LAURA HANLEY

T E X T W O R K S  [ A  N A R R A T I V E  J O U R N E Y ]

Three programmatic elements emerged, library (a storehouse of knowledge and a repository of ideas), cable car station (a mechanism of travel) and printworks (a site of production and distribution of knowledge), to form a symbolic hinge-point in the city. The proposal is located halfway along Istiklal Cadessi, the main shopping street in Beyoglu. This area of the city has historically been a melting pot of different cultures, and is a unique microcosm within the larger context of Istanbul. An architectural language evolved from a reading of dualities in the thesis, contrasting heavy solid concrete walls and carved ground with a lighter, more ephemeral expression of floating spaces enveloped in a mesh skin, which created intimate moments as it overlapped with the programmatic and site conditions.

The premise of the ‘Textworks’ project revolved around the palimpsest of cultures and exchange of knowledge through architecture and language. Istanbul has facilitated the mapping of ideas and typologies back and forth between East and West for centuries. The specific influence of Paris on Istanbul during the 19th century was studied at many scales from the French inspired arcades to the pocket sized-scale of travel paraphernalia.