Continuing until March 31 Studio X hosts artist Tayfun Serttaş’ new exhibition titled ‘Cemetery of Architects’ looks at the span of fifty years that re-created Istanbul’s urban identity with European and the Ottoman synthesis HATİCE UTKAN As an artist Tayfun Serttaş is always following the traces of history on the city and also on the lost culture of Istanbul. His latest project titled ‘Cemetery of Architects’ shows the audiences how deep is the architectural history goes within time in Istanbul. ‘It was not easy to discover this,’ said Serttaş, noting that he had to investigate the facades of Istanbul buildings, which are full of dirt and damage. However, the result is a satisfactory when looked through the aspects of archiving and history. The exhibition, which takes place in Studio-X, an initiative of Columbia University, opened with leading support from Borusan Holding, opened on Jan 31 and continues until March 28. This time Serttaş examines the relationship between the physical identity of urban space and the individual through an archive. The exhibition brings together works that problematize the impact of historic interruptions on Istanbul’s cultural map. With this approach, it is fair to ask ‘who built and gave the first architectural aspect to Istanbul.’ However this is on the other hand, a question impossible to answer as there is a combination of cultures, people, cities and countries that are reflected on the buildings. Serttaş explains this with his project and important details that he found. The multi-language aspect of the project is an important evidence of this. The cemetery stones, which have signatures of architectures of Istanbul are reflecting how Istanbul was living with a multi-cultural aspect. ‘There are almost nine different languages on the stones,’ said Serttaş, noting that it is also important to emphasize the identity questions that are taken on the architecture and Istanbul. ‘It is a fact that the architectural silhouette of Istanbul had changed. The era that the exhibition is focusing is the last quarter of 19th century. The architectural inscriptions, which could be read on the corners of buildings in Istanbul in the last quarter of the 19th century, evidence the parallel development of the identity of the individual to modernism.’ Serttaş added: ‘These individual architects felt the need the work on their own, playing a role in forming a professional community in a contemporary sense. In contrast to traditional palace architects, supported by the state, the architects of apartment buildings that primarily work within narrow urban lots give direction to civil architecture with their minor activities.’ According to the artist, as the empire enters a period of Westernization, the cultural rights provided by the rescript of Gülhane and the land cleared by the 1870 Pera fire opened up the path to the building of apartment buildings that was necessitated by the new life style. ‘Istanbul’s urban identity is almost re-created with the eclectic style of architectural structures that arose from the synthesis of the European and the Ottoman in the short span of fifty years,’ added Serttaş. It is possible to discover certain history of Istanbul as Cemetery of Architects proposes to open up to discussion the buildings of the period, some of which are destroyed within plans of urban transformation. The exhibition is becomes completed with a book titled Trilogy of the Deserted City, which is an experiment dedicated to problematize the consequences of the loss of its population and the periodic emigrations from Istanbul as much as the internal migration that it received, on its cultural memory. The modernization and the republic The modernization of the Republic that refused to take as its heritage previous formations of modernity and the moving of the capital city to Ankara stopped the most revered client, the state—from receiving services of projects and design from the industry of architecture, preparing the ground for the architectural interruption experienced in Turkey. The policy of Turkifying the economy that began in the period of the Party of Union and Progress would extend into the early Republic, revising architecture as an area to be conquered. Through the system of thinking that was on the background of the First National Architectural Movement, the re-capturing of this area that was dominated by “others” in the period of the Westernization of the Ottomans was as crucial as the “independence of the country.”
