Ortakoy Cultural Center

Ortaköy, İstanbul

Although the building belonging to Beşiktaş Municipality has been renovated many times before, the desired performance has not been achieved. For this reason, it was reconstructed with a completely new scenario.

Ortaköy Cultural Center and Afife Jale Stage, which have been unusable for a long time, have been completely reconsidered, considering the problems in the carrier system. Public buildings that host cultural activities in the world aim to reach all residents of the region. It should be inviting, up-to-date, beautiful, exciting and, perhaps most importantly, transparent in a way that shows on itself that everyone will be accepted here. It should be more integrated with its surroundings, it should try to reach more people by establishing an effective relationship with the streets, which are also public spaces, and should expose all the residents of the region to art, regardless of the target. In order to achieve these goals, the ground and mezzanines of the existing building facade, especially at the street level, have been completely opened to the outside. Since Ortaköy Dere Çıkmazı Street is narrow and does not contain any green elements, the wide facade of the building facing this street is completely opened to the street and the street is widened into the building. The spatial integration of the two public spaces enriches both the space inside the building and the street. Especially, this problem of the street, which has no green elements, has been tried to be solved by solving it on the facade and ground floor of the building since there is no other place. Within this integration, the presentation of artistic acts and the definition of cultural activity open to the public also find its spatial response.