An architectural approach that engaged to apprehend existing buildings and their surfaces rather than intervening them, embraces their inherent qualities rather than adding to them, enhances the tension between the old and the new.
300 Years of Maritime Trade in İstanbul
The three historic Ottoman-era buildings located on the shores of the Golden Horn were abandoned and left in ruins before the restoration efforts began by the İBB Heritage teams. These buildings from 18th-century, known to have served as storage areas for the Fener Lords, turned to remain largely inaccessible due to interventions over the years. The gradual layering over time, and the elevated road levels with other traffic rearrangements had left the buildings in a sunken, unrecognizable position.
Fener Houses within the Cultural Route
The three stone masonry houses of Fener have been transformed into accessible spaces through pre-developed scenarios and landscaping interventions. A cultural route was established that allows the three buildings located between Cibalikapı and Fener to be experienced altogether. New spatial functions were appropriated for the buildings, enabling the Fener Houses to become urban attraction points to spend time, to explore and entertain the experience rather than leaving them as places seen while passing by.
Different Approaches to Urban Fabric
A design intervention was implemented that does not assert itself through its presence but rather reveals its identity through a contemporary architectural language incorporated as a new palimpsest layer. Rather than intervening directly with the existing body of masses, the new touch engaged with them, embracing and revealing their inherent qualities instead of standardizing them, and developed an architectural strategy that draws its main statement from the tension created between the newly introduced and the pre-existing elements.
