Guest of this appointment is Gonça Pasolar, co-founder with Emre Arolat of EAA-Emre Arolat Architecture, one of the most renowned firm of Turkey, Istanbul-based, with offices in London and New York. The practice, characterized by a wide range of realisations from urban masterplans, airports to residential, cultural buildings and workplaces, has been acknowledged with prestigious recognitions as the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, the RIBA International Excellence, selected by the Mies van der Rohe Award. Gonça has received the European Center for Architecture’s 40 under 40 award and the nominee for one of the five AJ’s Women Architects of the Year Award in 2015.
Our conversation, after indulging on the beginning of the practice, focused on İpekyol Textile Factory, winner of the Aga Khan Architecture Award 2010, project attesting an innovative will for a more democratic architectural approach towards environment and people’s well-being. EAA urban residential projects, re-proposing with contemporaneous terms the soul of a tradition, and the great number of summer residences and resorts, sharing a common genetic with the amazing environment where they are located along the coast, represent another occasion of reflection.
Topographic context, respected in its natural morphology, generates developments of great fascination as Sancaklar Mosque, a special project, very courageous, in its unconventionality and extremely sincere gesture. Deterrents can sometimes be transformed into opportunities for extremely interesting, original solutions, as the Museum Hotel Antakya, conceived suspended a few meters above remarkable archeological findings. Homage to industrial heritage is another challenging and fascinating aspect of their work and America has recently opened to them the chance of a new adventure.