Infinity Minus One…

Anyone close to the present Istanbul cultural scene is aware of the big hype about the santralISTANBUL; Bilgi University`s new campus extension established by renovating (and modifying) one of the landmarks of Turkish industrial architectural stock. I personally haven`t seen it in its final form, yet I know the original pre-renovated Silahtaraga Powerplant. I think in the course of few decades spanning the last years of the Late Ottoman Empire to the Early Republic (and amidst of acute political and economic turmoil), Turkey has managed to establish many industrial buildings of unique architectural flair and refined taste. However, for the course of last 50 years we ceased to follow this route, instead all we have added to Istanbul was a grotesque and bulky heap of concrete which engulfed the city with eld. The very concern of architectural taste and longing for aesthetics has been abandoned with an act of oblivion. In this respect Bilgi University`s project to bring an architectural landmark to the focal point of college life is a critical contribution to Istanbul`s cultural life.
While the initial excitement about the project itself hasn`t abated, I just learned that a scaled replica of Ilhan Koman`s “to infinity…” is being built at the santralISTANBUL complex and I am totally thrilled and blown-away by that! Ilhan Koman was a genius by all means and his approach to sculpture was totally different from anything that has preceded him. This news evoked the same emotional effect on my side as my first encounter with the Chrysler Building in the New York skyline(as a devoted art-deco fan). After mixed initial feelings of how that complex would turn out(I think I found it to be somewhat ambitious when they first touted it), they apparently overdid anything I might have expected from them. Until now, the importance of Bilgi University to Istanbul in particular, and to Turkey in a broader sense, was mostly limited to its adaptation of social sciences as its focal study area; something we as a country heavily lacked after the brink of 1980s. Now the same institution is helping to transform the perception of student-campus, city-campus, and civilian-campus relations all at once. The first thing I shall do when I step on Istanbul soil next time(hopefully next month) will be to physically go there to experience it…to see it, to hear it, to touch it and to breath it. Keep up with the good work Bilgi Community!