Architecture in Translation
Germany, Turkey, and the Modern House
Published on 12. July 2012
Book
Hardback
408 pages
978-0-8223-5294-5 (ISBN)
Description
In Architecture in Translation, Esra Akcan offers a way to understand the global circulation of culture that extends the notion of translation beyond language to visual fields. She shows how members of the ruling Kemalist elite in Turkey further aligned themselves with Europe by choosing German-speaking architects to oversee much of the design of modern cities. Focusing on the period from the 1920s through the 1950s, Akcan traces the geographical circulation of modern residential models, including the garden city-which emphasized green spaces separating low-density neighborhoods of houses surrounded by gardens-and mass housing built first for the working-class residents in industrial cities and, later, more broadly for mixed-income residents. She shows how the concept of translation-the process of change that occurs with transportation of people, ideas, technology, information, and images from one or more countries to another-allows for consideration of the sociopolitical context and agency of all parties in cultural exchanges. Moving beyond the indistinct concepts of hybrid and transculturation and avoiding passive metaphors such as import, influence, or transfer, translation offers a new approach relevant to many disciplines. Akcan advocates a commitment to a new culture of translatability from below for a truly cosmopolitan ethics in a globalizing world.
Reviews / Votes
"This study is seminal on two counts: it analyzes the relatively new concept of cultural translation, and it affords the reader an extremely interesting account of the evolution of Kemalist cultural policies."-Kenneth Frampton, author of Form Material Assembly: The Work of Francis-Jones Morehen Thorp "Tracing the surprisingly intertwined twentieth-century histories of German and Turkish residential housing and urban planning from the garden city via the urban Siedlung to the national house, Esra Akcan brilliantly deploys lingual translation theory as a flexible template to analyze zones of asymmetrical exchange in architecture and urban planning. Architecture in Translation moves compellingly beyond modernist universalism and nationalist regionalism toward a cosmopolitan ethics as a goal for a global architecture."-Andreas Huyssen, editor of Other Cities, Other Worlds: Urban Imaginaries in a Globalizing Age "While Architecture in Translation constitutes clearly a 'next step' in scholarly works that examine the histories of the Turkish nation's architectural and planning projects, it is also an ideal 'first step' toward analyzing more critically the dynamics of interaction and exchange that we today otherwise generalize under terms like modernization, globalization, or development. Charting the origins, diffusions, and transformations of ideas, approaches, and key actors through multiple historical and geographic contexts, Akcan's book also emerges as a most readable and thoughtful history of ideas." - Kyle T. Evered (Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East) "Esra Akcan's excellent book, Architecture in Translation, focuses on the history of German-Turkish exchanges in residential architecture in the 20th century...Directing her attention towards questions of urbanity, population, and housing, Akcan successfully situates architecture within the modernization paradigms of the new Turkish republic." - Nazan Maksudyan (Middle East Media and Book Reviews) "Akcan's book is a significant contribution to the historiography of modern architecture by transcending 'East-West' polarization. This is a monumental undertaking and an excellent introduction to the brave new world of multipolar histories where the old fictions of a centerand a periphery no longer apply." - Can Bilsel (Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians) "The readers of this book will find a history of modernism that goes beyond an imperial cartography, and will encounter multiple voices of modernism including those of patrons, clients, and inhabitants of modern architecture. In this cartography, the map that Akcan draws is a rich historical study of houses in Germany and Turkey." - Tuelay Atak (Journal of Architectural Education) "An important contribution to cultural theory and architectural history, Architecture in Translation is specifically recommended for those interested in cultural translations in the history of the Middle East. Given the richness of its literary and visual references as well as its fluent writing style, it is an intellectual joy to read." - Namkik Erkal (International Journal of Middle East Studies)More details
Language
English
Place of publication
North Carolina
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
143 illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 236 mm
Width: 160 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
862 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8223-5294-5 (9780822352945)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
07/2012
1st Edition
De Gruyter
€208.99
Available for download
Person
Esra Akcan is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Illinois, Chicago. She is the author of (Land)Fill Istanbul: Twelve Scenarios for a Global City.
Content
Acknowledgments i
Introduction. Modernity in Translation 1
Translation beyond Language 6
The Theoretical Possibility or Impossibility of Translation 9
Appropriating and Foreignizing Translations 15
The Historical Unevenness of Translation 17
The Ubiquity of Hybrids and the Scarcity of Cosmopolitan Ethics 21
1. Modernism From Above: A Conviction about Its Own Translatability 27
New City: Traveling Garden City 30
New House: Representative Affinities 52
New Housing: The Ideal Life 76
From Ankara to the Whole Nation: Translatability from Above and Below 93
2. Melancholy in Translation 101
The Melancholy of Istanbul 107
A Journey to the West 119
The Birth of the "Modern Turkish House" 133
3. Siedlung in Subaltern Exile 145
Siedlung and the Metropolis 148
Siedlung and the Generic Rational Dwelling 175
Siedlung and the Subaltern 195
4. Convictions about Untranslatability 215
Untranslatable Culture and Translatable Civilization 215
"The Original" 218
Against Translation? The National House and Siedlung 233
5. Toward a Cosmopolitan Architecture 247
Ex Oriente Lux 249
Melancholy of the East 252
Weltarchitektur-Translation of a Treatise 263
Toward Another Cosmopolitan Ethics in Architecture 277
Epilogue 283
Notes 291
Bibliography 337
Sources of Illustrations 375
Index 383
Introduction. Modernity in Translation 1
Translation beyond Language 6
The Theoretical Possibility or Impossibility of Translation 9
Appropriating and Foreignizing Translations 15
The Historical Unevenness of Translation 17
The Ubiquity of Hybrids and the Scarcity of Cosmopolitan Ethics 21
1. Modernism From Above: A Conviction about Its Own Translatability 27
New City: Traveling Garden City 30
New House: Representative Affinities 52
New Housing: The Ideal Life 76
From Ankara to the Whole Nation: Translatability from Above and Below 93
2. Melancholy in Translation 101
The Melancholy of Istanbul 107
A Journey to the West 119
The Birth of the "Modern Turkish House" 133
3. Siedlung in Subaltern Exile 145
Siedlung and the Metropolis 148
Siedlung and the Generic Rational Dwelling 175
Siedlung and the Subaltern 195
4. Convictions about Untranslatability 215
Untranslatable Culture and Translatable Civilization 215
"The Original" 218
Against Translation? The National House and Siedlung 233
5. Toward a Cosmopolitan Architecture 247
Ex Oriente Lux 249
Melancholy of the East 252
Weltarchitektur-Translation of a Treatise 263
Toward Another Cosmopolitan Ethics in Architecture 277
Epilogue 283
Notes 291
Bibliography 337
Sources of Illustrations 375
Index 383