January 1st began a month in Istanbul. Through the connection of an Italian architect friend, we landed in a 5th floor apartment with the most breathtaking views of the Bosphorous, the strait that connects the Black Sea to the Marmara Sea, and geographically divides Europe from Asia. Otherwise known as a sketcher’s paradise. Every morning I would paint the sunrise, which was never less than stunning. Being on the 5th floor, the ever-present, entertaining life of birds was at eye level and was a consistent welcomed distraction from my Autocad work, as was the myriad of water vessels on the strait, from the city ferries to the massive container ships passing through.
Istanbul is really big! At 15 million people, it’s one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the world, a megacity. It’s much more European than I had imagined, despite the very loud call to prayer 5 times a day. The cuisine is a beautiful mixture of cultures with immense variety. I took a one day cooking class with the Istanbul Cooking School to learn what to do with all the ingredients that are so similar to Puglia but the recipes so different.
A highlight was seeing the Aya Sofya in person and dedicating a whole day to sketching and discovering it inside and out. This christian church (built in 537), turned mosque (1453), turned museum (1935) is single handedly the thing most responsible for my wanderlust ignited in architecture school. The plans and sections I studied (more somehow than photos of the interior) invoked visions of unknown places and lit an insatiable fire in my belly of curiosity, still burning.
In a next life I hope to be a cat in Istanbul. The city is full of cats and cat friendly environments, all well documented in a film called ‘Kedi’. Cat houses, or more like full-on condominiums, are found on every street, plastic bowls full of food and water, and there’s a cat to welcome you at every cafe. The apartment next to us had been abandoned by people, but we learned early that it was full of cats. They accessed the place from a broken window and a 6-story grape vine growing from the ground to the roof.
The city is in the midst of a massive building boom and It was explained to me there aren’t many preservation protections in place for existing buildings. Concrete seems infectious and neighborhoods are changing rapidly. Our neighborhood, Tophane, is experiencing rapid gentrification, assisted by short term foreign renters like ourselves to be sure. Between the realities of the seismic situation (and my inability to stop trying to assess the stability of existing buildings through an architect’s eye), Erdogan’s increasing grip on the country, and the steady, simultaneous demolition and construction it felt unsettling. And also fascinating.
Taksim day
Taksim night
Warming up
Tophane at night
Istanbul Cooking School
Beyoglu
Kedi (cat) house
The neighborhood under a coating of snow
Bosphorus view
Sunrise
Inside the Aya Sofya
Aya Sofya
Transport
Local support for Erdogan
The Golden Horn at night
Sunset
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