“Great architecture has a global language, which can minimize differences of taste resulting from local cultural factors.” -Erginoğlu & Çalışlar Architects
Project: Tuzamban, Used by Medina Turgul DDB (2009)
Original Use: Salt Repository, 170 year old building, formerly owned by TEKEL (Turkish State Liquor and Tobacco Monopoly)
Location: Kasimpasa, Istanbul, Turkey
Erginoğlu & Çalışlar Architects study the cohesive elemets in the global language of architecture. In this adaptive reuse project the firm used their design to find the cohesive elements of time. The coding of the different elements creates a heigherarchy in the building by categorizing the different design ideaologies. The load bearing masonry with arched openings versus the steel cantilevers each show each material’s natural sturctural capabilities. The intervention of this design with the existing building is more extensive than a typical preservation project.
The advertising company, Medina Turgul DDB, wanted to move into the former Salt Repository near the riverfront of the Golden Horn in Istanbul. The tall industrial spaces in old factories attract creative industries and artists in many locations. In optomizing the usable office space of the building, the architects didn’t want to loose that inspiration.
In this project, the building had already undergone multiple stages of rehabilitation over the last 170 years. The architects decided to use material colors to define the multiple stages of changes that have happened to the building: the original stone, the white roof addition from the 70’s, and the black/wood/glass additions of their new design.
In the intervension of the existing building, the integrity of the historic quality can be lost. But to keep a building from being torn down in the face of progress, it is necessary to make the building useful. This project attempts to optimize the existing building and use design elements to respect the existing character.
Their ‘idea’ with this building was not to disguise the layers of its history. In allowing the new structural and electronic elements to sit outside the existing walls. This physical response to the structure keeps more of the historic integrity in place than the visual response.
Material Strategies 