 20th century, such as the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, the capital’s decreasing scope of influence due to the emergence of new nation-states, the adoption of étatist economic policies and the related decline in employment, brought about a fall in Istanbul’s population. Following World War II, a half century phase of stagnation was replaced by a period of rapid growth. It was only at the beginning of the 1950s that the city was able to attain the population size it had possessed at the start of the 20th century.
From the 1950s on, especially after the transition to import substitution policies and the consequent acceleration of rural-urban migration, Istanbul’s population in the second half of the 20th century registered a 12-fold increase compared to that in 1950. The city, with its rapidly changing patterns in lifestyles, community participation, household composition, and social, ethnic and religious structure, became one of the largest metropolitan areas in Europe.
This book, a compilation of the papers submitted at the symposium, focuses on the reshaping of Istanbul’s urban population structure and composition during the process of modernization.
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Osmanlı Irak’ında İngiliz Nüfuzuna Tepkiler
Dicle ve Fırat’ta Seyr-i Sefain İmtiyazı Teşebbüsü (1909-1913)
Burcu Kurt
İstanbul, 2009
ISBN 978-9944-731-17-1 |
Reactions to British Influence in Ottoman Iraq: Project to Grant Privilege for a Transport Company on the Dicle and Fırat Rivers (1909-1913)
Winner of the 2006-2007 Scientific Paper Prize in the Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Centre's biannual competition for Research on the History of Banking and Finance, organized with the collaboration of the European Association for Banking and Financial History and the History Foundation of Turkey.
This work addresses the attempts to establish an Ottoman-British transport company in Ottoman Iraq and the consequent large-scale protest demonstrations, led essentially by local merchants, which erupted against British influence. While the levels of participation of local merchants, especially in Bagdad and its vicinity where protest activity was concentrated, shed light on the center-periphery relationships of the period, the book also reveals that both the merchants and the people they led resorted to pro-Ottoman protest discourses rather than the prevalent Arab nationalist discourse of the time. Led by local notables, large sections of the population from the provinces of Bagdad and Basra rose up, overriding all religious and sectarian distinctions, to participate in widespread reactions against British authority in the region.
Based largely on archival sources, this study attempts to offer an alternative viewpoint to previous approaches, which, until now, restricted political activism in the region within the context of Arab nationalism.
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Mine Workers, the Single Party Rule, and War
The Zonguldak Coal Basin as the Site of Contest (1920-1947)
Nurşen Gürboğa
İstanbul, 2009
ISBN 978-9944-731-19-5 |
Winner of the 2006-2007 Doctoral Dissertation Prize in the Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Center's biannual competition for Research on the History of Banking and Finance, organized with the collaboration of the European Association for Banking and Financial History and the History Foundation of Turkey.
The Ereğli-Zonguldak coal basin has been Turkey's source of hard coal since the second half of the nineteenth century. The region emerged as a coalfield over the last quarter of the nineteenth century and became one of the biggest industrial centers of Turkey in the early Republican era. The male population of the basin, who formed the main source of underground labor power in the pits, allocated their working time between mining and agriculture sometimes by force, sometimes willingly. Although these workers witnessed many political, economic, and social changes in the history of Ottoman Empire and Republican Turkey, their part-time work patterns remained unchanged.
The “national economy” policy and state-led industrialization attempts of the single-party rule compelled the government to restructure the capital and labor aspects of coal mining, which resulted in the nationalization of coal mining under state ownership and the adoption of the compulsory labor system in 1940. The compulsory labor system, in turn, caused difficulties in the relationship between the state and the residents of the coalfield.
The Ereğli-Zonguldak coal basin was a microcosm of the labor-capital-state relations during the single-party era. The study at hand offers a comprehensive analysis of this microcosm, by focusing on the contentious relations between mine workers, private and public coal mining enterprises and the single-party rule during the period between 1920 and 1947. It aims to uncover the historical agency of the mine workers in making their own history.
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Mapping Istanbul
Edited by: Pelin Derviş, Meriç Öner
Map Designed by: Superpool
Garanti Galeri 2009, İstanbul
ISBN 978-9944-731-16-4
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Mapping Istanbul
Garanti Gallery has shared its recent researches into the contemporary Istanbul with the publications Becoming Istanbul in 2008 and Tracing Istanbul [from the air] in September 2009. The most recent publication in the same scope, Mapping Istanbul presents Istanbul’s actual parameters through maps, comparative research and essays. The publication consists of original maps based on current data on issues including population, economic activity, education, land use, transportation, earthquakes, buildings, housing, health, social infrastructure, consumption, and energy, presented in line with essays and articles written by experts conducting research on these issues. The introduction includes a text by Charles Waldheim who coined the term “landscape urbanism” to define the re-emergence of landscape as a tool for contemporary urban structure. The urban planner and cartographer Murat Güvenç, whose work in the field of social geography has constructed the basis of Mapping Istanbul, focuses in his essays on the peculiar conditions that formed Istanbul’s built environment and the ways in which the city’s social geography can be deciphered through maps.
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Tracing Istanbul [from the air]
Photographs: Oğuz Meriç
Edited by: Meriç Öner
Garanti Galeri 2009, İstanbul
ISBN 978-9944-731-15-7 |
Tracing Istanbul [from the Air] presents a selection from thousands of aerial photographs of the city taken by Oğuz Meriç between1992 and 2009. In three separate lectures, Murat Güvenç, Deniz Aslan and Pelin Derviş also sought traces concealed within Istanbul’s built environment. By drawing attention to structures buried inside the immediately visible cityscape, each of their personal interpretations offered a critical analysis of Istanbul’s recent past and present dynamics. In this work, editor Meriç Öner merges photographs and lectures in a flowing dialogue to create a book, which invites the reader to follow Oğuz Meriç’s visual traces while it questions urban policies and implementations and attempts to decipher the social texture hidden behind the physical one.
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Aydınlanma ve Ekonomi
Edited by: Taner Berksoy
Garanti Galeri August 2008, İstanbul
ISBN 978-9944-731-06-5
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Enlightenment and Economy
The Ottoman Bank Museum's recent "Enlightenment Symposium" series brought together expert researchers and provided a platform for scholarly discussion on both the historical background and the continuing relevance of the Enlightenment. The first symposium of the series was held in 2007 and the last, the "Enlightenment and Economy Symposium," chaired by Prof. Taner Berksoy, dean of the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Bahçeşehir University, took place on October 10 and 11, 2008.
Interestingly, the date of this fourth symposium coincided with the emergence of the current great global financial crisis. Accordingly, the topics under discussion revolved around three main themes. The first focused on the Enlightenment in general and assessed Ottoman history and the present within this context. The second theme dealt with the historical development and fluctuations of capitalism and market economy. The third topic of discussion centered on the current global crisis and relevant issues in the Turkish economy.
The book is a compilation of the symposium papers submitted on sub-themes pertinent to the Enlightenment such as economic order, the role of the state and that of the private sector in the economy, globalization, and global and national crises. In addition to offering a general evaluation of these issues, the book provides a framework for the comprehensive discussion of historical and current aspects of the Turkish economy with reference to the Enlightenment, globalization, the global crisis and similar topics.
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Sedad Hakkı Eldem II
Retrospektif
Edited by: Bülent Tanju, Uğur Tanyeli
İstanbul, April 2009
ISBN 978-9944-731-12-6 |
Sedad Hakkı Eldem II
Retrospective
Eldem counts among the historical personalities of 20th century Turkey that have never become commonplace. Although not a political figure, he does encounter some of the obstacles confronting political leaders. In a television documentary made during his lifetime, he was described as "the most important Turkish architect after Sinan." Even this is enough to show the role he was expected to take on: it was a significant burden to shoulder.
The "Sedad Hakkı Eldem II: Retrospective" exhibition aims to free Eldem from this burden by making him the subject of current historiographic research once more. Both the exhibition and its companion book examine the architect as they would any other individual, albeit a highly motivated, productive and multifaceted one. Eldem's large personal archive, already legendary in his lifetime, greatly enhances the scope of this investigation. Consequently, the book is more a celebration of this archive than of Sedad Hakkı Eldem and his works. The very comprehensive catalog of the architect's works and projects, based once again on his personal archive, forms the central pillar of the book. The chronological logic of the catalog permeates the rest of the work and provides a historian's approach to understanding Eldem.
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"What hurts the purse, hurts the soul"
Insurance in the Ottoman Empire with documents from the collection of David M. Kohen
Research and Texts: Murat Koraltürk - Fatih Kahya
İstanbul, January 2009
ISBN 978-9944-731-10-2 |
Insurance emerged with the growth of maritime commerce and the concurrent increase in risks when people began to feel the need to protect their goods and their lives against unexpected events. In the Ottoman Empire, insurance entered via commerce in the Mediterranean and with the rapid growth of trade in the mid-19th century, the leading insurance companies of the West began to offer their services on Ottoman soil. The new sector, which first flourished as a protective measure against the dangers of trade and especially those of maritime transportation, soon began to provide imdemnity against fire, another major risk of the times. This was followed by the development of more specific areas such as life and accident insurance. This catalog accompanies the exhibition "What Hurts the Purse, Hurts the Soul: Insurance in the Ottoman Empire with Documents from the Collection of David M. Kohen," which aims to shed light on the development of insurance in Ottoman times with documents and objects drawn in great part from the private collection of David M. Kohen.
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Aydınlanma, Türkiye ve Vatandaşlık
Edited by E. Fuat Keyman
İstanbul, Ekim 2008
ISBN 978-9944-731-08-9 |
The Enlightenment, Turkey and Citizenship
Organized by the Ottoman Bank Museum and curated by Prof. Fuat Keyman from the Department of International Relations at Koç University, the Enlightenment Symposium held on April 11 and April 12, 2008, addressed the concept of "citizenship" both on a theoretical level and as a more specific case in point in Turkey. The symposium - a first in the field - consisted of presentations, discussions and interpretations aimed at solving the multidimensional and multilayered structure of citizenship, simultaneously seen as a "legal status," a "sociopolitical identity," and a "social practice moving along the axis of rights-liberties-responsibilities."
During this third symposium - a continuation of the series of Enlightenment Symposiums started in 2007 - participants contributed theoretically, historically and sociologically relevant presentations under the heading, "The Enlightenment and Citizenship - Modernization, Citizenship and Democratization in Turkey." These presentations led to a productive phase of discussion and interpretation during which it was attempted to draft a theoretical framework for a conception of citizenship that "recognizes cultural plurality and differences while at the same time aspiring to a common idiom and provides constitutional guarantee of basic rights and liberties."
The symposium also called for the development of a new citizenship awareness in such areas as "democratic governance in modern societies," "identity-based conflicts spurring nationalism and radicalism," "social justice" and "the environment."
The papers from the symposium have been reviewed, revised and edited for publication, and we hope that the resulting articles making up this book will reach wider audiences and thus allow the discussions on citizenship to continue on a much wider scale.
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GG 2007 - 2008
Garanti Galeri 2009, İstanbul
ISBN 978-9944-731-10-2 |
This book comprises the nine exhibitions realized by Garanti Galeri (GG) between 4 April 2007 and 16 November 2008: GG organized the retrospective exhibition Turgut Cansever: Architect and Thinker with the collaboration of the Ottoman Bank Museum and published a book with the same title... The street name and door number plaques of Istanbul, recently renewed in all aspects with an original design concept, were introduced to the public at the exhibition Deciphering Istanbul through the Plaque... Selections from the Graphic Imperative was a retrospective exhibition which reflected forty years of socio-political posters... Hackers and Haute Couture Hereticse dealt with how fashion could be altered and recycled. A six-week series of workshops was conducted at the gallery where new application methods were investigated and the system was hacked to study the ways in which it could be transformed... The Tarazi Design Studio: Per-Capita exhibition was a design installation asking the spactators / participants intriguing questions raised by the twentieth centry concerning the future...Fibrous Room; Evolving Structural Logic was one of the stages of a long-term project. As the aim of the exhibition was to display the process, the prototype build for this purpose evolved throughout the exhibition period... Fashion for Sustainability approached fashion as a positive force for change toward sustainability. The exhibition was structured around six key sustainability themes and an evolving program of gallery talks and workshops from international experts... Turbulent Topologies was and extension of the themes Marcos Novak dealt with in his article "Transmitting Architecture: The Transphysical City" (1995) and other articles and projects. After Istanbul, "Turbulent Topologies" was taken to Venice by GG where it was exhibited in Palazzetto Titto of the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation during the Venice Biennale of Architecture... GG and the German Architecture Museum (DAM, Frankfurt-am-Main) collaborated in the organization of the exhibition Becoming Istanbul which was held at DAM. Together with the exhibition, a book was published with the participation of a large number of authors.
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