Re-evaluating modernism through a spatial collection: İstanbul complex of retail shops and collaboration of art and architecture

Abstract

The increasing dialogue between the arts and architecture in the period of post-World War Two emerged as a significant issue in the international arena in both architectural discourse and practice, and Turkey was not excluded from this phenomenon at the time. The article rethinks contemporary discussions and the materialized works in Turkey with reference to the wider international frame of the architectural context. Formalized around the concept of ‘situated modernism' and the publicness of architecture, the example of the Complex of Retail Shops is examined. This subject is questioned with particular focus on the ambivalence between the international and the local in postwar architecture, and the efforts to establish a connection with the public. The novel perspective that the article suggests is a re-reading of the complex together with the questioning process of the international modern and the uneven relationship between the arts and architecture. The article aims to unearth the implicit meaning and the constructive role of this uneven relationship, specially the collaboration efforts, under the circumstances of the period.