}

Wall, Arch, Dome

Byzantine Istanbul in the Eyes of Ottoman Photographers

April 13 - July 1, 2007

One of the most outstanding characteristics of İstanbul's Byzantine monuments, as captured by Ottoman photographers, is their role as priceless documents in the city's history. The period between the second half of the 19th century and the turn of the 20th century is marked by profound changes in İstanbul with respect to urban structure, historical texture and monuments. A careful eye readily notices the considerable transformations spread over a hundred / hundred and fifty years in İstanbul city walls, Galata Tower, Hagia Sophia and the Hippodrome area. These photographs are full of valuable clues for today's researchers, restorers, architectures and urban planners.

Nonetheless, there is something beyond the obvious in these images: İstanbul's remaining city walls, arches, and domes of a faraway past continue to survive in another form of existence in these old photographs, which reflect an age closer to us in time, yet just as rapidly vanished. The discolored surfaces permeating an indescribable sense of the old add another layer, another epoch to the historical richness of the city.

Comprised of a selection from the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation İstanbul Photographs Collection, Wall, Arch, Dome exhibition (much like From Konstantiniyye to İstanbul exhibition in late 2006) took us on a journey in a different time dimension. Yet, on this occasion, we find ourselves in a İstanbul more ancient, more distant than the Republican or Ottoman days; it is a Byzantine İstanbul of monuments, ruins and almost imperceptible traces from thousands of years past...

Exhibition Catalogue

Wall, Arch, Dome

Wall, Arch, Dome

One of the most outstanding characteristics of Istanbul's Byzantine monuments, as captured by Ottoman photographers, is their role as priceless documents in the city's history. The period between...

Souvenirs of the Future

Souvenirs of the Future

You try to remember the future. A bird painted on the ceramic panel in a historical palace has found its place on the wall. The tiles of a church and a mosque have been painted on canvas. The pattern of a centuries-old ceramic plate appears before you on a velvet curtain.

Midnight Horror Stories:  The Moon Pool <br> Işın Beril Tetik

Midnight Horror Stories: The Moon Pool
Işın Beril Tetik

About a year ago, Ela was dead for seven minutes. Death had come to her as she was watching her younger brother play gleefully in the sandpit at the park. A sudden flash that washed her world with a burning white light, a merciless roar resembling that of a monster… 

Portrait of Martín Zapater (1797)

Portrait of Martín Zapater (1797)

Martín Zapater y Clavería, born in Zaragoza on November 12th 1747, came from a family of modest merchants and was taken in to live with a well-to-do aunt, Juana Faguás, and her daughter, Joaquina de Alduy. He studied with Goya in the Escuelas Pías school in Zaragoza from 1752 to 1757 and a friendship arose between them which was to last until the death of Zapater in 1803.