Institute

Tulay Atak
Univ.-Lekt. PhD. BArch.
Lecturer

Academic Positions:

Sep 2022 - present die Angewandte I o A

Lecturer

• Learning from Environmental History and Theory

Jan 2013 - present Pratt Institute

Adjunct Associate Professor

• Thesis, Urban Design, Studio, History / Theory

Sep 2013 - 2022 The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Arts and Sciences

Associate Professor Adjunct

• Urban Design, History / Theory

Sep 2019 - 2022 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute / CASE

Adjunct

• Environmental History and Theory, Graduate Thesis

2008 - 2013 Rhode Island School of Design, Department of Architecture

Critic

• Studio, History / Theory

2010-2011 Cornell University, Department of Architecture, AAP

Visiting Assistant Professor

• Studio, History / Theory

2005 - 2008 SCI-Arc

Full-time faculty member

• Studio, History / Theory

2007-2008 CalPoly, Pomona, CA

Visiting Lecturer

• Studio

Publications:

Dissertation “Byzantine Modern: Displacements of Modernism in Istanbul,” PhD Dissertation, UCLA, 2006. Book

Fragile City co-authored with David Berge and Elke Krasny, Ghent: MER Kunsthalle, 2015.

Teaching Climate: Experiments in Architecture and Landscape Architecture Education [edited volume, in-progress]

Exhibitions

“Photographic Urbanism,” Installation for the 1st Antalya Architecture Biennial, 2015

“Conditions / Environments” curated exhibition of Add-on’13 competition for an Accessory Dwelling on the Outer Cape, BSA Space for the Boston Society of Architects, Boston October 2013.

"No Assembly Required," exhibition of student work on 3-D printing and architecture, Cornell University, Hartell Gallery September 2010.

Articles

A Megaform in Wetlands: Quaroni's Project for Quartiere Cepalle Barene di San Giuliano in Venice-Mestre (1959) OASE 110: Project of the Soil, December 2021

Tafuri and Megaform: On Action, Profession, and Discipline," [article in-progress]

“Notes on Photographic Urbanism: Images from the Voyage d’Orient” in Fragile City, MER Kunsthalle, 2015.

"Abstraction's Economy: Byzantium in the Imaginary of Modern Architecture" book chapter in Byzantium / Modernism: Byzantine as Method in Modernity, edited by Roland Betancourt published by Brill, 2015.

“Breaking a Coconut in Mumbai: On the CSMVS” in No Touching, No Spitting, No Praying edited by Kavita Singh and Saloni Mathur, 2015.

“Old City, New Ground: Istanbul’s Le Corbusier,” Invention d’un Architecte: Voyage D’Orient de Le Corbusier, 2013.

"A Monument's Domain: Ataturk, Le Corbusier and the Modern Masses," Future Anterior 9.2 (Winter 2012) (published in 2013).

“’’Wortkunst’” in Turkish: Leo Spitzer and the Development of Humanities in Turkey” (includes the translation of Leo Spitzer’s essay “Learning Turkish” (1935)), PMLA 126.3 (2011).

“Photogeny of Axonometry: Choisy’s Techniques between Building Construction and Image-making.” La Construction Savante, eds. Jean-Philippe Garric, Valerie Negre and Alice Thomine-Berrada.Picard: Paris, 2008.

“Let me Illustrate: Interview with Neil Denari.” ArcCA 3 (2005), “Drawn Out” special issue on architectural drawing.

“A ‘Difficult Whole’: Tourism, Urban Space, and Istanbul in the Western Architectural Discourse" (2002) IASTE Works-in-Progress Series.

Reviews

Exhibition Review: “Close to the Edge: Hip-Hop Architecture” at CfA, Architektur Aktuell, October 2020

Exhibition Review: “Countryside the Future” at the Guggenheim, Architektur Aktuell, May 2020

Event Review: “The World Around” Symposium, Architektur Aktuell, February 2020

Exhibition Review: Resident Alien at Austrian Cultural Forum, Architektur Aktuell, November 2019

Biennial Review: 4th Istanbul Design Biennial, (published in 3 parts in Architect’s Newspaper, 09.24.2018, 09.26.2018, 11.01.2018)

Exhibition Review: Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948-1980 (Architektur Aktuell, October 2018)

Exhibition Review: “A MAXXI exhibit shows Zevi as a Critic of Difference,” review of Zevi’s Architects: History and Counter-History of Italian Architecture, 1944-2000 (in Architect’s Newspaper, 05.31.2018)

Exhibition Review: “Cooper Hewitt exhibition draws a new, refreshing map of American design,” review of By the People: Designing a Better America (in Architect’s Newspaper, 10.31.2016)

Exhibition Review: “Amie Siegel uses film and photography to explore architecture and fetishization” review of Spear in the Stone and Double Negative by Amie Siegel at Simon Preston Gallery (in Architect’s Newspaper, 06.27.2016)

Exhibition Review:”Ornament and Crime or Not” review of Loos and Hoffmann: Ways to Modernity at MAK Vienna (in Architect's Newspaper, 02.11.2015)

Book Review: Architecture in Translation, Esra Akcan. (Journal of Architectural Education)

Exhibition Review: Architektur beginnt in Kopf/The Making of Architecture, Architekturzentrum Wien, 16.10.2008-02.02.2009 (JSAH, March 2010).

Conferences

“Projections on a Site” Histories of Urban Design, ETH, Nov 2021

“One Site, Many Public Spaces: Considering Manshiya (Tel Aviv)” ACSA International Conference, June 2018, Madrid

“Substance of Things Hoped for: Manfredo Tafuri on the Tel Aviv City Center Competition,” EAHN, October 2015, Belgrade

“Form and Performance of the Large-Scale Architectural Object” (co-authored with Dragana Zoric,) ACSA, Syrcuse, September 2015

"In the Shadow of the Megacity?” Introduction to the symposium “In the Shadow of the Megacity,” The Cooper Union, September 2015

"A New "Scenery:" Considering the High Line with Olmsted's Boston Parks and Parkway System," Urban Wild Conference, University of Newcastle, Mar 2015

"Manifesto / Anti-Manifesto," Symposium with Bill Katavolos, Craig Buckley and Meredith Tenhoor, Pratt Institute, February 2014

“On the Surface of Things: Istanbul in Alain-Robbe Grillet’s Immortelle” Architectural Elective Affinities Conference, EAHN/SAUUP, Sao Paolo, Brazil, March 2013

"Abstraction's Economy," Byzantium/Modernism conference, Yale University, April 2012

"Old City, New Ground: Le Corbusier in Istanbul" Le Voyage d'Orient 1911-2011: Travel in the Formation of the Architect, Fondation Le Corbusier-Istanbul Bilgi University, Istanbul, October 2011

“On Milieu: August Choisy and the Site of Architecture between Geography and Form” SAH Conference, Chicago 2010

Mistakes, Mistranslations, Mendacity: Logic and Language of Cosmopolitanism, Seminar leader, ACLA, New Orleans 2010

“Tectonics in Architecture’s Expanded Field,” ACSA West Regional Conference: Material Matters, Los Angeles, October 2008

“Convergence of Architecture and Geography: The Maps of an Architectural Historian,” CAA, February 2008

“Where next? Architectural Travelogue as a Genre” The Book and the Architect, Paris, January 2008

“Mapping Architectural Form,” Ambivalent Geographies: Empire and Histories of Architecture, UCR, October 2007

“Byzantine Modern,” Getty Dissertation Colloquium, March 2005

“Visualizing Architectural History” Avatars of Technical Literature, Paris, February 2005

"Rowe's Search for a Modern Sensibility: Complicity of Formalism and Empathy Theory.” SAH Conference, Providence, RI, 2004

“Between the Roof and the Floor: The Agency of the North African Desert in Aldo Van Eyck’s Amsterdam Orphanage.” UCLA Critical Studies Conference: Postwar Operations. Los Angeles, CA, May 2002.

“Topographic Visions, Landscape Narratives: North African Landscape in Western Architectural Discourse.” Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis, Traveling Concepts III Conference, Amsterdam, Netherlands March 2002.

Lectures and Workshops

Extract / Repair – Venice Architecture Biennial, 2021

“Design for Freedom” webinars with Grace Farms Foundation, 2020

Sitings: From Choreography to Geology, Design workshop on Istanbul's stone quarries, Bilgi University, Istanbul, 2014

“Architecture After Images,” CIVA, Brussels, Belgium, May 21, 2013

Re-: Re-reading, Re-traveling, Re-claiming, Vienna, February 8-12, 2012, organized by Elke Krasny, David Bergé and Tanzquartier Wien

“Notes from the Field: On Museums in India” UCLA, December 2007

“Field-works,” SCI-Arc, Nov 17, 2006

Research Projects

Heinz Isler Archive, ETH, Archiving the work of Isler and Swiss Infrastructure

Museology and the Colony, UCLA-Jawaharlal Nehru University-Getty Research Institute Collaborative

Research Project directed by Professors Saloni Mathur and Kavita Singh

Awards:

2017 Graham Foundation Grant: “Architectural Form Faces Urbanization: Manfredo Tafuri and the Tel Aviv–Jaffa City Center Competition”

2016 The Cooper Union Professional Development Grant

2015 Pratt Faculty Development Grant

2011 RISD Professional Development Grant

2004- 2005 Dissertation Year Fellowship, UCLA

2002 Borchard Foundation Fellowship for the Paris Program in Critical Theory

2001 Franklin D. Israel Memorial Award

2000 Mimi Perloff Award

1998 - 2001 Graduate Student Fellowship, UCLA

Education:

2000 - 2006 UCLA, Los Angeles, CA

PhD in Architecture and Urban Design

2001 fall- 2002 fall EHESS-UCLA, Paris, France

Paris Program in Critical Theory

1998-2000 UCLA, Los Angeles, CA

MA studies in Architecture and Urban Design

1993 - 1997 Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

Bachelor of Architecture

Extracurricular

2022 Organizer, ACSA / Pratt Climate Agency July 2022

2020 Webinar organizer and host, Design for Freedom webinar series organized by Grace Farms Foundation and Pratt Institute, “Lessons Learned from Other Industries in the Fight Against Forced Labor” and “Innovative Tools in the Movement Toward Slave-Free Buildings”

2020 Scientific Track Committee member, 2021 ACSA/EAAE Teachers Conference, “Curriculum for Climate Agency: Design (in)Action,” June 2021

2015 Symposium organizer, “In the Shadow of the Megacity” Symposium addressing urbanization and architecture, Cooper Union, September 26, 1015, with guest speakers: Kenneth Frampton, Stan Allen, Susannah Drake, Dietmar Offenhuber, Alexander d’Hooghe

2010 Exhibitions curator and coordinator at the Department of Architecture, School of Architecture, Art and Planning, Cornell University

Extramural

2011-2016 Cape Cod Modern House Trust Non-profit organization

Programming for the Residency Program

2003-5 F.A.R. (Foundation for Art Resources) Non-profit organization

Advisor

Professional Practice:

1996 Schuwirth & Erman, Hannover, Germany

Architectural Practice - Construction drawings for Design-Expo center, Berlin.

1995 Baytur A.Ş., İstanbul, Turkey

Architectural Practice - Public housing project, design, construction and landscape drawings