Papers by Mehmet Kerem Özel
Mimarlık Dergisi, 2023
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Mimarist, 2022
Turkey’s First Monumental Public Theatre Project: Theatre and Conservatory Building Competition I... more Turkey’s First Monumental Public Theatre Project: Theatre and Conservatory Building Competition In İstanbul-Şehzadebaşı
This article claims that the Istanbul Theatre and Conservatory International Architectural Project Competition, held in 1934, was the first public monumental theatre building project in Turkey from the Tanzimat Period, when theatre architecture began to be seen in the Ottoman Empire, to the Republic. The specification of the competition has been examined in the context of the relationship with the city, which is the feature that make a public theatre building monumental in the Western sense. The urban arrangement prepared on the occasion of the competition consisting of a rectangular square on one of the important arteries of the city, a monument in the middle and the theatre building site placed on the other side of the square, has qualities that describe the relationship between the monumental public theatre buildings and the city in the Western sense. The fact that not only foreign but also Turkish architects participating in the competition, including the winner Hans Poelzig, emphasized the public nature and monumentality of their design by associating the city square with the theatre building mass, is proof that the potential of the urban arrangement has been completely understood and used.
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Tasarım + Kuram
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Anthropology of the Middle East, 2013
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Tasarım + Kuram
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Arredamento Mimarlık, 2021
Bu metinde yazarın “Uzaktan Öğretim: Çevrimiçi Sınırlar, İmkanlar” teması hakkındaki görüşleri ye... more Bu metinde yazarın “Uzaktan Öğretim: Çevrimiçi Sınırlar, İmkanlar” teması hakkındaki görüşleri yer alır. Yazar makalenin; ilk bölümünde Mimar Sinan Güzel Sanatlar Üniversitesi Mimarlık Fakültesi Mimari Proje Atölyesi’nin gerçekleştirildiği Çatı mekanını mimarlıkta atmosfer kavramı bağlamında betimler, ikinci bölümünde ise 2020 Bahar - 2021 Bahar yarıyılları arasındaki bir yılı kapsayan uzaktan öğretim deneyimine dair kişisel yorumlarını ve görüşlerini paylaşır. Makalenin sonuç kısmı, pandemiden bağımsız olarak Türkiye'deki mimarlık eğitimi hakkında günümüze dair bir tespitten yola çıkarak ileriye dönük ele alınması gereken durumu ortaya koyar.
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Betonart, 2020
In search of the unfinishedness of the theatrical place
Based on that the origin of the word “pe... more In search of the unfinishedness of the theatrical place
Based on that the origin of the word “performance” means "to complete", this article offers a proposition that the spaces where the performing arts are performed, namely the theatrical places, are "unfinished" but complete, even "liberated", when the audience enters and watches the performance. This article discusses this proposition through examples both designed but not built and realized since the 1970s. In the context of the notion of atmosphere in architecture, where the emotions felt while being in “here” and “now” by focusing the bodily presence, it is concluded that the atmosphere of the found spaces contains more of the unfinishedness than the designed ones. The article ends with the question of whether one of the ways to achieve unfinishedness in the theatrical places designed from scratch is through creating atmosphere.
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adjournal, 2019
The Tanzimat Era is a period during which western style theater began to appear in Ottoman Empire... more The Tanzimat Era is a period during which western style theater began to appear in Ottoman Empire and thus western style theater buildings were constructed. Theater buildings were a new type of building that Ottoman society encountered for the first time, which began to appear in classical Ottoman-Islamic city along with Tanzimat. While the existence and number of theater buildings before Tanzimat remained mysterious even in Pera, the Levantine area of imperial capital city Istanbul, approximately ten new theater buildings were built in various neighborhoods of Istanbul during Tanzimat period and the first decade of the 20 th century, during which the influence of Tanzimat still prevailed. Two theater architectures were present in the west in the same period: Façade Theater and monumental theater. In addition to façade theatres which date back to 17 th century, monumental theater buildings began to appear in Europe, however they gained their real momentum in the same period that coincides with Tanzimat. When compared to façade theaters which were located in building blocks with an only façade opening to street, monumental theaters turned out to be significant focal points in renewed urban planning of cities. This paper deals with theater buildings that were built in Istanbul during the Tanzimat Era. These buildings were analyzed in two aspects. Firstly, the way these buildings were located in the city, aiming to question the relationship of Istanbul with the urban innovations that occurred in that period. Secondanly, architectural characteristics, forms and social meanings of these theaters as a building type that were alien to Ottoman physical and societal geography and newly introduced to the city.
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When approached from outside, Zumthor’s buildings look minimal and give no clue about the functio... more When approached from outside, Zumthor’s buildings look minimal and give no clue about the functional program inside. This attitude emphasizes a certain introverted uality. Relating this attitude with the idea of “box,” the author searches for “boxes” wit- hin Zumthor’s architecture in three specific conditions: as the main space-organizing element, as the main connector regulating the relation between primary spaces, and as an architectural element placed within a surrounding envelope.
Peter Zumthor’un işlev ve programı en aza indirgenmiş binası Aziz Klaus Şapeli mekan kurgusu bağlamında çözümlendiğinde, içine yerleştiği kırsal alanın boşluğunda, dışarıyla ilişkisi kesilmiş, içe dönük tek bir mekandan oluşan bir kutu olduğu sonucuna varılır. Mimari olarak “çevresindeki daha geniş mekandan, onunla ilişkisi sadece bir kapıya veya göz hizasının üzerindeki tek bir açıklığa indirgenecek şekilde ayrılmış mekan” olarak tarif edilebilecek kutu kavramına Zumthor’un bir çok yapısında rastlanır. Kutu kavramı Zumhtor mimarlığında mekan kurgusu ve organizasyonu bağlamında üç farklı şekilde ortaya çıkar: mekan kurucu tek öğe olarak, birincil mekanlar arası kurguyu düzenleyici olarak, ve çevresine sarılan kabuğun içine yerleşen öğe olarak. Zumthor projelerinde bazen birincil bazen ikincil işlevli mekanları kutu içine alarak; işaretler ve bilgilerle dolu dünyada zedelenmiş olmalarına ve kimsenin görmemesine rağmen kendisinin hala varolduğuna inandığı saklı gerçek şeyleri ortaya çıkarmaya çalışıyor gibidir.
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Due to the increasing interest in performance as a design paradigm in the last 25 years, the term... more Due to the increasing interest in performance as a design paradigm in the last 25 years, the term " performative architecture " can be defined very broadly within an expansive context from technology (structure, thermal energy, acoustics, etc.) to cultural theory, from socioeconomic to environmental issues. This paper will try to make a synthesis between spatial performance and spatial performativity in order to use this synthesis as the critical framework for its analysis. Judith Butlers's notion of performativity has entered into the vocabulary of architecture to explore the interrelation between subjectivity and place and has been used to think through how subjectivity is enacted in place and how place itself is enacted in the process of performance. On the other hand, performative architecture has a capacity to respond to changing social, cultural and technological conditions by perpetually reformatting itself as an index of emerging cultural patterns. In performative architecture, space unfolds in indeterminate ways, in contrast to the fixity of predetermined, programmed actions, events and effects. In this sense this paper aims to reread and reinterpret some examples of the 20 th century theatre architecture in light of performance and performativity in order to answer the question: Can any black box theatre be called as an example of performative architecture?
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The Rovaniemi Sports Arena Railo was launched in 2015. Designed by APRT (Artto Palo Rossi Tikka) ... more The Rovaniemi Sports Arena Railo was launched in 2015. Designed by APRT (Artto Palo Rossi Tikka) architectural office in Rovaniemi on the north pole line, one of Finland’s cities renowned with Alvar Aalto, this large-scale public structure is thin, light and permeable, open to the outside and open to the city, rather like a tulle - rather than an introverted, protected, massive structure built in this city that is covered with snow most of the time of the year, and has cold and severe weather conditions. The project is one of the wicked children of a country whose social culture, architecture and life is based on harmony, calmness and serenity in general.
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Renowned Swiss architect Peter Zumthor frequently indicates the constitution of spatial sequence ... more Renowned Swiss architect Peter Zumthor frequently indicates the constitution of spatial sequence and the use of daylight among others as factors determining his designs. This article aims to track the relationships between his buildings and projects with different functions, programs and locations by analyzing the role of daylight in the context of spatial sequence construction of his designs.
Saint Klaus Chapel, Herz Jesu Church and Serpentine Gallery Pavillion are the buildings which are composed of one dominant space and in terms of the arrangement of the spatial sequence, they are experienced in the same way. Kolumba Museum has the same arrangement of the spatial sequence as the others, but not in the general of the building, only in some parts of it.
The arrangement of the spatial sequence consists of three components. The first one is the landscape in the case of the chapel, the urban landscape in the case of the church, the park in the case of the pavilion and the center court in the case of the museum. All of these components are general spaces; their sizes and the movement in them are limitless; they all are under the sky with unrestrained daylight.
The second component of the chapel, the church and the pavilion is the narrow, low, shadowy, passage-like spaces with the function of circulation. Albeit in the museum the second component has the function of exhibition contributing to the main function of the building, it has similar characteristics with the others especially because of its dark atmosphere due to controlled artificial light.
The third component of the arrangement of the spatial sequence is the worship space in the case of the chapel, the main prayer hall in the case of the church, the garden space in the case of the pavilion and the tower in the case of the museum.
The third components of the chapel, the church and the pavilion are illuminated by a single natural light source right from the top. However, in the pavilion the space just under the light source is meant as the garden, not for the use of people. In the museum the daylight does not come from the top; it laterally comes from above.
In all cases the daylight sources are restrained because in the chapel the opening on the top is smaller than the space underneath, in the pavilion the space usable for people is not under the opening but on the lateral sides of the opening, in the church and in the museum coloured or frosted glasses are used as intermediate elements between the outside and inside.
To conclude, the staging of daylight is the fundamental logic which gives the sense to all arrangements of the spatial sequences in buildings of Peter Zumthor with different functions, programs and site plan values.
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This paper aims to analyse the architectural elements and spatial concept of Bruder Klaus Fieldc... more This paper aims to analyse the architectural elements and spatial concept of Bruder Klaus Fieldchapel, which was defined by Peter Zumthor as “a worship space and not a consecrated church in a clerical mind”, in order to determine its role in the history of the religious architecture. The building was analysed using two approaches, the sensual image and the spatial experience, to which Zumthor pays attention through his design process in general.
The exterior mass of the chapel is a large, solid monolith with strict and sharp lines. Standing still in the middle of the wheatfields, it has the typical characteristics of a landmark. Thus, with its image like a menhir, which is one of the most ancient worshipped images of the mankind, it creates the centre inviting the visitor to approach, circumambulate and explore.
In the interior, the oculus constitutes the spatial concept of the chapel. Meaning “ Eye of God” and first used on the Pantheon, oculus emerged often in the designs of churches with a central plan in the second half of the 20th century. There is a close relationship particularly between this chapel and the Baptism Chapel of the Neu-Ulm St. Johann Baptist Church by Dominikus Böhm in terms of using the oculus, striated walls and placement of the water basin.
Spatial experience of the journey from the exterior to the core of the chapel is similar to the spatial sequence of the Pantheon. In general, it is based on mystification and the dualities of sharp-organic, light-dark, smooth-striated between the interior and exterior experiences of the building.
With all its characterisctics analyzed through the paper, Bruder Klaus Fieldchapel has a close link to the history of religious architecture, although it has a single space and no liturgical items.
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Ayvalik is an unusual Ottoman town because of its history. In the early-tweentieth century, the t... more Ayvalik is an unusual Ottoman town because of its history. In the early-tweentieth century, the town was turkized after being under the influence of Greek population and culture along for approximately two century time. In Greek period in Ayvalik, churches, which are serving as cores, provide the dwellings to grow in their surroundings like in many Christian towns. Analysing the settlements around these churches, it can be seen that the street fabric and building blocks are formed around the churches. The Hamidiye Mosque dated to the late-nine- teenth century, and which was built by Sultan Abdülhamid the Second, is a small but symbolically important addition to Ayvalik’s urban structure. This mosque which was built with the impact of the Greek revolution in 1821 seems to have a symbolic attitude embodying the power of the central government rather than serving as a congregational place for the muslim community; the power of imperial capital, taking the rule over, following the mutiny, which came after a period of economical and cultural prosperity provided by the autonomy of a city-state.
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Sections in Books by Mehmet Kerem Özel
Tiyatroda Zaman / Mekan, 2018
In the history of philosophy, time and space have been explained separately in the beginning. Fir... more In the history of philosophy, time and space have been explained separately in the beginning. Firstly in the thoughts of Kant and later with the phenomenological and hermeneutical studies in the 20th century, time and space are considered as parts of the holistic experience of human perception.
Agreeing on the fact that time and space complement and substitute each other, the absolute “space” perceived as a coordinate system is replaced with the ambiguous “spatiality”. Hence, the nature of the spatial order incorporates the potential of possibility.
Redefining creativity as a modulation which enables unprecedented differences and change assigns the architecture the task of reinterpreting the relationship between space and time as “time in space”. Time makes it possible to delimit, to shape, to occupy, to measure, to connect, and above all to move and change. So, in the center of the spatiality, the human rediscovers the possibility of relating freely to the surrounding space by simultaneously experiencing the past, the present and the future, which is conceived as “corporeal conception” by Merleau-Ponty. Thus architecture gains a performative quality.
In the case of theatre architecture, performative architecture does not mean the changeability of the space by removing and installing the designed environment in theatres with a thrust, arena, proscenium or black box stage, or in existing spaces like warehouses or barns. Instead, the architecture of the theatre itself that is mobile, moving and variable is called as performative theatre architecture. It is the freely flowing construction in which nothing is confined to a fixed place.
In this regard, this paper aims to reread and reinterpret the examples of 20th century theatre architecture in light of the suggestion briefly mentioned above.
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Papers by Mehmet Kerem Özel
This article claims that the Istanbul Theatre and Conservatory International Architectural Project Competition, held in 1934, was the first public monumental theatre building project in Turkey from the Tanzimat Period, when theatre architecture began to be seen in the Ottoman Empire, to the Republic. The specification of the competition has been examined in the context of the relationship with the city, which is the feature that make a public theatre building monumental in the Western sense. The urban arrangement prepared on the occasion of the competition consisting of a rectangular square on one of the important arteries of the city, a monument in the middle and the theatre building site placed on the other side of the square, has qualities that describe the relationship between the monumental public theatre buildings and the city in the Western sense. The fact that not only foreign but also Turkish architects participating in the competition, including the winner Hans Poelzig, emphasized the public nature and monumentality of their design by associating the city square with the theatre building mass, is proof that the potential of the urban arrangement has been completely understood and used.
Based on that the origin of the word “performance” means "to complete", this article offers a proposition that the spaces where the performing arts are performed, namely the theatrical places, are "unfinished" but complete, even "liberated", when the audience enters and watches the performance. This article discusses this proposition through examples both designed but not built and realized since the 1970s. In the context of the notion of atmosphere in architecture, where the emotions felt while being in “here” and “now” by focusing the bodily presence, it is concluded that the atmosphere of the found spaces contains more of the unfinishedness than the designed ones. The article ends with the question of whether one of the ways to achieve unfinishedness in the theatrical places designed from scratch is through creating atmosphere.
Peter Zumthor’un işlev ve programı en aza indirgenmiş binası Aziz Klaus Şapeli mekan kurgusu bağlamında çözümlendiğinde, içine yerleştiği kırsal alanın boşluğunda, dışarıyla ilişkisi kesilmiş, içe dönük tek bir mekandan oluşan bir kutu olduğu sonucuna varılır. Mimari olarak “çevresindeki daha geniş mekandan, onunla ilişkisi sadece bir kapıya veya göz hizasının üzerindeki tek bir açıklığa indirgenecek şekilde ayrılmış mekan” olarak tarif edilebilecek kutu kavramına Zumthor’un bir çok yapısında rastlanır. Kutu kavramı Zumhtor mimarlığında mekan kurgusu ve organizasyonu bağlamında üç farklı şekilde ortaya çıkar: mekan kurucu tek öğe olarak, birincil mekanlar arası kurguyu düzenleyici olarak, ve çevresine sarılan kabuğun içine yerleşen öğe olarak. Zumthor projelerinde bazen birincil bazen ikincil işlevli mekanları kutu içine alarak; işaretler ve bilgilerle dolu dünyada zedelenmiş olmalarına ve kimsenin görmemesine rağmen kendisinin hala varolduğuna inandığı saklı gerçek şeyleri ortaya çıkarmaya çalışıyor gibidir.
Saint Klaus Chapel, Herz Jesu Church and Serpentine Gallery Pavillion are the buildings which are composed of one dominant space and in terms of the arrangement of the spatial sequence, they are experienced in the same way. Kolumba Museum has the same arrangement of the spatial sequence as the others, but not in the general of the building, only in some parts of it.
The arrangement of the spatial sequence consists of three components. The first one is the landscape in the case of the chapel, the urban landscape in the case of the church, the park in the case of the pavilion and the center court in the case of the museum. All of these components are general spaces; their sizes and the movement in them are limitless; they all are under the sky with unrestrained daylight.
The second component of the chapel, the church and the pavilion is the narrow, low, shadowy, passage-like spaces with the function of circulation. Albeit in the museum the second component has the function of exhibition contributing to the main function of the building, it has similar characteristics with the others especially because of its dark atmosphere due to controlled artificial light.
The third component of the arrangement of the spatial sequence is the worship space in the case of the chapel, the main prayer hall in the case of the church, the garden space in the case of the pavilion and the tower in the case of the museum.
The third components of the chapel, the church and the pavilion are illuminated by a single natural light source right from the top. However, in the pavilion the space just under the light source is meant as the garden, not for the use of people. In the museum the daylight does not come from the top; it laterally comes from above.
In all cases the daylight sources are restrained because in the chapel the opening on the top is smaller than the space underneath, in the pavilion the space usable for people is not under the opening but on the lateral sides of the opening, in the church and in the museum coloured or frosted glasses are used as intermediate elements between the outside and inside.
To conclude, the staging of daylight is the fundamental logic which gives the sense to all arrangements of the spatial sequences in buildings of Peter Zumthor with different functions, programs and site plan values.
The exterior mass of the chapel is a large, solid monolith with strict and sharp lines. Standing still in the middle of the wheatfields, it has the typical characteristics of a landmark. Thus, with its image like a menhir, which is one of the most ancient worshipped images of the mankind, it creates the centre inviting the visitor to approach, circumambulate and explore.
In the interior, the oculus constitutes the spatial concept of the chapel. Meaning “ Eye of God” and first used on the Pantheon, oculus emerged often in the designs of churches with a central plan in the second half of the 20th century. There is a close relationship particularly between this chapel and the Baptism Chapel of the Neu-Ulm St. Johann Baptist Church by Dominikus Böhm in terms of using the oculus, striated walls and placement of the water basin.
Spatial experience of the journey from the exterior to the core of the chapel is similar to the spatial sequence of the Pantheon. In general, it is based on mystification and the dualities of sharp-organic, light-dark, smooth-striated between the interior and exterior experiences of the building.
With all its characterisctics analyzed through the paper, Bruder Klaus Fieldchapel has a close link to the history of religious architecture, although it has a single space and no liturgical items.
Sections in Books by Mehmet Kerem Özel
Agreeing on the fact that time and space complement and substitute each other, the absolute “space” perceived as a coordinate system is replaced with the ambiguous “spatiality”. Hence, the nature of the spatial order incorporates the potential of possibility.
Redefining creativity as a modulation which enables unprecedented differences and change assigns the architecture the task of reinterpreting the relationship between space and time as “time in space”. Time makes it possible to delimit, to shape, to occupy, to measure, to connect, and above all to move and change. So, in the center of the spatiality, the human rediscovers the possibility of relating freely to the surrounding space by simultaneously experiencing the past, the present and the future, which is conceived as “corporeal conception” by Merleau-Ponty. Thus architecture gains a performative quality.
In the case of theatre architecture, performative architecture does not mean the changeability of the space by removing and installing the designed environment in theatres with a thrust, arena, proscenium or black box stage, or in existing spaces like warehouses or barns. Instead, the architecture of the theatre itself that is mobile, moving and variable is called as performative theatre architecture. It is the freely flowing construction in which nothing is confined to a fixed place.
In this regard, this paper aims to reread and reinterpret the examples of 20th century theatre architecture in light of the suggestion briefly mentioned above.
This article claims that the Istanbul Theatre and Conservatory International Architectural Project Competition, held in 1934, was the first public monumental theatre building project in Turkey from the Tanzimat Period, when theatre architecture began to be seen in the Ottoman Empire, to the Republic. The specification of the competition has been examined in the context of the relationship with the city, which is the feature that make a public theatre building monumental in the Western sense. The urban arrangement prepared on the occasion of the competition consisting of a rectangular square on one of the important arteries of the city, a monument in the middle and the theatre building site placed on the other side of the square, has qualities that describe the relationship between the monumental public theatre buildings and the city in the Western sense. The fact that not only foreign but also Turkish architects participating in the competition, including the winner Hans Poelzig, emphasized the public nature and monumentality of their design by associating the city square with the theatre building mass, is proof that the potential of the urban arrangement has been completely understood and used.
Based on that the origin of the word “performance” means "to complete", this article offers a proposition that the spaces where the performing arts are performed, namely the theatrical places, are "unfinished" but complete, even "liberated", when the audience enters and watches the performance. This article discusses this proposition through examples both designed but not built and realized since the 1970s. In the context of the notion of atmosphere in architecture, where the emotions felt while being in “here” and “now” by focusing the bodily presence, it is concluded that the atmosphere of the found spaces contains more of the unfinishedness than the designed ones. The article ends with the question of whether one of the ways to achieve unfinishedness in the theatrical places designed from scratch is through creating atmosphere.
Peter Zumthor’un işlev ve programı en aza indirgenmiş binası Aziz Klaus Şapeli mekan kurgusu bağlamında çözümlendiğinde, içine yerleştiği kırsal alanın boşluğunda, dışarıyla ilişkisi kesilmiş, içe dönük tek bir mekandan oluşan bir kutu olduğu sonucuna varılır. Mimari olarak “çevresindeki daha geniş mekandan, onunla ilişkisi sadece bir kapıya veya göz hizasının üzerindeki tek bir açıklığa indirgenecek şekilde ayrılmış mekan” olarak tarif edilebilecek kutu kavramına Zumthor’un bir çok yapısında rastlanır. Kutu kavramı Zumhtor mimarlığında mekan kurgusu ve organizasyonu bağlamında üç farklı şekilde ortaya çıkar: mekan kurucu tek öğe olarak, birincil mekanlar arası kurguyu düzenleyici olarak, ve çevresine sarılan kabuğun içine yerleşen öğe olarak. Zumthor projelerinde bazen birincil bazen ikincil işlevli mekanları kutu içine alarak; işaretler ve bilgilerle dolu dünyada zedelenmiş olmalarına ve kimsenin görmemesine rağmen kendisinin hala varolduğuna inandığı saklı gerçek şeyleri ortaya çıkarmaya çalışıyor gibidir.
Saint Klaus Chapel, Herz Jesu Church and Serpentine Gallery Pavillion are the buildings which are composed of one dominant space and in terms of the arrangement of the spatial sequence, they are experienced in the same way. Kolumba Museum has the same arrangement of the spatial sequence as the others, but not in the general of the building, only in some parts of it.
The arrangement of the spatial sequence consists of three components. The first one is the landscape in the case of the chapel, the urban landscape in the case of the church, the park in the case of the pavilion and the center court in the case of the museum. All of these components are general spaces; their sizes and the movement in them are limitless; they all are under the sky with unrestrained daylight.
The second component of the chapel, the church and the pavilion is the narrow, low, shadowy, passage-like spaces with the function of circulation. Albeit in the museum the second component has the function of exhibition contributing to the main function of the building, it has similar characteristics with the others especially because of its dark atmosphere due to controlled artificial light.
The third component of the arrangement of the spatial sequence is the worship space in the case of the chapel, the main prayer hall in the case of the church, the garden space in the case of the pavilion and the tower in the case of the museum.
The third components of the chapel, the church and the pavilion are illuminated by a single natural light source right from the top. However, in the pavilion the space just under the light source is meant as the garden, not for the use of people. In the museum the daylight does not come from the top; it laterally comes from above.
In all cases the daylight sources are restrained because in the chapel the opening on the top is smaller than the space underneath, in the pavilion the space usable for people is not under the opening but on the lateral sides of the opening, in the church and in the museum coloured or frosted glasses are used as intermediate elements between the outside and inside.
To conclude, the staging of daylight is the fundamental logic which gives the sense to all arrangements of the spatial sequences in buildings of Peter Zumthor with different functions, programs and site plan values.
The exterior mass of the chapel is a large, solid monolith with strict and sharp lines. Standing still in the middle of the wheatfields, it has the typical characteristics of a landmark. Thus, with its image like a menhir, which is one of the most ancient worshipped images of the mankind, it creates the centre inviting the visitor to approach, circumambulate and explore.
In the interior, the oculus constitutes the spatial concept of the chapel. Meaning “ Eye of God” and first used on the Pantheon, oculus emerged often in the designs of churches with a central plan in the second half of the 20th century. There is a close relationship particularly between this chapel and the Baptism Chapel of the Neu-Ulm St. Johann Baptist Church by Dominikus Böhm in terms of using the oculus, striated walls and placement of the water basin.
Spatial experience of the journey from the exterior to the core of the chapel is similar to the spatial sequence of the Pantheon. In general, it is based on mystification and the dualities of sharp-organic, light-dark, smooth-striated between the interior and exterior experiences of the building.
With all its characterisctics analyzed through the paper, Bruder Klaus Fieldchapel has a close link to the history of religious architecture, although it has a single space and no liturgical items.
Agreeing on the fact that time and space complement and substitute each other, the absolute “space” perceived as a coordinate system is replaced with the ambiguous “spatiality”. Hence, the nature of the spatial order incorporates the potential of possibility.
Redefining creativity as a modulation which enables unprecedented differences and change assigns the architecture the task of reinterpreting the relationship between space and time as “time in space”. Time makes it possible to delimit, to shape, to occupy, to measure, to connect, and above all to move and change. So, in the center of the spatiality, the human rediscovers the possibility of relating freely to the surrounding space by simultaneously experiencing the past, the present and the future, which is conceived as “corporeal conception” by Merleau-Ponty. Thus architecture gains a performative quality.
In the case of theatre architecture, performative architecture does not mean the changeability of the space by removing and installing the designed environment in theatres with a thrust, arena, proscenium or black box stage, or in existing spaces like warehouses or barns. Instead, the architecture of the theatre itself that is mobile, moving and variable is called as performative theatre architecture. It is the freely flowing construction in which nothing is confined to a fixed place.
In this regard, this paper aims to reread and reinterpret the examples of 20th century theatre architecture in light of the suggestion briefly mentioned above.
In the 2014-2015 season, the Turkish theatre company Altıdan Sonra Tiyatro collaborated with the Stuttgart-based theatre company Lokstoff! on a production to be performed in public space. The play, “Problematic Human Resource”, written and co-directed by Yaman Ömer Erzurumlu and Wilhelm Schneck, is performed in an art gallery on one of the busiest pedestrian avenues of İstanbul, the İstiklal Street. The play consists of small independent episodes which are connected with each other through a main narrative. The main narrative is about the meeting of an international NGO called Responsible Human Resource, which makes job offerings to the unemployed invitees. There is a supervisor who directs the meeting and the audience, with three performers among them, is treated as the unemployed invitees. Every episode is based on a children’s game with its own rules and instructions. The performers and the supervisor encourage the audience to take part in these children’s games considering the audience as homo ludens in regard to the famous thesis of Johan Huizinga. The rules and instructions of every different children’s game on which the structure of every episode is based not only define the relationship between the performers and the audience during the specific episode but also dictate how the space must be used during that episode. The space of the performance is an art gallery, which may essentially be regarded as a white cube, a term coined by Brian O’Doherty who discusses the transformation of the modernist art gallery between the 1920s and the 1970s. On the one hand, the white, clean and artificial interior space of the gallery allows for all kinds of relationship between the performers and the audience built in various stage types from the arena, thrust, traverse to proscenium type stage. The spatial arrangements of every episode are made according to one of these types. On the other hand, the ground floor of the gallery is tightly connected to the İstiklal Street by huge openings. The main narrative of the play foregrounds this direct connection with the urban public space using the outside area adjoining the gallery physically and the image of the flowing crowd on the street visually. Going with the idea of Henri Lefebvre who regards the space as social morphology, the staging strategy of the play allows for an interaction between the narrative of the play and the present reality of the urban public space and doing so provides another layer of interpretation for the audience, this time a social one.
The shores of the Kumkale town is the only area on the Asian/Anatolian bank of the Dardanelles where the Allied powers made a landing and where a battle between the French divisions of the Allied powers and the Ottoman artillery took place during the Gallipoli Campaign. The area of the anticipated memorial is the empty land with the altitude of 10 meters. It is between the existing Orhaniye Bastion and the sea radar which was placed there a few years ago.
The main aim of the project is to constitute a meaningful connection between the memorial and the physical, cultural and historical characteristics of its environments in the scale of its specific site as well as in broader scale. The intention is to relate the memorial to the site where the landing was made, to the landscape of the site, to the past of the landscape, and thereby to the public memory. In this sense the project was titled as The Trace Accompanying History. Above mentioned relations are established on three different scales: 1- on the site scale: Ground Track, 2- on the human scale: Memorial Wall and ceremonial area, 3- on the regional scale: Luminous Wall.
Ground Track, a walking line on the ground, connects the existing military buildings (Orhaniye Bastion dated to 1889 and artillery spots dated to 1938-1940) and the proposed features of the memorial project. By doing so, it provides the spatial continuity along the sightseeing route.
Memorial Wall, which is 1.25 meters high, contains the names of the 360 Turkish soldiers who were martyred during the battle in Kumkale on 28th-30th April 1915. It is strategically placed so that the visitors could see the battle spots in the Gallipoli Peninsula (Tekke Burnu, Cape Helles, Ertuğrul Bay, Kale Burnu, Seddülbahir and Morto Bay) and the memorials (Çanakkale Martyr’s Memorial, French Memorial at Morto Bay and the Cape Helles Memorial) at the eye level beyond the wall.
The main element of the memorial is the Luminous Wall. It is 1.5 meters wide, 90 meters long and 5 to 12 meters high. Positioned in the northwest-southeast direction, it is a visual, functional and semantic trace connecting the Gallipoli Peninsula with the Anatolia on the regional scale. Its dimensions allow the Kumkale Memorial site to be seen and to be perceptible from the Çanakkale Martyr’s Memorial on the Hisarlık Hill in the Gallipoli Peninsula during the annual commemoration ceremonies of the Gallipoli Campaign. Also, access to the site is possible from three points on the Anatolian side (from Troy, from Kumkale Village and from the 400-years-old Turkish cemetery which was used as bulwark by the Turkish soldiers during the Kumkale battle).
Luminous Wall contains 360 holes symbolizing 360 Turkish soldiers. Every hole has a slightly different direction from the others so that the individuality of every martyr could be emphasized. The directions of the 360 holes were designed according to the route of the sun from dusk till dawn between 25th–30th of April so that on every anniversary of the Kumkale Battle, the Luminous Wall gets sunlight throughout the day and the sunlight kindles the hollows on the wall.
To be able to examine the relationship between public urban space and monumental theatre buildings in Istanbul, the meanings this relationship bear and how they changed in the course of time, firstly we have to look at the history of theatre buildings in Western culture, where the art of theatre was born. I’ll mainly draw the framework of the overview on Marvin Carlson’s (1989) approach. It will provide me with some background information to observe more clearly the changes in the meaning of theatre buildings in Istanbul. As the case study I’ll concentrate on three monumental theatre buildings in Istanbul which represent the theatre-centered cultural life of the city in different decades through the last 50 years.
Tiyatro mimarisinin tanımı ve sınıflandırması yaygın bir kabulle; öncelikle oyun alanı temel alınarak, ikincil olarak ta, bu alanın seyirci alanı ile olan ilişkisi irdelenerek yapılagelmiştir. Halbuki, sanatı ve sanatın icra edildiği mimariyi aynı adla tanımlayan ve kökeni yunanca theatron olan “tiyatro” kelimesi, “izleme aracı” anlamına gelmektedir. Bir başka deyişle, “tiyatro” aslında sadece seyircilere, seyircilerin bulunduğu mekâna referans veren bir kelimedir.
Mekânın tiyatroda yerine getirdiği işlevleri inceleyen Anne Ubersfeld’in sınıflandırmasında seyirci alanının dahil edildiği başlık,“hem kentsel bağlam içindeki tiyatro yapısını hem de bu yapının karakteristik olarak içerdiği (oditoryumun fiziksel şekline ve, sosyal organizasyonun şekline bağlı olan ilişkilere göre oyuncular ile seyircileri biraraya getiren) bölünmüş mekânı” kapsayan “tiyatral yer”dir. Tiyatral yer 20. yüzyılın başından günümüze; Meyerhold’dan Grotowski’ye ve Barba’ya, Living Theatre’dan Shunt ve Blast Theory’ye, Appia’dan Gropius’a, Artaud’dan Mnouchkine’e ve Punchdrunk’a çeşitli yönetmenlerin ve toplulukların yaklaşım ve uygulamaları sonucunda oyun alanı ve seyirci alanı olarak ikiye parçalanmaktan kurtulmuştur. Tam da bu nedenle, bu işler tiyatral yerde mekânsallığı yaratan ürünlerdir.
Bu bildiride, seyirci öğesinin 20. yüzyıldan günümüze tiyatroda üretilen mekânsal işlerde konumu, durumu ve üstlendiği rol ele alınacak; buradan yola çıkarak da, tiyatral yerde üretilen mekânsallıkta seyirciye yüklenen anlamın ve işlevin, ürünün içine yerleştiği mimari ve mekân ile kurduğu ilişkiler ortaya konacaktır.