Taksim Meydanı, Talimhane Ve Ayazpaşa'da Art Deco Üslubunu Yansıtan Yapılar

Abstract

Çalışma, Türkiye'de 1927-1940 yıllan arasında gündemde olan mimarlık ve dekoratif sanat üsluplarından Art Deco'nun etraflıca tanıtılması, Talimhane ve Ayazpaşa'da bu üslubu yansıtan mimarlık örneklerinin incelenmesi için yapılmıştır. Çalışmanın giriş kısmında üslubun tanıtımı yapılmış, yer ve tarih açısından sözkonusu sınırlar belirtilmiştir. İlk bölümde ise, önce Art Deco biçim dünyası genel olarak incelenmiş, üslubun karakteristik özellikleri üzerinde durulmuştur. Aynı bölümde Art Deco'nun biçimsel kaynaklan incelenmiş ve özellikle sözkonusu üslubun Art Nouveau'nın bir "ardılı" olduğu fikri vurgulanmıştır. 1.3.1. alt başlığı içinde ise Art Deco üslubunun dünyada yapılmış olan mimarlık örneklerinin nitelikleri konu edilmiştir ve çok sayıda ilginç yapı tanıtılmıştır. Verilen örneklerin bir kısmının resimleri de sunulurken, diğerleri betimlemelerle gözler önüne serilmiştir. Ayrıca birinci bölümde Art Deco Mimarlığı ile eşzamanlı olan mimarlık yaklaşımlarına ve sözkonusu üslubun diğer tasarım alanlarına değinilmiştir. İkinci bölümde, önce Art Deco üslubunun Türkiye'de gündemde olduğu yıllarda ülkenin geçirdiği ekonomik ve sosyal gelişmeler incelenmiş ve özellikle Art Deco'dan etkilenen kesime dikkat çekilmiştir. Daha sonra, Art Deco döneminde Türkiye'deki kültürel ve kentsel ortam değerlendirilmiştir. Genç Türkiye Cumhuriyeti'ndeki şehircilik gelişmeleri kısaca incelenmiş ve özellikle yeni yapılaşmaya başlayan bölgelere değinilmiştir. Çünkü bu "yeni" bölgeler, kaçınılmaz olarak Art Deco'nun da içinde bulunduğu "yeni" üsluplarla biçimlendirilmiş yapılarla donatılmışlardır. 2.4. alt başlığında ise sözkonusu dönemde Türkiye'deki mimarlık ortamı irdelenmiştir. Türkiye'de gerek yabancı, gerek yerli mimarlar tarafından benimsenip uygulanan mimarlık üslupları, özellikle de Uluslararası Mimarlık üslubu üzerinde durulmuştur. Burada aynca, Türkiye genelindeki Art Deco mimarlık örneklerine kısaca değinilmiştir. Yine bu bölümde, inceleme alanı içinde bulunan Taksim Meydanı, Talimhane ve Ayazpaşa Semtlerinin kentsel ve mimari özellikleri tanıtılmış ve Art Deco'nun bu bölge için önemi vurgulanmıştır. Üçüncü bölümde, sözkonusu üsluba bağlı otuzüç yapı, katalog numarası verilerek incelenmiştir. Yapıların daha çok cephesel özelliklerine değinilmiş ve yapıyı "Art Deco" yapan öğelere dikkat çekilmiştir. Çalışmanın sonunda, yapıların fotoğraflarının yanısıra görünüş çizimleri ve bazı kapı çizimleri de yer almaktadır. Yapı cephelerinin çizimlerinde genelde 1/100 ölçek; kapı çizimlerinde ise 1/20 ölçek kullanılmıştır. Sonuç bölümünde, Türkiye'de yer alan Art Deco üsluplu yapıların karakteristikleri ortaya konmuş ve yabancı örneklerle benzeştiği noktalara değinilmiştir.

Art Deco is an architectural and decorative art style, popular from 1920 to 1940, which is characterised by geometric and highly stylised natural forms and ornaments. Art Deco style which absorbed influences from a variety of sources and movements, appeared first in France and a few years later buildings in Art Deco style started to built in a host of countries throughout the world with their stylised floral panels, their nicely curved streamlining, their "Jazz Moderne" or "Zigzag Moderne"(as it was sometimes called, especially in the nineteen twenties) geometric elements, their handsome ornamental metalwork, their classical yet unmistakably modern sculptures and reliefs, their generous use of colour (in terracotta ornament, metal, paint, stone and even stained glass) and their imaginative juxtaposition of light and dark and smooth and textured elements. Art Deco buildings appeared in many countries, leading one nineteen-twenties journal to call the style ""universalism". Art Deco architecture was an architecture of ornament, energy, optimism, colour, texture, light and at times even symbolism; many times this vibrant, decorative interwar architectural style was marked by a lively, altogether unexpected, interaction and contrasting of two or more of these elements. The term Art Deco which come into general usage in the 1960's when interest in the style revived, was derived directly from 1925 Exposion Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris, the exciting world fair that was the premier showcase of Art Deco style. In 1920's and 1930's, this style was known as "Art Moderne", "Modernistic", "Jazz Pattern" or "Skyscraper Modern". Art Deco emerged as a reaction to the first category of Art Nouveau that was exuberantly ornamented and had floral forms and waving lines. Its forerunners were Charles Rennie Mackintosh of Glasgow and members of Viennese Secession group. Their works were an indication of what was to appear in the 1920's. The creations of Charles Rennie Mackintosh (The Glasgow School of art foremost among them) looked forward to aspects of Art Deco, specially in colour, texture and stylised decoration in stone, metalwork and glass. His work so impressed Josef Hoffmann and the Viennese Secession group and their works marked the transition from Art Nouveau to Art Deco. Hoffmann's Palais Stoclet (1905-11) which embellished with mosaic murals and elaborate bronze sculpture and floral decorations, was a precursor of the XIII ornamented Art Deco Style. Briefly, Art Deco, in many aspects, is an extension of Art Nouveau, particularly in its preoccupation with lavish ornamentation, superlative craftsmanship and fine materials. Art Deco style takes its inspiration from some sources as tribal African sculpture, The Ballet Russes, Japanese lacquerwork and stepped Mayan temples; so Art Deco architecture was informed by a variety of ancient, exotic and more recent sources. Elements from Cubism, Russian Constructivism and futurism (abstractions, distortion and simplification) were also appear on Art Deco creations. Many creators of Art Deco buildings absorbed the styles of the ancient past as well, imbuing them with an undeniable sense of "modernism". This was not the modernism as we attribute today to the International Style, but "modernism" as the term was more simply applied in the nineteen-twenties and nineteen thirties meaning something different, something exciting, something avant-garde moreover new. The International Movement in architecture developed at the same time with Art Deco and along with cubist painting and the German Bauhaus, the works of Le Corbusier and other International Style architects effected a change from the earlier, more decorative phase of Art deco toward a simpler, bolder approach typical of the 1930's. Floral, geometric, figurative and exotic reliefs, mosaics, terracotta, sculptures, ornate metalwork, pilasters and at times stepped forms and motifs were so important for the Art Deco styled buildings. Empire State Building, Chanin Building, Rockefeller Centre, Chrysler Building are the master pieces of Art Deco because of their forms and decorations. It's important to mention that many creations from little perfume bottles to book cases, designed in the form that echoed the stepped Manhattan skyscrapers. Many ornamented or/and stepped buildings could have also streamlined, rounded elements on their exteriors. It is important to note that there were far more public than private buildings designed in the Art Deco style. More than anything, Art Deco was an architecture of soaring skyscrapers that are the cathedrals of the modern age. Numerous buildings like office buildings, stores, restaurants, factories, power stations, cinemas, theatres, travel buildings, city halls, hotels, schools, libraries, fire station, dams, tunnels and even churches and monuments and other kind of buildings also designed in Art Deco style between 1920 and 1940. Art Deco architecture is not an architecture of personalities, of star architects. It is an architecture of the buildings themselves, of their spirit, energy and immediate visual impact, not of their internal structures, services, floor plans and front and side elevations. XIV Architecture is not the only design area in Art Deco style. Furniture and interior design, metalwork, textiles, ironwork, sculpture, paintings, graphics and jewellery were also in Art Deco style. The Art Deco furniture designers of the interwar years can be grouped loosely into three categories: traditionalists, individualists and modernists. From its rich Parisian beginnings to its jazzy American offshoots, Art Deco has become viewed as the most exciting decorative style of the century. It also ushered in the era of the total interior. It is important to note that some of the "modernist" architects and designers, like Eileen Gray, took some elements from Art Deco style to their interior designs. From the early nineteen-seventies Art Deco as a decorative-arts and architectural style began to be recognized widely-and thus started its revival. Indeed five decades on from the heyday of Art Deco, it seems a natural progression that numerous architects should recognize the beauty and high points of Art Deco buildings and duly echo or evoke some of their salient features in contemporary commissions. Michael Graves, Terry Farrell, Robert Venturi and Helmut Jahn, among others, have designed public buildings of Art Deco inspiration in the United States, Britain and Germany. Art Deco style, like in most of the countries around the world, has influence in Turkey too and between the years 1927-40, in the new districts of Young Turkey Republic, the style has given shape the most of the new buildings. In this period, Turkey was in a great variation. There were classes, not in extremes, in the structure of the society and in these classes, there exits a "bourgeoisie class" which widespread after the announcement of the Republic and except the minorities, there were more Muslims and Turks compared to the old days. In the Young Turkish Republic, this class has played an important rule in the acceptance of modern architecture that has just been out as an "Avent Garde" trend in Europe. Not only the International Architecture style that included "purely modern" buildings, but Art Deco style also has been selected by Turkish Republic. In those days, the elite people in Istanbul, begun living in Talimhane, Ayazpaşa, Maçka, Nişantaşı, Teşvikiye and would be planned Taksim Square after Pera and around. The construction dates of the buildings and houses in Ayazpaşa district are not older than 1925-30. Before that date there were nothing other than Ayazpaşa Cemetery, German Consulate and a few military buildings. New buildings, inevitably, were formed with new Architecture style including Art Deco. The most significant building that determined the profile of Ayazpaşa district, is Park Otel that was opened in 1935. In fact, the building was build long years ago without Art Deco style but the new planned terrace echoes this style with some of its characteristics. Talimhane district, there are many buildings in Art Deco style, was formed on "Practice Area" where is the west part of "Taksim XV Kışlası". In the occupation dates of Istanbul, this place has become a soccer play ground and this situation has continued in the former days of new Turkish Republic. By the announcement of Republic, as a result of the demand of the elite people including the Turks and Muslims, to the areas around Pera, the settlement areas of the city expanded towards Talimhane and Taksim and on the old "Practise Area" new building, designed with those time's styles, formed in that way. In this district, like in Ayazpaşa, there are many buildings with Art Deco style. After the set up of Republic Monument in 1928, Taksim Square has been, a place for holding the national ceremonies and Taksim Square has been a real "square" with all of its characteristics after the preparations made by Istanbul Municipality in 1939. First, the "Water Store", in front of the monument, was decorated with water pools, greens, water jets and flowers. Second a part of "Taksim Barracks" was collapsed, so the square was extended. Later on, a large and high platform, for the audience of the ceremonies, was build. Later Taksim Barracks was collapsed totally and "inönü Gezisi" was formed. Here, as, in the parapets of balconies and platforms, the columns that were reduced to geometric stylization were used. Furthermore, the windows of the new toilets were octagon. This style also reflected Art Deco. After the formations of "inönü Gezisi", "Taksim Garden" and "Taksim Casino" were opened to public. Taksim Casino reflects Art Deco style specially in inner decorations. The street lamps formed by horizontal circular parts in the Taksim Garden are also in Art Deco style. In the Art Deco period, all branches of the fine arts showed some progress in Turkey. There are also positive changes in the Academia of Fine Arts. Foreign teachers came to Turkey and students sent to Europe for education provided to be known the Art Deco style. In the 1920's and 30's, Turkish designers working in the arts of sculpture, painting, ceramics, and graphics took some elements from Art Deco style. These designers were following the art styles in Europe closely. In the years of Art Deco, Turkish caricaturists and writers criticised the changing face of the Turkish architecture and city planning in their caricatures and books. This work has been done to observe the buildings in Art Deco style in Ayazpaşa and Talimhane Districts. Thirty-three buildings were chosen in these areas and the elements that caused these buildings to be Art Deco were paid attention. Art Deco buildings, built in Talimhane and Ayazpaşa Districts, showed itself not in the planing but on the front and side elevations. These buildings contained large floors, because they were largely built for the elite people. XVI Ornamentation was very important for the Art Deco buildings in Ayazpaşa and Talimhane Districts. Ornaments on these structures contain geometric and floral forms. There are also decorative panels that have typical patterns of Art Deco style. All kind of ornaments shows the wealth of Art Deco details. There are many ornate entrance doors on the buildings we mention. There are also attractive parapets and metal balustrades in front of the windows on these structures. Stylised pilasters were also used on the Art Deco styled buildings. Turkish architects working in the Art Deco style, avoided of using classical forms so they prefer to use unusual forms like windows and doors with upper corners cut diagonally. In Talimhane and Ayazpaşa Districts, buildings in Art Deco style have gotten stepped parapets on the roofs. This form was taken from the silhouettes of Mayan pyramids and Manhattan skyscrapers. At the same time, semi-circular pieces could put over the parapets of the Art Deco buildings that we mention. Most of the buildings got bay windows. Same of these bay windows were formed by using obtuse angles. Here are the results about the Art Deco styled buildings in Ayazpaşa and Talimhane: It can be said that the quality of these buildings is parallel to the foreign examples. Furthermore, like in the foreign examples, fine materials and superlative craftsmanship can be observed in these buildings.