1870 - 1927
Turkish architect.
Kemalettin was born in Istanbul into a middle-class family; his father was a naval captain. After graduating from the School of Civil Engineering in 1891, he became the assistant to the German architect A. Jasmund, who designed Istanbul's Sirkeci railroad station. Kemalettin later studied at Germany's Charlottenburg Technische Hochschule. Upon returning to Istanbul in 1900, he worked as chief architect in the ministry of war and taught at the School of Civil Engineering. He was a founder of the First National Architectural Movement in the early part of the twentieth century. The style developed by him and his contemporary Vedat Bey has been termed Ottoman Revivalism, because it incorporated the architectural elements of the classical Ottoman period over basically neo-Renaissance structures. When in 1909 he was appointed to the architectural department at the ministry of religious foundations, he began to apply his ideas of a national architecture. Architects trained under his guidance at the ministry helped to spread his vision throughout the Ottoman Empire.
Kemalettin was responsible for the restoration of historical monuments and the design of new buildings, including new mosques, mausoleums, office buildings, prisons, hospitals, schools, and train stations. His buildings were characteristically symmetrical with reference to the entrance, while protrusions at the two ends and at the central axis served to highlight this symmetry. These protrusions were often towers covered with domes, in the classical Ottoman style. He emulated Renaissance architecture by dividing his facades into three sections separated by continuous molding; he used different window orders in each section to render the three sections as distinct entities. The facades had rich carvings, tile panels, and carved moldings, composed in careful symmetry.
One of Kemalettin's most important works is a complex of 124 apartment houses and 25 shops he designed in 1918, the first examples of reinforced concrete construction in Turkey. The Republic of Turkey, established in 1923, recruited Kemalettin to design the portal of the new Turkish Grand National Assembly building and to complete the design of the Ankara Palace Hotel across from the new parliament building. In addition, he designed a series of housing projects for civil servants.
Bibliography
Sey, Yildiz. "To House the New Citizens: Housing Policies and Mass Housing." In Modern Turkish Architecture, edited by Renata Holod and Ahmet Evin. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984.
Yavuz, Yildirim. "Turkish Architecture during the Republican Period (1923 - 1980)." In The Transformation of Turkish Culture: The Atatürk Legacy, edited by Günsel Renda and C. Max Kortepeter. Princeton, NJ: Kingston Press, 1986.
Yavuz, Yildirim, and Özkan, Suha. "The Final Years of Ottoman Empire" and "Finding a National Idiom: The First National Style." In Modern Turkish Architecture, edited by Renata Holod and Ahmet Evin. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984.
— DAVID WALDNER
UPDATED BY ERIC HOOGLUND
