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Mehmet Çelik |
New from DOM publishers:
Mehmet Çelik
Architectural Guide Izmir
Founded as Smyrna in ancient Greece, then taken over by the Romans; during the Ottoman Empire a cosmopolitan, multiethnic port city and now one of Turkey's most important metropolises - with over 8,000 years of uninterrupted history, Izmir is among the world’s oldest cities. Over the centuries it has been home to all manner of cultures. Each one left behind its architectural traces: be it the classical Greek agora, the Roman aqueducts, impressive mosques or the residences of European merchants.
In the Architectural Guide Izmir the geographer and urban planner Mehmet Çelik presents the diverse architectural heritage of the city - among them the works of architects like Gustave Eiffel and Bruno Taut - through a selection of 265 buildings ranging from antiquity to the present. To help the reader understand Izmir‘s urban structure, it also explains the region’s characteristic architectural forms in an introductory essay. Six chapters trace the chronology of the city: from prehistory through antiquity and early medieval times to the Ottoman Empire (1300-1909) with its mosques, mixed-use Han buildings and courtyard houses. The first and second national architectural movement is followed by Turkish modernism and brutalism as well as contemporary architecture styles. The focus of the guide is on buildings that exemplify the various styles, architectural periods, materials or aspects of urban history, so that they can be seen to represent defining or characteristic types of buildings and allow conclusions to be drawn on the urban architecture as a whole.
With this guide Mehmet Çelik, who works in the department of urban development in the German city of Aachen, brings the - not only architecturally - richly facetted city closer to his readers and manages to convey a basic understanding for the urban spaces. In contrast to Istanbul, Ankara or the tourist hotspots of the Turkish Riviera such as Antalya, Izmir is not so well known in the West. And yet, with its population of 4.4 million it is bigger than Berlin, Rome, Vienna or Madrid and politically it is seen as one of the country's most liberal and cosmopolitan cities.
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The Architectural Guides by DOM publishers are handy travel companions for readers interested in architecture and culture. Projects are carefully selected and researched to make each individual book a ready work of reference, while background information and attractive design inspire armchair travellers to imaginary journeys. The series has received several awards which led to DOM publishers being presented with the Deutscher Verlagspreis (German Publisher Award) in 2020 and 2022. Further information at: dom-publishers.com
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