How space, objects and light are designed; where the habits of the society that uses them come from, what they turn into and what they leave in collective memory. From the building site, the drawing board and everyday life, in language that readers outside the profession can follow with ease.
Interiors
Why was the Ankara Exhibition Hall by Şevki Balmumcu, opened in 1934, converted into an opera house only fourteen years later? The competition, the building, the exhibitions, what changed between 1934 and 1948, what was necessary and what was chosen in the conversion, and whether it could have stayed as it was; with diagrams and a timeline.
Interiors
The work in Ankara of Paul Bonatz, architect of Stuttgart station: the Technical Teachers’ School, the Saraçoğlu neighbourhood, the conversion of the Exhibition Hall into the Opera, and the Head Office of the Sugar Factories. Ten years of a style, before-and-after diagrams, a timeline and the question of which layer is the original.
Interiors
The Yeşiltepe Blocks in Ankara, drawn by Rahmi Bediz and Demirtaş Kamçıl in 1955: eight star-plan blocks, landings around a hexagonal void, flats with a T-shaped living room. Why were the planned club and pool not built, and why was neighbourliness made at the front door? A reading with a site plan, a floor diagram and numbers.
Interiors
The Kavaklıdere Cinema in Ankara, drawn by Nejat Tekelioğlu in 1965 and opened in 1968: a hall going three levels down under an apartment block, ceramic panels by Çanakkale Seramik, neon lettering, two closures, sixteen empty years and Kült Kavaklıdere. A reading through architecture, society, lettering and collective memory.
Interiors
Ankara Station, drawn by Şekip Akalın and opened in 1937: a high hall, low wings, a club-restaurant and a clock tower. Why was a railway station designed like a reception room, how did the sequence of station, avenue and square spread across Anatolia, and what happened when the door moved elsewhere?
Interiors
The 96’lar Apartment Block, drawn by Arman Güran in Ankara in 1956: a single eleven-storey block on columns, 96 flats, four plan types. The architect designed the flats for three family structures; the shared ground, terrace and social building turned over time into shops and flats. The society of the period, the plan, the decisions and the outcome.
Interiors
Saraçoğlu, drawn by Paul Bonatz in Ankara in 1944–46: 434 flats for civil servants in wartime, eight plan types by rank, façades with oriels and the gardens between them. The conditions of the period, the architects’ criticism, seventy years of neighbourliness, the emptying and the reopening.
Interiors
The Istanbul Hilton, opened in 1955: Marshall aid, the state pension fund, an American office and Sedad Hakkı Eldem. A hotel with a bathroom and a balcony in every room showed a society what modern life looks like. The conditions of the period, the plan, the decisions, and the “Hilton bathroom” that entered the language.
Interiors
Cinnah 19, drawn by Nejat Ersin in 1950s Ankara: 17 families, two-storey flats and a roof pool used for nine summers. The society of the period, the section of the building, the plan of the flat and the decisions one by one: which were well judged, and which were too much for their time?
Interiors
The inner courtyard, the oriel, the sofa, the wide eave, the cul-de-sac, the landing, the light well and the front garden: the lost in-between spaces of the house and the apartment block, how they worked, what ended them, the Yeşiltepe Blocks in Ankara, and the neighbourliness that went with them.
Interiors
The mansions, neighbourhoods and apartment blocks of Yeşilçam, and the real Türkiye of the same years: income distribution, education, radio and television, the car and the shared taxi. The difference between the home seen in films and the home people lived in.
Interiors
The Çankaya apartment blocks of the 1950s, the Hayat Apartment Block and Cinnah 19; plan diagrams, daily life, Yeşilçam and flat ownership. A comparison with today’s culture of 1+1 and 2+1 residence flats.
Things
What did humans see when they looked at nature, and what did they design? From inventors who flapped wings to the hook-and-loop fastener, from the lotus leaf to the high-speed train: the physics, chemistry and biology of biomimicry, where it broke new ground and where it went wrong.
Construction
The school opens in September, the hotel cannot miss its season, the factory loses money by the hour and the hospital never stops. How the programme of works changes for the home, office, shop, restaurant, hotel, school, hospital and factory.
Interiors
The office as a working tool, not decoration: a hundred years of layouts from the clerks’ hall to the cubicle and the open plan, then the dimensions, light, sound, air, materials and psychology that decide whether people can do their best work.
Detail
The round hut and the rectangular house, the dome and the grid, the Sydney Opera House and the Heydar Aliyev Centre; and indoors, the rounded corner, its plaster, skirting, bent glass, furniture and craftsman: what the curve and the right angle each cost, where each works, and how to choose.
Interiors
Atakule, opened in 1989, was Ankara’s first shopping centre and its only viewing tower; Dreamland on its lowest floor was a generation’s playground. The tower as a type, the revolving restaurant, the atrium, how a child and an adult live the same building, decline, demolition and reopening.
Things
The bedding cupboard and the floor bed, the divan and the raised floor, the bedstead and the suite, the sofa bed, the treadle sewing machine, the display cabinet and the guest set, the trousseau chest and the wall carpet: the objects that set the order of the home, and how furniture divided its rooms.
Things
The valve radio, the tube television and the lace on top of it, the record player, the cassette, video, the rotary telephone and its token, the typewriter, the encyclopaedia set, the photograph album and the move of play from the street to the screen: how sound and picture entered the home and turned the armchairs.
Things
The meat safe, the water jar, block ice, the larder, the tray and the floor table, the pressure cooker, tinned copper, the milkman, the deposit bottle, the string bag, the wire trolley and the basket on a rope: the kitchen and shopping before the refrigerator, and what the white box changed.
Things
The carpet sweeper, the carpet beater, the wringer and twin-tub washing machines, the washing line between buildings, the charcoal iron and the wool quilt: the objects of cleaning, the physics behind them, the places they needed in the home and what the machines changed.
Things
Brazier, tandır, stove, kuzine, tiled stove, catalytic heater, paraffin lamp, wood-fired boiler and water heater: how the objects that heated the home shaped its plan and the life of the family, and what changed when natural gas arrived.
Illumination
Where should the light come from? Arco, Toio, Parentesi, Snoopy, Eclisse, Prouvé’s wall arm and Ingo Maurer’s lamps: designs that rebel against the single ceiling outlet, their physics of balance and friction, making a lamp from ready-made parts, cable systems and the disappearance of the lamp after the LED.
Illumination
Desk lamps that stay where you leave them: Lampe Gras, Anglepoise, Luxo L-1, Jieldé, Tizio, Berenice and Tolomeo. The physics of balance by friction, spring and counterweight, their designers, their place on the architect’s desk and what changed after the LED.
Illumination
Opal glass, paper, fabric and the plastic cocoon: the lamps that soften light by passing it through. From Tiffany to the Bauhaus table lamp, from Le Klint, Akari and Bubble to Nesso, Pipistrello, Panthella and Glo-Ball; their physics, their designers, their place at home and Turkey’s glop.
Illumination
When did the designer lamp become a need? From Fortuny to Poul Henningsen, from Kaiser Idell to AJ, Taccia and Atollo: the lamps that hide light by reflecting it, their physics, their designers and those designers’ other work.
Illumination
From Poul Henningsen to Castiglioni, from the spring-balanced desk lamp to the LED: the brands, designers and light sources of lamp design, the thousand-hour agreement and the fires of the halogen lamp.
Things
Braun, Bang & Olufsen, Alessi, Sony, Casio, Swatch and the others: how did household objects, watches and pocket devices turn into design objects? Designers, prototypes, crises, the price of faulty designs, and the corrections.
Construction
The most expensive thing on site is waiting. How a programme of works is built: wet before dry, the critical path and float, ordering backwards from the installation day, planning with the weather, and the weekly plan; for a flat refurbishment and for a new building.
Interiors
Linoleum, vinyl tile, fitted carpet, cement tile, terrazzo, glass block, laminate, chipboard, panelling, asbestos cement, lead pipe, lath and plaster, the plaster cornice, the fireplace and vinyl siding: why they were liked, why they were given up, which have come back, and what to do when they turn up in a renovation.
Detail
Sound insulation and room acoustics are two different problems. Decibels, mass, spring and airtightness; what to do instrument by instrument and budget by budget; and the subjects that are usually skipped: the ear, humidity, electricity, fire and the neighbour.
Things
The Industrial Revolution, Thonet, the Ford Model T, the world wars, streamlined trains, the Land Rover, IKEA, Fuller’s dome, the space race, the hippies, the oil crisis and the screen: what each of them brought to product design and interior architecture, and what each took away.
Interiors
What should you pay attention to for a timeless interior? Proportion, material, colour palette, risky colours and safe choices, with diagrams and examples.
Interiors
Does a simple space have to be modest, and does a grand space have to be crowded? Two ideas that interior architecture confuses more often than any others, explained with examples and diagrams.
Construction
How the money saved on thermal insulation, waterproofing and services comes back out of the wall: simple physics, tests you can carry out yourself, and the questions a homeowner should ask.
Illumination
Types of lighting and lx values for homes, offices, restaurants, shops, clinics, factories and museums; the seven most common mistakes and how to correct them.