Pera Contemporary Arts Center
Beyoğlu is hosting a most sophisticated human mixture for decades, It’s one of the oldest, culturally diverse and dense urban environments in İstanbul. Since former changes led by the authorities, Beyoğlu’s multi-layered eclectic environment become grayer over time and it forced to turn into an open shopping mall for tourists. But fortunately, it continues to maintain its general structure thanks to its built environment and sophisticated residents.
The project area was being used as a car parking area and TRT building. The project area is neighboring Refik Saydam Street, which is a massive border that separates Pera and Kasımpaşa region. The other side is neighboring Meşrutiyet Street which is one lane busy road with aligned neoclassical buildings on it, facing the project site.
Beyoğlu does not have enough public space and greenery. The site was a blind spot for public use, even though it’s the perfect land for a public terrace. Also, it wasn’t permeable from its edges, because the Meşrutiyet Street was sloping and most of the touching edge was turned into stairs, retaining walls and car park entrance. The project’s main surface follows Meşrutiyet streets slope, continues until the other side of the area, creates a park and a public terrace, in order to maintain maximum permeability from Meşrutiyet Street. By doing that, under the main surface, it creates spaces with various heights for the contemporary arts center. The main surface acts as a public park, referencing near circulations, vistas (in respect of historical buildings) and fluidity, to articulate to its surroundings. Under contemporary arts center, there are two floors of car park planned to be a response to the car parking problem.
On Refik Saydam Street, the park surface extends above the road, blocking unwanted noise, heat and pollution, coming from cars driving by (and also heat from the sun, reflected by asphalt surface). This console system supported with a parametric contour facade that creates an amorphous dynamic effect through Refik Saydam Street, also provides privacy and sunlight control for the contemporary arts center.
My Service
Research, Planning, Concept Design, 3D modeling, Visualization, Model making, Presentation
Term of Office
4 months
Typology
Exhibition, Cultural, Public space, Education, Community, Park, Mixed use
Program
Contemporary arts center, city museum, unmuseum, black box theatre, workshops, rentable studios, offices, archive, closed car park, open public amphitheatre, sculpture garden, book store, cafe and restaurant, etc.
Location
Pera, Beyoğlu, İstanbul
Year
2017
Status
Concept
Size
14.500m²
Client
İstanbul Bilgi University
Team
Batuhan Gullu
