Turkey’s contemporary arts fair comes to a close, as new institutions gear up for the opening. This is a new Contemporary Istanbul, for a new era,” said the fair’s founder Ali Gureli at the launch of the 16th iteration of the art fair, as sailboats breezed past on the water. One of a number of Istanbul cultural projects, the fair was held at former Ottoman shipyards on the Golden Horn inlet, right at the sea’s edge. The setting was spectacular: the Golden Horn was a trading post for the city in the Greek, Roman and Ottoman eras. The booths took up residence in a brick-lined former torpedo factory; drinks for a glittering line of VIPs took place where the ships used to dock.
“This is, of course, much different than all the other projects I have done,” says Murat, who researched his father’s famous designs for the centre in three exhibitions that began even before he was awarded the project. “It’s in the centre of Istanbul and an important building for the people. And I wanted to keep all the materials: the aluminium facade, the stone coming from all parts of Turkey.”
The renovation has been done to high specifications. A recording studio is clothed in warm oak; a new library has bright wooden shelves stretching three floors up; and the new cantilevered gallery space, where a car park once stood, opens to views on to Taksim. The concert venue, in a quintessentially 1960s flourish, sits encased within a fantastical floating orb the colour of dark merlot. The cultural centre is scheduled to open on Friday, October 29, on the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Turkey’s founding. Contemporary Istanbul, which ended on Sunday, has international ambitions: Gureli says he wants to make the fair into one of the top 10 globally. That will mean changing long-set collecting patterns. According to German art historian Marcus Graf, a longtime resident of the city, contemporary art has only begun to be collected over the past 15 years, and most collectors still focus on artists from Turkey.