Garanti Gallery

GG was the first venue in Turkey to host the exhibitions of works by internationally renowned architects and designers such as Steven Holl, Zaha Hadid, Archigram, Hella Jongerius, Konstantin Grcic, Ezri Tarazi, and Yossi Lemel.

In another project GG cooperated with OBARC to depict in two exhibitions and a book the intellectual and architectural journey of Turgut Cansever, one of the most original and dissident architects of Republic Era Turkey.

Based on network intelligence and strategies, this design was a different and productive scenario that displayed the contradictions and vicious circles in the ongoing debates concerning the area.

Novak examined the turbulent topologies of currents, links, connections, networks and stratifications by using high-tech fragile statues and a virtual environment that the bodies of visitors turned into physical sound and images.

For the purposes of the exhibition, an interactive database has been constructed to help defy the received wisdom and clichés that accompany the debates on change and transformation that have been going on in Istanbul for a long time.

[5] Curators of the exhibition, Pelin Derviş, Bülent Tanju and Uğur Tanyeli, edited the multi-authored dictionary Becoming Istanbul, which was published in English and German in 2008.

The lectures aimed to open to discussion the production environment that would transcend disciplines as envisioned by the new institution to be formed by GG and Platform Garanti while the process of unification and change undertaken by these two entities still continued.

Architectural research began with the “senior architects” in Turkey including Cengiz Bektaş, Utarit İzgi, Turgut Cansever, Sedad Hakkı Eldem and Kemali Söylemezoğlu.

A chronological approach was organized in the field of design history in Turkey by Archive Curator Karakuş with images from the personal and institutional archives belonging to a number of important Turkish designers including the KareMetal Group of the 1950s, the Koz family (MPD), Yıldırım Kocacıklıoğlu (INTERNO), ceramicist Sadi Diren, Gorbon ceramics, Aziz Sarıyer (Derin) and Yılmaz Zenger that were digitalized and catalogued.

A serious and research-based investment is now under way to include the canonical and most recent publications of a great variety of disciplines that will contribute to the fields of architecture, design and urban planning.