Istanbul – the City of Contrast
The first shopping mall was erected in the United States in 1950 and was originally planned as a place that could bring a sense of urban life in the suburbs, but in the next decade this type of architecture received a tremendous development and turned into a multifunctional space daily visited by millions of people. Today one can easily find examples of thoughtfully designed multifunctional complexes, which are located in cities and quickly becoming an important part of our public space. They are created by talented architects often together with urbanists, sociologists and even psychologists. Today, it is possible to find there all the necessary integrants for a happy life or just entertainment and pastime. Moreover, by their structure they more and more resemble the city inside the city.
Multifunctional Center Zorlu in Istanbul from the very first stage of the project, long before its opening promised to be one of the most exciting and interesting complex not only in the city and the country, but also in the world. For the first time in Turkey in the shopping center were integrated features such as a business center, hotel, shopping mall, luxury housing, Performing Arts Center, numerous recreation areas and so on. Istanbul is often described as a city of contrasts and the one developing both in the western and eastern directions, becoming both more open and more closed and only some of the new objects of modern architecture of this city manages to convey this atmosphere and even make it a part of their philosophy.
Already at the time of the acquisition by Development Company of the land plot for construction it became clear that the Zorlu Center will introduce a completely new price range in the city real estate market. The land area of 96.505 sq.m. was purchased through a public tender for a record price for Turkey of $ 800 million. Its location at the crossroads of European and Asian continents in the area of Besiktas with a view of the Bosphorus and the Princes’ Islands can certainly be described as very successful. “Zorlu land” became not only the most prestigious, but also the largest in size among the land for construction in Istanbul.
After some time, it has been declared a two-phase international competition for the design of a multifunctional complex Zorlu Center. 117 international and Turkish architectural offices presented their portfolio on initial screening stage. The jury consisted exclusively of representatives of Turkey and did not include experts from other countries. By their decision for participation in the second phase were invited 13 well-known architectural firms: Arquitectonica, Mario Botta, Gregotti Associati International spa + ARUP (consortium), Cafer Bozkurt Architecture Ltd. + Asp Architekten Stuttgart Partnership (consortium), Coop Himmelblau + Uras & Dilekci Architects (consortium), GAD Architecture Gokhan Avcioglu + Odile Decq / Benoit Cornette Architectes (consortium), Has Architecture Ltd. + Llewelyn Davies Yeang (consortium), EAA Emre Arolat Architects, ERA Urban Planning & Architecture Ltd., Selim Velioglu / seARCHITECTURE (consortium), SUTE Ltd and Tabanlioglu Architects Ltd. At the end among the submitted works was chosen not a one winner, but two of them: EAA Emre Arolat Architects and Tabanlioglu Architects Ltd. These Turkish architectural firms were invited to design a joint project of the new multifunctional Center Zorlu.
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Materials provided by Elizaveta Klepanova