Editor – Page 2 – İstanbul Story

31Jul

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The City

Heybeliada’da İnönü’nün İzinde

Hadi Adalar’a gidelim dendiğinde, bugün akla gelen çam ağaçları arasında yürüyüş yapmak, faytonların şosede çıkardığı tıkır tıkır sesler eşliğinde tepelere çıkıp manzara seyretmek, sahildeki lokantalarda balık keyfi yapmaktan ibaret. Hele bir de hafta sonu gittiyseniz, kalabalıklar içinde yolunuzu bulmaya çalışmak da ekleniyor bu rutin beklentilere… Bense sizlere, Heybeliada’ya gittiğinizde, bunların yanı sıra, yakın tarihin izini sürmeyi önereceğim: Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’nin ikinci Cumhurbaşkanı İsmet İnönü’nün uzun yıllarını geçirdiği ve bugün “İsmet İnönü Evi” adıyla Pazartesi hariç her gün 10:00-18:00 saatleri arasında ziyaret edilebilen müze evi gidin, görün, gezin diyeceğim. 1924 senesinde ciddi bir rahatsızlık geçiren İnönü’ye doktorlar kesin istirahat önerirler. O da Heybeliada...

21Jul

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MACK: Just Light and Colour

We are living in strange days! Full of turmoil and disturbance. We don’t know what will happen next but we still have hope for peace and for a better future. If not for us, for our kids, for young souls living under the same sky, we want to stay strong and carry on. So with these feelings, on Sunday, me and my husband, had a lovely walk along the Bosphorus and visited Sabancı Museum, for an unexpectedly rich exhibition of German Modernist, Heinz Mack, JUST LIGHT AND COLOUR. Born in 1931, Heinz Mack, was one of the founders of international art network ZERO. He studied not only art at Düsseldorf Academy of Art but philosophy at University of Cologne too… I remember his name and fame from a very interesting exhibition I saw at Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2014. When his solo exh...

Mario Prassinos: In Pursuit of an Artist

7Jun

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Mario Prassinos: In Pursuit of an Artist

I had a very fruitful weekend visiting museums and walking around the crowded streets of old Karaköy and Pera. My most important discovery, this weekend, was Mario Prassinos, an artist of Istanbul origin, born in 1916. Never heard of him before! What a surprise! Some details about him: Born into an artistic family of Greek-Italian origin in Pera, Mario Prassinos moved to Nanterre, France, with his family when he was six years old. He never received an academic art education but influenced by Surrealism, which was the popular art movement in Europe at that time, he started to express himself in painting in Surrealist style. Between 40s and 50s he had been worked on book illustrations, designing stage sets and costumes for the theatre. Through 60s he spent more time amidst nature in...

24Apr

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Angry Panda in Galata

Last week I had a nice walk around Galata for a couple of hours. I have always loved that part of our city. When I was at school, I sometimes skipped classes and went there for a walk, dreaming about the past. Still doing it but this time there is no school to skip! Anyway, I am one of those who have a kind of ‘’love and hate’’ relationship with Istanbul. I had moments when I strongly wished for leaving her and move to another place. But she, Istanbul, always knew how to convince me to stay here and not to leave her. I had my ups and downs in this bloody relationship. But here is my last word: I am staying here forever! Well, I am writing this, because it was one of those spiritually bumpy days when I had my little walk in Galata, and came across with these guys, smoking their cig...

13Apr

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The City

Mangal Zamanı

The French love picnic The little red and white table cloth perfectly ironed The wicker basket full of camembert and a red wine bottle Turks also have a passion for picnics Here the tablecloth is colourful The basket is replaced by thousands of plastic bags filled with the all the fridge The mangal is the masterpiece of any well done picnic Either along sahil yolu or just next to the country side road The smell of grilled meat invades the air. Some evening the parks turn themselves into real stove… In Maçka Parkı the Makro bags overflow from the trash cans While along Haliç, families fan the fire under the tea pot Reminding the smoke signal from the American Indians But over all, there is a beautiful feeling of holidays flowing in the air… Guest Co...

1Apr

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History

Catacomb in Harbiye!

It’s hard to believe but yes, it’s true: there is a catacomb in the middle of Istanbul, at Harbiye to be exact. It’s all the more surprising to me as I have spent 8 years of my life in the building just on the surface of it and I learnt about the catacomb’s existence only decades later. I’m talking about the cemetery located at the vaults of Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, commonly known as the Saint-Esprit Cathedral at Harbiye. The Cathedral had been an inseparable part of my teenage years which I spent at adjacent Notre Dame de Sion French High School. We could not visit the Cathedral during school hours but we could hear its bell ringing at exact times during the day and we could also see the head of the big statue on its courtyard and here it was, the Cathedral was an invisibile ye...

3Mar

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The City

Divan Oteli

….Her kurumun, kuruluşun mutlaka bir tarihi vardır. Bazıları kamuya malolmuştur çokça bilinir, bazıları ise daha az. 15 sene süreyle üst düzey yöneticiliğini yaptığım Divan Oteli de ilk kategoriye girenlerden. Otuzbeş sene çalıştığım Koç Grubu’nda, Divan en son görev yerimdi. Ondan önceki senelerde bana yılbaşını nerede geçireceksin diye soranlara verdiğim klasik cevap “Divan”da olurdu. Aslında bundan kastım evin salonundaki divandı. Ama 1986 senesinde bu gerçek oldu ve senelerce eşimle birlikte yılbaşlarını Divan’da geçirdik. Ancak davetli olarak değil de, yönetici olarak ! Divan’ın hikayesi ilginçtir. Aslında ilk haline Vehbi Koç tarafından karar verilip yapıya başlanılması, o tarihlerde Ankara’dan İstanbul’a göç etmiş Koç ailesinin fertlerini bir çatı altında toplamak amaçlıydı. G...

3Mar

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Istanbulites

İstanbulites: Murat Yetkin

Kimdir: Hürriyet Daily News Genel Yayın Yönetmeni ve Radikal köşe yazarı. 1981’de başladığı gazetecilik kariyerinde BBC Ankara Bürosu, DW Türkiye, AFP Ankara Bürosu’nda gazeteci olarak çalışmış; mevcut görevleri öncesinde, Kanal D’de Diplomasi Muhabirliği, Show TV’de, NTV’de, Sabah’ta ve Radikal’de Ankara Temsilciği yapmıştır. Ateş Hattında Aktif Politika-Ortadoğu, Balkanlar, Kafkaslar Üçgeninde Türkiye (1992); Avrupa Birliği Bekleme Odasında Türkiye (2002), Tezkere-Irak Krizinin Gerçek Öyküsü (2004) ve Kürt Kapanı-Şam’dan İmralı’ya Öcalan (2004) isimli kitapların yazarıdır. 1.İstanbul’u 3 kelimeyle anlatacak olursanız, ne olurdu…. Hayatın ta kendisi…. 2.İstanbul’un fotoğrafını çekseydiniz, hangi kare olurdu? Sol tarafında Salacak İskelesi, Kız Kulesi; sağ tarafında Galat...

24Feb

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The City

Just 50 meters in Galata

It’s always a big pleasure for me to walk around the Galata area. Has always been so since my school days. Feeling the atmosphere of the old harbor in the narrow streets and alleys there takes me back to those old times when Istanbul was a world on its own between East and West. The other day I and my husband went to an extraordinary exhibition in Salt Galata. And after that, we decided to walk a little bit in the area to see what was going on there. This is a fast-changing part of Istanbul. Lots of old buildings are being restored and in very few years that area will be much different than what we see today. That’s for sure! Yes, things are changing but luckily old friends were still there… Some of them, like Sen Piyer Han, were now closed to the public, almost forgotten, with the e...

22Jan

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History

Narmanlı Han

İstiklal Caddesi’nde kaç defa ayağımın tökezlemişliği, hatta birkaç defa yuvarlanarak düşmüşlüğüm var. Gözümün önümde değil, yukarıda olmasından hep sebep; Taksim’in özellikle 19. ve 20. yüzyıldan kalma mirasını bugüne taşıyan binaları, bakmak, görmek, yavaşlamak, bazen de durmak için iyi bir bahane. Bu yapıların en zarifi, en ince işlenmişi olmasa da bence en heybetlisi ve görkemlisi, ve hatta bana göre en özeli Narmanlı Han. Sadece mimarisiyle değil, tarihiyle, şişko kedileriyle, mahallesinin keşmekeşine inat huzur dolu avlusuyla. İstiklal Caddesi’nin Tünel’e yaklaştığı noktada bulunuyor Narmanlı Han. Hacimli fil ayağı sütunları, aslında sadece 2 katlı olmasına rağmen metrelerce yükselen bakımsız ama gösterişli cephesi, Sofyalı Sokağı’na doğru kıvrılan balkonlu hacmi ve büyük tonoz...