“Mid-Century Modernism in Turkey: Architecture Across Cultures in the 1950s and 1960s”

10 November 2015 Comments Off on “Mid-Century Modernism in Turkey: Architecture Across Cultures in the 1950s and 1960s”

Mid-Century Modernism in Turkey: Architecture Across Cultures in the 1950s and 1960s,” edited by Assoc. Prof. Meltem Gürel, chair of the Department of Architecture, has been published by Routledge (London and New York) as part of their “Research in Architecture” series.

The book studies the unfolding of modern architecture in Turkey during the 1950s and 1960s. It brings together the perspectives of scholars who have carried out extensive research on post-WWII modernism in a global context. The authors situate Turkish architectural case studies within an international framework during this period, providing a close reading of how architectural culture responded to ubiquitous postwar ideas and ideals, and how it became intertwined with politics of modernization and urbanization.

Besides Dr. Gürel, contributing authors include Sibel Bozdoğan, İpek Akpınar, Emre Gönlügür, Burak Erdim, Annabel Wharton and İpek Türeli.

Dr. Gürel’s discussion in the introduction gives an overview of mid-twentieth century architecture in both national and global contexts. Her chapter on “Seashore Readings: The Road From Sea Baths to Summerhouses in Mid-Twentieth Century Izmir” traces the transformation of seaside practices starting at the turn of the twentieth century and connects architectural developments and the popularization of summerhouses, in particular, to the politics of modernization at midcentury.

“Mid-Century Modernism in Turkey” contributes to contemporary scholarship by reconsidering postwar architecture in ways that go beyond the canonical explanations.