Paolo Girardelli

Il volume è dedicato all’opera teorica e costruita di Sedad Hakkı Eldem. Nell’ambito di un filone di ricerca sul Mediterraneo e sulla sua capacità di unire i principi di insediamento, il libro si focalizza sulla capacità dell’antico di produrre progetto, applicata alla vicenda di Sedad Hakkı Eldem, figura centrale dell’architettura turca del Novecento e colui che più di tutti ha cercato con il suo lavoro di dare all’architettura moderna turca un carattere vernacolare. Il libro studia l’opera dell’architetto turco attraverso i temi chiave della costruzione della città, come l’analisi dei monumenti e delle case, e affronta inoltre il tema del viaggio, del lascito di Eldem alla città di Istanbul e del suo rapporto con la casa turco-ottomana letta come riferimento primario per la moderna architettura turca.

(for English scroll down)

Değişen Dini Manzaralar: 18. ve 19. Yüzyıllarda Pera ve Galata'daki Katolik Topografyası

İstanbul'daki Latin anıtlarının mimari ve toplumsal varlığı, birbirine bağlı tarihsel olgulardır. Geç Bizans döneminde, Cenevizlilerin ekonomik önderliği sayesinde, Galata'daki Latin anıtları oldukça görkemli ve İtalyan Orta Çağ kentlerine benzer bir manzara oluştururken, kentin Osmanlılar tarafından fethinden sonra Latin nüfusun azalmasıyla bir marjinalleşme ve direniş süreci başlamıştır. Öte yandan, 17. ve özellikle 18. yüzyıldan itibaren büyümeye başlayan Ermeni Katolik cemaati sayesinde, Katolik yapılar ve toplumsal yaşam yeni bir evreye girmiştir. 19. yüzyılda ise, Avrupa güçlerinin desteğiyle, Pera'daki en prestijli mekânlara Katolik bir imge damga vurmuştur. Paolo Girardelli bu konuşmasında özelikle 18. ve 19. yüzyılda gerçekleşen değişim dinamiklerini ele alırken, Katolik kimliğinin Pera'nın toplumsal ve mimari manzaralarıyla nasıl birleşmiş olduğunu gösterecek.

Changing Religious Landscapes: A Catholic Topography of Pera during the 18th and 19th Centuries

Latin architectural heritage and Catholic communities in Istanbul are clearly intertwined historical realities. During the late Byzantine period, the Genoese economic leadership rendered the landscape of Galata similar to that of many Italian medieval towns. After the Ottoman conquest, with a substantial decrease of the number of Catholics, the Latin landmarks entered a phase of marginalization, and struggle for survival.
On the other hand, Armenian conversions to Catholicism during the 17th and especially the 18th century, encouraged the formation of a new Catholic landscape along the Grande Rue de Pera. This new trend was to reach its peak with the backing of the European powers in the 19th century. In this talk, Paolo Girardelli addresses the dynamics of social and cultural change that, taking place especially in the 18th and 19th centuries, left a durable imprint on what is probably the most contested and diverse part of Istanbul.

This volume represents the first scholarly work in English devoted to the experience of Italian architects and builders in Turkey, as well as in many of the lands once belonging to the Ottoman Empire. Covering a complex cultural and political geography spanning from the Danubian principalities (today’s Romania) to Anatolia and the Aegean region, the book is the result of individual research experiences that were brought together and debated in an international conference in Istanbul in March 2013, organized in collaboration with the Italian Institute of Culture and Boğaziçi University.

Grounded on a flexible notion of identitarian boundaries, the book explores a rich transcultural field of encounters and interactions, analyzed and evaluated by scholars from six different countries on the basis of hitherto uncovered archival materials. Forms, ideas, individual mobility of actors and materials, networks of patronage, material and political constraints, as well as religious and cultural difference all play a significant role in shaping the landscapes, buildings and architectural projects presented and discussed here. From late 18th and early 19th century experiences of interaction between neo-classical backgrounds and westernizing Ottoman forms to the Italian proposals for a Turkish republican iconic landmark like the Ataturk mausoleum in Ankara; from the design of the first Ottoman university building to Ottoman varieties of Art Nouveau and Art Deco, and to the infrastructures and urban developments of the 1950s in Turkey, the book is both a richly illustrated and documented overview of relevant cases, and a critical introduction to one of the most enticing areas of encounter in the global history of 19th and 20th century architecture and design.

Any analysis of the Christian presence in Ottoman cities has to acknowledge a set of dynamic relations that include place, identity politics, diplomacy, geo-political developments , and the role of other non-Muslim communities vis-à-vis the dominant Islamic order. In this paper, Catholic architecture in Pera or present-day Beyoğlu – a district of Istanbul often misleadingly considered as a European enclave – is read in the light of local practices and discourses of co-habitation, as well as international tensions revolving around the so-called 'Eastern Question'.

As guest editor of a section of ABE Journal (Architecture beyond Europe) focussing on the architecture and the urban/social/political context of diplomatic buildings, I would like to invite the submission of papers on this topic. The deadline is April 15, 2017, and the publication is scheduled for December 2017. This is the link to the call for papers:

http://abe.revues.org/2959

and these are the guidelines for the submission:

http://abe.revues.org/302

The call is also available from the website of SAH:
http://www.sah.org/jobs-and-careers/recent-opportunities/2016/12/09/default-calendar/cfp-abe-journal---architecture-beyond-europe-issue-12-the-space-of-diplomacy.-design-and-beyond

ABE – Architecture Beyond Europe is a scholarly, blind peer-reviewed journal, supported by the French CNRS and dedicated to the study of 19th- and 20th-century architecture and urbanism outside of Europe. It focuses primarily on the transfers, adaptations and appropriations of forms, technologies, models and doctrines across cultural and national boundaries.

The transformation of urban landscapes in port cities of the Eastern Mediterranean during the 19 th century is often addressed as a process of westernization, enacted through the import of foreign architects, builders and technologies. While several aspects of this vision are obviously important, this paper attempts to analyse processes of urban, architectural and visual change from a different, more internal and endogenous perspective. Acknowledging diverse layers of heritage, and the fundamental plurality of late Ottoman society, this reading connects urban change and landscape to the dynamics of coexistence and tension that were typical of this cultural geography.

In the long history of interactions between Italy and the Ottoman world, Raimondo D'Aronco's work in Istanbul (where he lived between 1893 and 1909), stands as an invaluable trans-cultural heritage. This article illustrates the most significant phases and buildings of D'Aronco's contribution to the recent architectural history of the Ottoman capital. His patrons ranged from Abdülhamit II to the Levantine elites of Pera; his masterpieces include parts of the palace of Yıldız, public buildings like the Imperial school of medicine, and the summer embassy of the Italian embassy in Tarabya (now unfortunately dilapidated). D'Aronco's architecture is presented in this article, addressing also readers beyond the academia, as a unique tribute to Ottoman, Levantine and Mediterranean modernity.

An overview of the Italian appropriation and uses of Ottoman architectural culture, from the second half of the 18th C to early 20th C. In comparison with the standard notion of Orientalism in the Saidian sense, Italian approaches to Ottoman visual and spatial constructions are often mediated by the legacy of a rooted presence in the Eastern Mediterranean. The Levantine heritage allows at times to avoid an exoticized vision of the Ottoman world as other.

While Gaspare Fossati's work in Istanbul is generally remembered for his neoclassical design of embassies, and for the restoration of Haghia Sophia, this study is the first critical evaluation of his interest in the Ottoman architectural legacy, both monumental and domestic/vernacular. An Ottoman mausoleum (türbe),  a modern hamam,  hybrid residential structures combining a local internal layout with neoclassical elevations, as well as drawings of mosques and yalı (seaside mansions), are discussed here as witnesses of a multilayered cross-cultural dialogue, beyond stereotyped categorizations.

Presented at the first international conference on the work of Italian architects in Turkey (Istanbul, 1995), this paper is the first monographic article on the enigmatic personality of Pietro Montani, a protagonist of Ottoman architectural culture in the age of Sultan Abdülaziz.

La conferenza si concentra sulle trasformazioni che l'immagine, la struttura e la topografia delle ambasciate europee a Istanbul subi' tra la fine del Settecento e l'inizio del Novecento. Questo processo di ridefinizione stilistica e culturale viene analizzato nella suo rapporto con il cambiamento globale dei rapporti di forza caratteristico della cosiddetta "Questione d'Oriente". Protagonisti dell'esposizione sono diplomatici/committenti come Andrea Memmo, Lord Elgin, Alberto Blanc, e architetti come Gaspare Fossati, Pierre Laurecisque, Raimondo D'Aronco.

A paper presented at the international conference "Sacred Spaces, Urban Networks", Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (Koç University), Dec. 9, 2016. Addresses archbishop Hillerau (1798-1855)'s role in assessing and reworking the landscape of Catholic presence in late Ottoman Istanbul

Bu bildiri, Halet Çambel’nın gençliğinden beri İtalyan kültürü ile kurduğu kişisel, entelektüel ve profesyonel irtibatlarını kısaca tanıtıyor. Hoca için, İtalya’dan gelen ilk önemli ve etkileyici kişi, Faşist rejiminden kaçıp 1927de Türkiye’ye iltica eden Ezio Bartalini (1884-1962) olmuş. Hukuk ve Latin dili ve edebiyatı çalışmalarıyla tanınmış Bartalini, ikinci dünya savaşının sonuna kadar İstanbul’da ailesiyle ikamet edip, Halet Çambel’e Latince dersi vermiş. Fakat bunun ötesinde, iki entelektüel arasında ömür boyunca devam eden; hem İtalya’daki hem Halet Çambel’in arşiv malzemeleriyle belgelenen, bir dostluk ve düşünce ilişkisi kurulmuş. Bildirinin ikinci kısmı, 1950’lerde Karatepe Açık Hava Müzesi’ni kurmak için, dönemin en etkileyici İtalyan sanat tarihçilerinden, koruma/restorasyon kuramcısı ve Istituto Centrale del Restauro (Milli Restorasyon Enstitüsü) kurucusu Cesare Brandi (1906-1988) ve diğer İtalyan koruma uzmanları ile Halet Çambel arasında kurulmuş ilişki üzerine duracak. Sonuç olarak, Halet Hoca’nın birikim ve görüşlerinin küresel ölçeğini anlamak için, İtalya ile ilişkisi de önemli bir boyut oluşturur. Bildiri en çok Çambel arşivi, Bartalini’nin yayımlanmış ve yayımlamamış aile hatıraları ve Brandi üzerine mevcut olan İtalyan ve uluslararası literatürüne dayanıyor.

As an ambassador to the Ottoman capital between 1799 and 1803, Lord Elgin is most famous for his patronage of the archeological enterprises resulting in the acquisition, by the British Museum, of the much-debated Athenian marbles. Less known is the fact that Elgin acted as a patron of architecture during his mission in Istanbul, and struggled to implement in Pera the project of a neo-classical embassy, based on the design of his own country mansion at Broomhall. He never resided in the new palace - as this was not completed before the end of his mission - using instead an equally symbolic and political landmark: the neo-classical Palais de France, rebuilt in 1774 by ambassador Saint-Priest, and requisitioned by the Ottoman authorities in 1798, after the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt. Both structures were destroyed by the 1831 fire of Pera, but the place they had in the social and cultural landscape of Pera can be assessed with the aid of archival materials and literary narratives. This paper evaluates the manifold connections of Elgin’s experience in Istanbul with a local and with a cosmopolitan architectural culture, highlighting synergies and tensions between different understandings of space, material culture, and representation.

All’indomani del suo costituirsi come nuovo stato-nazione nel 1923, la Turchia repubblicana eredita dall’impero Ottomano una geografia culturale ricca di stratificazioni e sfaccettature. Ridefinire, proteggere e rendere accessibile un patrimonio esteso dall’Anatolia preclassica all’Islam, e da Bisanzio fino alle contaminazioni euro-ottomane del passato recente, diventa uno degli obiettivi principali nella gestione dei vecchi, e nella costituzione dei nuovi musei. Questa conferenza offre uno sguardo panoramico sulle iniziative museologiche del tardo impero, del primo periodo repubblicano, e della Turchia attuale, nel contesto di drammatiche trasformazioni sociali e politiche. Quali erano i significati e il valore del patrimonio anatolico, classico, bizantino, islamico in un impero multi-etnico? Come si configura questa eredità in rapporto alla nuova identità nazionale e culturale della repubblica? Che ruolo hanno i musei e il patrimonio plurale, diversificato del paese nel contesto socio-culturale odierno, e nelle attuali tensioni geo-politiche? Queste tematiche verranno discusse con il supporto di una ricca documentazione iconografica.

In the framework of the Journées européennes du patrimoine,  Saturday, Sept. 27, 2014, the French Consulate General opened to the public the premises of the old French embassy to the Ottoman capital, aka Palais de France. For the occasion I was invited to give a lecture on the history of this and other diplomatic landmarks, in the main hall of the Palace at 17.00.

ABSTRACT
After tracing concisely the origins of diplomatic architecture in Beyoğlu, this lecture will overview the changing image, perceptions and meanings of the Palais the France in a broader history of cultural encounters and geo-political developments, over the XVIII and XIX centuries. Comparing the evolution of the French embassy with other European and Ottoman landmarks in this context, will also allow to reconsider the importance of diplomatic architecture as a form of  trans-national heritage, that should be preserved and valorized through collaborative efforts.

A cycle of lectures (in Italian), organized in the framework of an Erasmus agreement, and thanks to the invaluable collaboration with Prof. Vera Costantini, Ottoman historian at Ca' Foscari, University of Venice. I am very grateful for the opportunity of presenting my work in a city that for centuries epitomized Italian - Ottoman relations, and in one the European Institutions that contributed most to Ottoman and Turkish studies

For millennia, the maritime channel connecting the Eastern Mediterranean and its imperial/cultural legacies to the Black Sea – an area of less glamorous or stable political and civilizational allegiances – was perceived as a threshold between different worlds. The drama of this positioning seemed to be reduced with the Ottoman control of the waters and geographical areas laying to the east and west of the Bosphorus, in the 15th-17th centuries. But the alleged decline of the Ottoman empire during the 18th century brought that drama again to life. Russian influence in, and later control of, the northern shores of the Black Sea, along with increasing Russian ambitions to access the Mediterranean (and even re-Christianize Constantinople), turned again that channel into a contested landscape. Russian, and later other foreign ships, began to cross the waters of a channel that in the previous two centuries had been mostly internal and domestic from the Ottoman point of view.

In this lecture, Paolo Girardelli will explore and contextualize the manifold visual and environmental consequences of this change in status. In the late Ottoman period, a spectacular development of new architectural landmarks turned gradually the channel into the only urban space in Istanbul comparable to a large Baroque boulevard: a stage for social rituals and display of status, but also an assertion of ownership and control, vis-à-vis the new challenges and the exposure to international traffic. Imperial pavilions, fortifications, and later the main sultanic palaces of the Ottoman household, were flanked by the summer residences of the foreign embassies. In time, diplomacy and international relations, contrasting pressures and claims, would recast the image of the Bosphorus as a cosmopolitan, living representation of geo-political change.

Tuesday, May 28, 2019
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Asia Pacific Canter - UCLA
Bunche Hall 10383

As a region of encounter and exchange, the Eastern Mediterranean was for millennia an environment of linguistic creolization. The so-called lingua franca is only one of the many instances of this process: a vehicular idiom used for mercantile transactions, originating from Latin presence in the Middle East since the time of the Crusades, and combining a basic Italic or romance template with words from Greek, Arabic, Turkish and beyond. This lecture will show how and why a similar expressive hybridity also characterized the architectural culture of the Ottoman cities most exposed to exchange and cultural interaction. Especially during the 18th, 19th and early 20th century, a diaspora of architects, builders and artisans from the Italian peninsula contributed in many ways to the renewal of cities like Istanbul, Salonica, Izmir, Cairo and Alexandria. What they elaborated in these sites was often not simply a transfer of Italian forms and models, but a veritable re-interpretation of local architectural traditions in the framework of post-Renaissance, classicist taste and style. The result was a fascinating construct, in which the borders between the academic and the vernacular, the Ottoman and the European, or between East and West were constantly questioned and blurred.

Cosmopolitan in what sense? Cultural diversity in the urban history of Pera/Beyoğlu

After the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, the new rulers initiated an overall redevelopment of the urban and social structure of the city. In this transformation, the Genoese walled district of Pera or Galata (today Beyoğlu) beyond the Golden Horn also changed its social composition and architectural image.

The famous Galata tower, whose silhouette figures today in the logo of the municipality of Beyoglu, was repaired, enlarged and partly rebuilt several times, acquiring its characteristic image only after the fire of 1831. The Genoese walls, in place until 1863, came to shelter also a large number of Muslim inhabitants, while mosques and other structures catering to the Islamic society (but also in part to others) were built: a bedesten (covered market), schools, fountains, baths, and the seat of the kadı or judge. Elements of a new urban landscape (the embassies, the main artery or Grand Rue de Pera, the churches, new house and apartment buildings) clustered beyond the walls, and also changed their image and place according to evolving social and political dynamics.

Rather than functioning as a special enclave or concession, Pera/Beyoğlu became a typical Ottoman settlement inhabited by many of the social and ethno-religious groups of the empire: Christians, Muslims and Jews, with the only difference that a stronger Catholic and European presence was concentrated here. While until the 18th century these communities lived in a social and architectural landscape that conformed to the dominant Ottoman standards, in the 19th century the growing political and economic power of certain groups (especially European, Greek-Orthodox and Armenian-Catholic), produced the new image of Beyoglu, often described and assessed as "cosmopolitan".

This lecture complements Dr. Mabi Angar's invited talk on "Pera Bella. The Genoese Settlement on the Bosporus" (Boğaziçi University, October 2017) , focussed on the late Medieval period. It  explores the manifold manifestations that "cosmopolitanism" acquired at Pera, its roots in the plural Ottoman social structure, its connections with changing power balances and international relations.

This lecture overviews a dynamic and interconnected process of change in the cityscapes of the Eastern Mediterranean, evaluating and contextualizing its meanings in a broad spatial-temporal framework. During the last phases of Ottoman rule, coastal cities like Alexandria, Beirut, Izmir, Istanbul and Salonica, were increasingly connected to each other, but also to the global development of capitalist economy. In these sites, the drama of inter-communal cohabitation and tension produced different ways of expressing and representing identity or belonging to Ottoman, Muslim, non-Muslim, European backgrounds. The lecture will show how embassies, consulates and churches; governmental palaces and public squares; but also banks, hotels, entrepôts and residential structures, were all part of a rhizomic formation, of a changing, ambivalent and diffused urban stage. While the landscapes constituting this expanded stage are usually labeled as cosmopolitan, they can also be read historically as the final product of a long standing, medieval tradition of Muslim-Christian-Jewish co-existence, disrupted but also revitalized by its integration in a modern, global context of exchange and encounter. The present situation and the destiny of these environments, as contested lieux de memoire of a cosmopolitan past, will be also addressed in the conclusion of the lecture.
http://www.huizingainstituut.nl/lecture-paolo-girardelli-bogazici-university-istanbul/

Diplomacy and religion were strictly intertwined in the history of European-Ottoman dealings and interactions. The western ambassadors provided political protection and were responsible for the catholic and protestant communities established in the Ottoman Empire. At Pera, the cosmopolitan district of Istanbul developed outside the walls of the Genoese colony of Galata, embassies and churches were often contiguous sites - engaged in a complex political, cultural and architectural synergy with the surrounding landscape. Addressing the main artery of Pera, the Grande Rue (today İstiklal Caddesi) as a stage were the spectacle of changing cultural affiliations and identities was displayed, this lecture offers a panoramic overview of an urban evolution that lead from the monumentalization of embassies and churches in the 19th century  to the recent, dramatic contentions over public space.

Paolo Girardelli, professeur d'histoire à l'université Boğaziçi, a donné une conférence au Palais de France d’Istanbul lors des récentes Journées européennes du patrimoine, intitulée: “Une  histoire partagée, le Palais de France dans le développement urbain de Pera et Galata”. Rencontre avec un spécialiste de l'architecture, ce reflet matériel des relations anciennes entre l'Europe et l'Empire ottoman.

http://www.lepetitjournal.com/istanbul/societe/rencontres/197112-interview-le-palais-de-france-et-son-histoire-temoin-des-relations-franco-turques

This Friday, November 5, at 12 noon (CDT, 10 am PDT, 1 pm EDT, 8 pm in Turkey) OTSA is hosting Helga Anetshofer and Hakan Karateke, the co-editors of The Ottoman World: A Cultural History Reader, 1450-1700 (University of California Press, 2021), and Giancarlo Casale, the editor and translator of Prisoner of the Infidels: The Memoir of an Ottoman Muslim in Seventeenth-Century Europe (University of California Press, 2021) to talk about translating Ottoman primary sources.

My (humble) contribution to the first of the two volumes is the translation documents from the archives of Propaganda Fide, related to the Catholics in Istanbul in the 17th century.

You can register here to attend:
https://ucdavis.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJErceCsqD0jHtKSlBGrLS0bFh8afQHCdE0h

The architecture of embassies, consulates and other officially "foreign"
structures symbolizes the relationship between two countries, but also
their positioning in a global landscape of perceptions and
representations. Starting from the district of diplomacy in Ankara,
and the project by Paolo Caccia Dominioni for the Italian Embassy
(whose construction began 80 years ago), this conference reflects on the spatial dimension of diplomacy, and
opens a debate on the role of architecture in pursuing international dialogue.

Organized by the Department of Architecture of METU, under the auspices of the Italian
Embassy in Ankara, the event also presents the last issue of the
open-acces journal Architecture beyond Europe (n. 12, 2017), devoted
to "The Space of Diplomacy: Design and Beyond", and guest-edited by Paolo Girardelli.

The journal can be accessed at:

https://journals.openedition.org/abe/3706

İtalyan Kültür Merkezi ve Boğaziçi Üniversitesi tarafından desteklenen bu yayın, güneydoğu Akdeniz merkezlerinin kentsel ve mimari gelişiminde İtalyan katkısı üzerine daha geniş bir araştırmanın parçasıdır. Bu konu üzerine İngilizce olarak yayınlanmış ilk eserdir. Kitap, son yıllarda altı farklı ülkeden gelen 15 bilim adamı tarafından yürütülen orijinal araştırmalara dayanan makaleleri bir araya getirmiştir. Eserin coğrafi alanı Balkanlar'dan Anadolu'ya uzanırken, kronolojik olarak 18. yüzyılın sonundan başlayıp yirminci yüzyılın ellili yıllarına kadar devam eden bir dönemi kapsamaktadır.
Kitabın sunumu, eserin eş-editörü Paolo Girardelli (Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Tarih Bölümü'nde profesör ve ICOMOS İtalya üyesi) tarafından yapılacaktır. Ekteki programda belirtilen ve eserde makaleleri yer alan konuklar da konuşmacı olarak etkinliğe katılacaklardır.
Sanat tarihçisi, VEKAM müdürü ve Koç Üniversitesi öğretim üyesi Prof. Filiz Yenişehirlioğlu yorumcu olarak katılıp izlenimlerini sunacak, ve tartışmayı halka açacaktır.

Wednesday, March 14 at 16.00, in the room Fabri de Pereisc at the Institut national d'histoire de l'art, we present the last issue (12) of Architecture beyond Europe, an open-access journal for which I guest-edited a thematic section on the architecture of diplomacy:
http://journals.openedition.org/abe/3706

The official announcement of the event:
https://invisu.inha.fr/fr/recherche/manifestations/l-architecture-en-situation-diplomatique.html

Presentation of a special issue of New Perspectives on Turkey on "Ambivalent Architectures from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic".
Tue., Nov 25, 2014
Ankara, Architects Association (see attached poster)

http://www.newperspectivesonturkey.net/Content/Npt/Issue_33/EIntroduction_26/005-008_50_NPT_Spring.pdf

Keynote address delivered Nov. 3, 2014 at the First International Conference on Levantine History: "The Levantines. Commerce and Diplomacy", organized by the Levantine Heritage Foundation (Istanbul, 3-5 November 2014, British Consulate General and Italian Institute of Culture). Video recording accessible from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHgXnU2M1WE

http://levantineheritage.com/pdf/LHF-1st-International-Conference-Nov-2014.pdf

Dottorato di ricerca in storia e critica dell'architettura. 6. ciclo. A.a. 1991-94. Relatori B. Gravagnuolo e C. De SetaConsiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Biblioteca Centrale - P.le Aldo Moro, 7, Rome; Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale - P.za Cavalleggeri, 1, Florence / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle RichercheSIGLEITItal