Book | Italian Architects and Builders in the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey

Mavi Boncuk |

Italian Architects and Builders in the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey

Editor(s): Paolo Girardelli, Ezio Godoli[1]

Hardback
ISBN-13: 978-1-4438-5194-7
ISBN-10: 1-4438-5194-9
Date of Publication: 01/04/2017
Pages / Size: 301 / A5

Book Description
This volume represents the first scholarly work in English devoted to the experience of Italian architects and builders in Turkey, as well as in many of the lands once belonging to the Ottoman Empire. Covering a complex cultural and political geography spanning from the Danubian principalities (today’s Romania) to Anatolia and the Aegean region, the book is the result of individual research experiences that were brought together and debated in an international conference in Istanbul in March 2013, organized in collaboration with the Italian Institute of Culture and Boğaziçi University.

Grounded on a flexible notion of identitarian boundaries, the book explores a rich transcultural field of encounters and interactions, analyzed and evaluated by scholars from six different countries on the basis of hitherto uncovered archival materials. Forms, ideas, individual mobility of actors and materials, networks of patronage, material and political constraints, and religious and cultural difference all play a significant role in shaping the landscapes, buildings and architectural projects presented and discussed here. From late 18th and early 19th century experiences of interaction between neo-classical backgrounds and westernizing Ottoman forms to the Italian proposals for a Turkish republican iconic landmark like the Ataturk mausoleum in Ankara; from the design of the first Ottoman university building to Ottoman varieties of Art Nouveau and Art Deco, and to the infrastructures and urban developments of the 1950s in Turkey, the book is both a richly illustrated and documented overview of relevant cases, and a critical introduction to one of the most enticing areas of encounter in the global history of 19th and 20th century architecture and design.

Table of Contents
Introduction vii
Paolo Girardelli and Ezio Godoli

Part I - Landmarks, Spaces and Politics
From Andrea Memmo to Alberto Blanc:
Metamorphoses of Classicism in the Italian Buildings
for Diplomacy (1778-1889) 5
Paolo Girardelli
Palazzo Venezia in the mid-19th Century:
Contributions by Gaspare Fossati and Domenico Pulgher 29
Rudolf Agstner
Political Ideals and their Architectural Visibility:
Gaspare Fossati’s Projects for Tanzimat Istanbul (1845-1865) 45
Göksün Akyürek
The Contribution of Luigi Storari to the Analysis
and Development of the Levantine Urban Fabric 63
Emiliano Bugatti
The Italian Presence in the Romanian Principalities
by the Year 1878: The Historical and Cultural Context 75
Raluca Tomi

Part II - Individual Experiences in Context
Nicola Carelli in Constantinople and in the Levant:
Some Notes 97
Fabio Mangone
Brothers but not Compatriots: The Fossatis in Milan 111
Giuliana Ricci
Giulio Mongeri’s Photo Collection:
The Eye of a Milanese Architect in Turkey 125
Giovanna D’Amia
Giovanna D’Amia Luigi Rossetti in Izmir 139
Cenk Berkant
Italian Architects in Thessaloniki: New Elements a
bout the Work of Vitaliano Poselli and Pietro Arrigoni 149
Vassilis Colonas

Part III - Institutions and Investments
Alexandre Vallauri and his Works for the Italian
Community of Istanbul 165
Seda Kula Say
The Italians of Istanbul and their Properties:
An Analysis through the Petitions addressed
to the Italian Consulate, 1873-1910 183
Zeynep Cebeci
The Interests in Land and Real Estate of the
“Assicurazioni Generali” in Ottoman Turkey 199
Francesco Krecic and Diego Caltana
Giulio Mongeri, Edoardo De Nari and the
“Società Anonima Ottomana Costruzioni” (S.A.O.C.) 213
Vilma Fasoli

Part IV - Late Empire to Republic - A Plural Modernity
Rediscovering Edoardo De Nari,
Italian Architect in Turkey (1874-1954) 233
Büke Uras
The Italian Participation in the Competition for
Atatürk’s Mausoleum in Ankara 249
Milva Giacomelli
Finding a Balance between Art and Technique:
The Sports Centers Designed by Paolo Vietti Violi in Turkey 267
Paola Ricco

Contributors 281


[1] Biography

Paolo Girardelli is Associate Professor in the History Department of Boğaziçi University, Turkey. He was Aga Khan Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2005-06, and has published extensively on issues of identity and space in the late Ottoman Empire. He is currently working on a critical evaluation of the architecture of European diplomacy in Istanbul, from the late 18th to the early 20th centuries.

Ezio Godoli is Full Professor of History of Contemporary Architecture in the University of Florence, Italy. He is the author of Istanbul 1900: Art Nouveau Architecture and Interiors (with D. Barillari, 1996) and the editor of several exhibition catalogues and proceedings of international conferences on the works of Italian architects and builders in Middle East and Mediterranean countries.