PAUL J LORENZ

BEYOĞLU MÉDIATHÈQUE

Undergraduate Travel Studio with Don Hanlon

In several ways, the proposed Beyoğlu Médiathèque is sited at a synapse. In an historical context, the city of Istanbul has occupied the primary node of communication between Europe and Asia. As the host to Genoese merchant families during the Ottoman Empire’s reign, the Beyoğlu district within the city has served as a microcosm of this interface. At the scale of the urban fabric of the Cihangir neighborhood, the site occupies a transitional space between the district’s orderly streets and the relatively unordered space of the bordering excarpment. Here, stairways replace streets as the primary network. The structure engages primarily with this system of stairways, thereby activating an otherwise underutilized pathway.

The structure is composed of three dome-like spaces; each with a glazed aperture to the sky. The complex encrustation that forms these apertures draws its image from a reworking of the phenomenal experience of the uniquely Islamic muqarnas system of surface embellishment. Here, a surface is iteratively divided into increasingly fragmented subsurfaces. Each subsurface is extruded into the interior volume of the structure.