The Serpentine Pavilion 2006 by Rem Koolhaas and Cecil Balmond

Serpentine Gallery 2005 by Alvaro Siza

This is why gluttony is a deadly sin

The Serpentine Gallery's pavilion was designed by Toyo Ito in 2002.

It is so beautiful, how could they condemn it to storage space?

Yumm, can we have your leftovers?

I have an artistic crush on Frank Gehry. London's beloved Serpentine Gallery commissioned him to design its outdoor showcase in 2008. As they appoint a different world famous architect to recreate the pavilion each year, this gorgeous structure was replaced with a design by Sanaa in 2009.

It seems to me that Istanbul will never have its promised Frank Gehry building. The project he draw to replace the ugly TRT building in Tepebasi will remain in 2D as the Turkish government is determined to not grant permission for it.

So, since London is done with the pavilion, can we have the leftovers?
It is such a shame to discard it and I have a perfect place in mind.

On Sakirin Mosque

It is said that to be Turkey's first modern mosque. To claim this title, it should have made either an artistic or cultural innovation.



Is it indicative of a cultural innovation?:
This mosque did not make any social or religious reforms. It did not breed a new religious subgroup who associates itself with this mosque. The practices are the same as in the other mosques. Women still don't mix with man and they still have to cover up. What difference does employing a female designer make when the religion remains phallocentric?

Fadillioglu says she did not make it too futuristic so that everyone feels welcomed here. She did not want to discriminate. How ridiculous it is to think that the people who go to mosque on daily basis would feel themselves home here! Nothing can appeal to everyone. Such a mosque surely wouldn't appeal to the core religious. I don't expect it to get a big mass. I think it will become the mosque for the ceremonies of the non-religious people who passed away.

Furthermore, it is very cowardly to try to include everyone so that you don't have to deal with opposition. It is a shame to come as far as to build a modern mosque and to fear attaching it to a cultural reform.

Finally, it does not indicate that the government or the public is more open to modernizing religion as it was a privately founded project by the Sakirin Foundation.



Is it indicative of an artistic innovation?:
Is there an artistic innovation to be proud of? Unfortunately, there isn't. You will be very surprised to find out about the artistic faith of this mosque:

It is the second attempt to build a modern mosque in Turkey but the first to actually succeed.

The first one was intended to be Architect VEDAT DALOKAY's Kocatepe Mosque in Ankara. His project was accepted and started in 1967.



However, as its foundations were being laid, the government decided to stop its construction for not conforming to the norms of traditional islamic structure. Instead, they commissioned a conventional mosque by HUSREV TAYLA.



Ironically, Husrev Tayla, the architect of the traditional replacement mosque, was hired to do the Sakirin Mosque. He must have been intimidated by the task of doing a modern mosque as he pretty much borrowed everything from the plans of the Dalokay's Kocatepe Mosque:


Do you see anything new?













Now, do you agree with me that this mosque fails to live up to its claim or not?

FIRST MODERN MOSQUE OF TURKEY: SAKIRIN MOSQUE

Thanks to the Sakir Foundation, Turkey now has its first modern mosque rising up from the Uskudar sky. First, I would like to give you a tour of this mosque and after that, I would like to share my thoughts on why think this mosque is a failed statement.

Radical new sanctuary configurations had been experimented with since the dawn of Modernism in the late 19th century. Religion as a whole has been reviewed worldwide. Consequently, as architecture is the spokesman of culture, we witnessed a revolution in the places of worship.

In an attempt to catch up with now a century old trends, Turkey took a big step forward by assigning a woman to be in charge of the design and construction of the Sakirin mosque. Erdogan can now show his 32 just whitened teeth to the army of cameras which want to interview him on Europe’s most recent report on how pathetic of a job Turkey does protecting its woman from their husband’s abuse and proudly say “ but Turkey is officially the one and only country to host a female-designed mosque in history!” A bright red APPLAUSE sign will keep blinking until Sarkozy forges a grin.

Sakirin Mosque was widely publicized in Turkey and abroad. She is not the architect of the project (she is the interior designer), but it is still the first time a mosque gets a feminine touch. Even that is a big step for a country which made only backward progress in this area.

If Islam is not exactly your comfort zone, the fish-scale metallic dome is definitely an icebreaker. It does not feel like you are about to enter a mosque but rather a concert hall.
Crafted by: Kadir Akorak

Let's enter.









The old and the new make several compromises inside.
• The metallic sheer is balanced off with the traditional turquoise
• The structure steps down from its “stage for a spectacle” impression to a mosque, but in turn, it will give up its ‘house-of-Allah-modesty’ to glory
• The mosque keeps its crowning chandelier, yet the crown gets a facelift resulting in a modern chandelier, made up off hundreds of glass droplets, which creates a feeling of the unusual fluidity.
• The amorphous figures on this grill continue to contradict the traditional expectations. Typical Turkish mosques are decorated with geometrical and/or floral designs. Crafted by: Kaya Kalaycı




The fluid metal and glass finally join their mother water in the courtyard creating meditational atmosphere. All religions consider meditation to help the communication between the believer and creater. They employ different tools to densify the faith in humans. Catholicism uses portraits of suffering, Buddhism utilizes the color orange and this mosque used fluidity.





Saidly, Fadillioglu never refers to the fluidity theme in her numerous interviews. I choose to think that it can not be coincidental. She knew this mosque would be widely publicized, and she calls this project the climax of her life. So, I guess it would be safe to assume that she calculated every detail that she put in there.


Her feminine touch does not only show in the zen décor, but also in the acknowledgement of the female presence in the mosque. Some mosques reject woman, saying that their facility is not designed to accommodate woman. Well, this one is. It has a prayer room and absolution facilities for woman. The admission of woman is not an innovation. It was already there, but some mosques chose to ignore it.




Diyanet Isleri (Religious Affairs) found it appropriate to assign here an atypical imam whose unusualness and publicity matched that that of the mosques.

Razaman Kutlu (46) is not your everyday imam. He is a documentarian, musician, orator, TV host, architect, radio newsman, and an actor from a (unfortunately) popular mafia/gang fight series called Kurtlar Vadisi. He does not prefer right over left only because Islam favors right, also because his face pictures better from right.

Now that I made an introduction to out first modern mosque, I can get to the real stuff.