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Abstract
This study analyzes the socio-spatial qualities of hotel interiors built in Turkey after the opening of the İstanbul Hilton Hotel in 1955. It aims to reveal the construction of the modern interior in Turkey and its effects on social life at the Divan Hotel (Citation1956) and Çınar Hotel (1958), which were Turkey’s first modern hotels built with local capital and local architects. As Turkey’s first modern hotel, İstanbul Hilton was regarded as a model for subsequent tourism buildings. Çınar and Divan Hotels hotels were usually compared with the Hilton’s aesthetics, and seen as reminiscent of the Hilton, particularly the outer shell and building formation. However, their interiors have been completely overlooked. This is an important omission, because, contrary to its modernist outer shell, the İstanbul Hilton Hotel interiors were designed with a contrasting orientalist approach. This study therefore investigates how this dichotomy influenced the interiors of the Divan Çınar Hotels. Drawing on the theory of transculturation by Ortiz, this study challenges the view that these hotels were mere host sites, embodying and copying modern architecture without any filtering. A complete interior atmosphere was analyzed in terms of the hotels’ materiality, such as furniture and art objects, but moreover, the social meaning of the space and transformation of social habits are examined to discuss local-global dichotomies. Information for the analysis was gathered through a literature review, observations, and an analysis of images obtained from personal archives and databases. This data was supported with oral interviews with architects, interior designers, craftsmen, tourism professionals, and contemporary witnesses. The findings show that the Divan Hotel and Çınar Hotel were both spatially and socially influenced by the İstanbul Hilton Hotel. However, they also sought a modernity of their own by carefully selecting and blending western influences, both spatially and socially. Most importantly, since the Divan Çınar Hotels refrained from the image difference between the “modern” and connotations of the “orient,” these spaces can be read as interpretations of an internalized modernity.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Supreme court, or Divan-ı Hümayun as supreme court in Ottoman Empire (n.).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Hande Atmaca Çetin
Hande Atmaca Çetin graduated from İstanbul Technical University, Faculty of Architecture, Department of Landscape Architecture in 2010. In the fall of 2009, she took part in the Erasmus Exchange Program at the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza" Faculty of Architecture. She has received a master’s degrees in Design Studies from Izmir University of Economics, Turkey, and in Interior Design from Università degli Studi di Firenze, Italy. She received her PhD from the Department of History of Architecture, İstanbul Technical University, Turkey, in 2019. Between 2012 and 2017, she worked as a research assistant and part-time lecturer at İzmir University of Economics, Department of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design, and since then, as a full-time faculty member. She continues to research the fields of history of design and interior architecture. Email: [email protected]
Funda Uz
Funda Uz is a faculty member at İstanbul Technical University (ITU), Turkey, where she runs an architectural project studio and teaches design, criticism and theory. She received her undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees from ITU, completing her doctoral dissertation entitled “Reading the Urban Discourses of İstanbul Eighties through the Popular Textual Media” in 2007. She was a visiting researcher at the University of Cambridge, Department of Architecture in the academic year of 2004–2005. Her papers and articles on modernity and memory, popular culture and discourse, and material culture and architectural education have been published in various books and magazines.
Zeynep Tuna Ultav
Zeynep Tuna Ultav completed her undergraduate education Department of Architecture in the Faculty of Architecture of at Middle East Technical University, Turkey, in 1999 and completed her graduate study with a thesis entitled “Reading Manfredo Tafuri: Architecture and Utopia-Design and Capitalist Development” at the same university in 2002, which was awarded Turkish Architecture Foundation “History of Architecture Field” Postgraduate Thesis Award. She completed her PhD with a dissertation entitled “Reading J.G. Ballard at the Intersection between Architecture and Science Fiction Literature” at the Department of Architecture of Gazi University, Turkey, in 2008. She has worked as an architect in Ankara between 2000 and 2003 and in İzmir in 2004; as a part-time lecturer at Gazi University Department of Architecture between 2003 and 2004, and as a full-time lecturer in the Department of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design at İzmir University of Economics, Turkey, between 2004 and 2014. She was Vice-Dean at the Faculty of Fine Arts and Design at the same university. She is the Department Head of the Department of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design at Yaşar University, Turkey, since 2014.