Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi's critical book "Learning from Las Vegas", published in 1972, is still the basis for our reading of International Style and the icons of consumer society today. In their narratives based on their explorations of the asphalt highways connecting Las Vegas and Los Angeles, they discuss the new symbolic values of the then commodified architecture. Brown and Venturi's work played an important role in the conceptualisation of Post-Modernism.
Exactly 50 years after this discovery, what can we learn by driving along the D-100 motorway?
Opened in 1956 as London Asphalt, the D-100 is one of Istanbul's most distinctive age rings. After the central and historical areas, the D-100, TEM and the 3rd Ring Road, as one of the backbones of Istanbul's peripheries, which are constantly shifted, witnesses the urban ages of the metropolis. This infrastructure, planned and built in the post-Marshall Plan period, when Turkey began to adopt the models of a consumer society, was born as part of an international network stretching from Europe to the East. The D-100, which triggered excessive urbanisation and sprawl, today has a multi-personal character. It has border, threshold, connector, international, national, urban and inter-neighbourhood functions. A "road trip" from Tuzla to Silivri makes us feel complex emotions between the films of Wim Wenders and "The Matrix".
The perimeters of this multifunctional asphalt are a record of the transformations of Istanbul in the last 70 years. It also emphasises both the local and international position of the metropolis. It is a notebook that includes state-sponsored modernisation, the liberal era and finally neo-liberal policies.
While the dense industrial fabric in Tuzla introduces Turkey as the exuberant backyard of Europe's depressed capitalism, the route towards Silivri becomes much more frenetic. Icons of international trade: Fair centres, hotels adjacent to them, the now "indispensable" shopping malls, office buildings, residences, car dealerships and the generic energy suppliers of this system: petrol stations. All these structures and their relatives belonging to the global consumer society watch the millions of vehicles passing in front of them all day long like monoliths on Easter Island.
Architecture is essentially connected with hope. It embodies political and philosophical contexts in order to build a dwelling, to look to the future, to create a society in solidarity. The S.O.S. Istanbul competition addresses the issue of hope, which has been little addressed by literature and cultural productions in recent years. The crises of different dimensions that the world is witnessing invite us to imagine a future far from dystopia. It is inevitable that we test new partnerships, new understandings of consumption and corresponding new urbanisation practices.
In this context, S.O.S. Istanbul Open to Architecture Students Idea Project Competition expects young practitioners to transform what they have learned along the D-100 into innovative and hopeful new architectural discourses in the context of "Degrowth" (economic downsizing), icons of a consumer society and a globalised world that will soon become idle. In the meantime, as IstanbulSMD, we, as IstanbulSMD, are happy to share with all potential participants our excitement in starting this competition by opening an open discussion space for point or more inclusive reuse practices, without forgetting that small actions can lead to big changes, as the anthropocene teaches us.
We invite competitors to share their proposals for interventions (from micro to macro scales), which may include one or, for the generic ones, most of the nearly obsolete typologies expressed in the text above. Of course, within the scope of their own observations, open spaces and different infrastructures surrounding the D-100 are also open for participation within the scope of this multifaceted competition.
You can find the terms and conditions of the competition from this link.
Prizes
1st Prize: 15000 TL (Fifteen thousand Turkish Liras)
2nd Prize: 12000 TL (Twelve thousand Turkish Liras)
3rd Prize: 9000 TL (Nine thousand Turkish Liras)
1st Honourable Mention: 6000 TL (Six thousand Turkish Liras)
2nd Honourable Mention: 6000 TL (Six thousand Turkish Liras)
3rd Honourable Mention: 6000 TL (Six thousand Turkish Liras)
4th Honourable Mention: 6000 TL (Six thousand Turkish Liras)
5th Honourable Mention: 6000 TL (Six thousand Turkish Liras)
*The jury reserves the right to change the honourable mention price and number.
Competition Calendar
Competition Announcement Date: 2 February 2022, Wednesday
Deadline for Questions: 17 February 2022, Thursday
Announcement of Responses 24 February 2022, Thursday
First Phase Project Delivery Date: 30 March 2022, Wednesday
Announcement of First Phase Results: 15 April 2022, Friday
Second Stage Project Delivery Date: 16 May 2022, Monday
*The results will be announced within one month at the latest after the second stage project submission date.
Jury
Consultant Jury Members:
Durmuş Dilekci, Chairman of Istanbul SMD
Deniz Aslan, Istanbul SMD Board Member
Hasan Sıtkı Gümüşsoy, Istanbul SMD Board Member
Jury Members
Arzu Erdem, Jury President
Cigdem Eren
Birge Yildirim
Gokhan Kodalak
Nilüfer Kozikoğlu
Sinan Logie
Zuhal Kol
Alternate Jury Members:
Elif Celik Tangor