Olgaç Arda Dönmez

Istanbul Kültür University

Faculty of Architecture

P70 | İst-RF. Netherlands Research Institute in İstanbul.

by Olgaç Arda Dönmez  



The project field is the area that remains amidst the Kucuk Kapi and Kurkcu Kapi in Persembe Bazaar- Istanbul Karakoy. This area mainly serves as a market area where hardware dealers and small manufacturers produce and sell their items. In the past, there were considerations to relocate them elsewhere and the area to be part of a cultural, artistic and touristic urban transformation project. Even though this relocation process has not yet been actualized, as intended, the decision for an urban transformation is still valid. In this context, the project has the potential to trigger the transformation yet to occur in the area. The year 2012 was the 400th year marking the beginning of official relationships between the Netherlands and Turkey. The Netherlands Research Institute in İstanbul is designed to serve to the present potential and new ones. The structure has different layers of meaning for the sake of both the representation of a member state of the European Union (EU) in Turkey and also for developing the two countries’ relations, and in this context Turkey’s relations with the EU and the Netherlands. Besides, the westernization movement of the 19th century, which began through the end of the Ottoman State and accelerated after the founding of the Republic, and the movement’s principles such as the ideals of democracy and freedom and the preference of the Republic of Turkey to make those principles as the part of its own modernization process, are the important parts of those layers. .


//


Olgaç Arda Dönmez  was born in Istanbul in 1988. He received his Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch.) degree from the Istanbul Kültür University in 2011. Currently he is studying for a Master of Science in Architecture degree at the Istanbul Technical University.