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Shortly after the 2013 Unbuilt Visions competition concluded, d3 hosted the Unbuilt Visions exhibition showcasing some of the winning entries at the TSMD Turkish Architectural Center in Ankara from Jan. 7-21, 2014. — bustler.net
If you didn't get a chance to be there in person, here are a few photos and a video from the event:Related: Winners of the d3 Unbuilt Visions 2013 CompetitionFind out more on Bustler. View full entry
ONZ Architects participated in a restricted competition - among eight other teams - to design the Ostim Eco-Park, a green technological and research hub for the industrial region of Ostim in Ankara, Turkey. — bustler.net
Although ONZ Architects' proposal did not come out as the competition winner, we're happy to present it in more detail below. All images courtesy of ONZ Architects. Click the thumbnails below for additional images. View full entry
The Turkish Çanakkale Antenna Tower International Competition has announced eight firms that passed the pre-selection hurdle and can now proceed to the second stage for design development. The jury selected the finalists from a pool of 130 eligible applicants. The teams will now have until February 15, 2014 to submit their design proposals. — bustler.net
The list of finalists comprises: Sou Fujimoto Architects Snøhetta & Özer/Ürger Architects & Battle Mccarthy Ian Ritchie Architects & Arup AL_A Powerhouse Company & IND [Inter.National.Design] TEGET OLAF GIPSER & ARUP & Deniz Aslan FR-EE/Fernando Romero... View full entry
Can Atalay, a lawyer for the Chamber of Architects which brought the lawsuit, said the administrative court ruled in early June at the height of the unrest that the plan violated preservation rules and unacceptably changed the square's identity. It was not clear why it had only now been released. — Reuters
Ayla Jean Yackley reported that a Turkish court has canceled an Istanbul building project backed by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan which provided the trigger for nationwide anti-government demonstrations last month, a copy of the court decision showed. View full entry
As protests have rocked Turkey over the past few days, three Turkish professionals in the U.S. decided on Sunday that they had to take some action. Turning to their technology backgrounds, the trio launched a crowd-sourced fundraising campaign on Indiegogo to buy a full-page ad in the front section of the New York Times in support of their fellow Turkish citizens who’ve clashed with the government across dozens of cities. — forbes.com
For more information on the protests in Istanbul, check Orhan's report with ongoing commentary. Here's a link to the Indiegogo campaign. View full entry
Last few days Istanbul has been the site of mass protests and battles raging for the Gezi Park (translating as stroll park) in Taksim District where the prime minister Erdogan's government wants to build a "Shopping Mall," a kitschy copy of a 19th. century building, Taksim Military... View full entry
Three skyscrapers are to be demolished in Istanbul's Zeytinburnu district for interfering with city's historical silhouette. Decision reached by the 4th. Administrative Court of Istanbul and the use licences of the buildings were revoked. Hürriyet View full entry
"The new album narrates urban life. It is rather personal music, bound up with this city, there are images of an asphalt jungle and a house that is being built in a city, and we always support the ones who don't have power." -Baba Zula — Qantara.de
The new Baba Zula album is called "Gecekondu," a term used in Turkey for illegal settlements built on the fringes of major cities like Istanbul or Ankara. These growing slums, built with the simplest materials, have become home to many newcomers trying their luck in urban centers. One could... View full entry
New York firm Dror today unveiled designs for a collosal artificial island to be created right off the coast of Turkey, not far from Istanbul. The project, dubbed HavvAda, is envisioned to rise from the sea by piling up one billion cubic meter of soil carved out of the main land from the... View full entry
The larger irony is that in calling for a huge new mosque in the tradition of Sinan, Erdoğan may be missing the more fundamental lesson of the Ottoman architect’s work. As Bruno Taut, the German architect who emigrated to Turkey to flee the Nazis, argued, Sinan was himself a proto-modernist whose ability to create extraordinary beauty from novel engineering had more in common with twentieth-century German functionalism than earlier Islamic architecture. — The New York Review of Books
In a politically analytical article in New York Review of Books, Hugh Eakin examines the power policies of Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan and his ambitious plan to crystallize the country's image and political agenda via a single building. A large new mosque in classical Ottoman... View full entry
Sinan was “the Euclid of his day,” said Dogan Kuban, author of more than 70 books on Islamic architecture. “At St. Peter’s in Rome, your eye is drawn to the dome itself,” he said in a recent conversation. “Sinan’s shallow domes, however, with their abstract painted decoration, seem to magically float overhead. Instead of the structure, you contemplate the space.” — NYT
Andrew Ferren of NYT pens a delightful overview on one of Anatolia's greatest architects, Sinan whose 300 plus structures span across Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Not a bad tract record for someone who started to build in his forties. View full entry
Istanbul’s evocative skyline is set to be capped by a new peak, as architects on Wednesday unveiled plans to build a tower almost 300 meters high, which will rival the highest buildings in Europe.
Scotland-based architectural firm RMJM’s office in Dubai said that it received planning approval for “Metropol Istanbul,” a vast 500,000 square meter project, which includes three towers, a 30,000 square meter public shopping mall, offices and luxury apartments.
— blogs.wsj.com
Salon2 has shared with us their completed 400m2 architectural installation on the façade of Yapı Kredi Bank Culture Building at Galatasaray Square in İstanbul. The first stage in the Augmented Structures project with the Augmented Structures v1.1: Acoustic Formations... View full entry
Architects in 2009 described Istanbul’s downtown neighborhood of Tarlabaşı as an unsafe place for children -- a district whose destruction and reconstruction would be in the interest of its residents.
Few dispute that Tarlabaşı is run-down and that many of its residents live below the poverty line. But the congested neighborhood is also one of the few remaining places in the city center where there is affordable housing for the urban poor.
— eurasianet.org
