Urban Design, Invited Charette, 2015
Commissioned by Eyüp Municipality, İstanbul

Our proposal was based on the accounts of writers on Eyüp & the concept of Historic Urban Landscape. Throughout history, Eyüp has inspired many writers of literature including Edmondo de Amicis and Yahya Kemal Beyatlı as an urban fabric once made of cemeteries, tombs amid trees and flower gardens at the shores of the Golden Horn. We proposed to restore the eroded urban fabric composed of many interrelated gardens and proposed to introduce an underground praying area below the  square–solving the overcrowing of the square and also facilitating an archeological excavation of the multilayered site.

“It is a city of tombs, white, shaded, whose sedate beauty combines a religious melancholy with a breath of worldliness, like a very aristocratic neighborhood whose well-bred quiet proceeds from pride. The paths run between white walls and graceful railings, over which vines trail and clamber from the little gardens surrounding the graves; acacia trees stretch forth their branches to meet and mingle overhead with those of oak and myrtle, and through the gilded latticework of the arched windows of the türbehs may be seen, in the dim, soft light within, marble mausoleums tinged with green from the reflections of the trees. In no other place in Stambul is seen to such advantage the Mussulman art of rendering the idea of death agreeable and robbing it of all its terrors. It is at once a necropolis, a royal dwelling place, a garden, a pantheon, full of gentle melancholy and charm, and simultaneously with the prayer which rises to your lips there comes a smile. On all sides extends the cemetery, shaded by the hundred-year old cypresses, crossed by winding paths, white with innumerable tombstones, which seem to be hurrying down the hillside to dip themselves in the sparkling water or pressing forward curiously to the pathways to watch the passage of phantom shapes.”

Part of Eyüp Sultan Historical Center Management Plan Study conducted in collaboration between Eyüp Municipality and Istanbul Bilgi University. A selection of architectural offices and designers were invited to brainstorm on Eyüp Sultan Square and its environs.

KHORA Tema: Aslıhan Demirtaş, Seçkin Maden, Hüma şahin, Sedat Arda