Institute

Tülay Atak
Guest Prof. PhD. BArch.

Tulay Atak is an architect, historian and theorist whose current work focuses on the intersections between environmental history and architecture. She received her professional architecture degree at METU in Ankara and then pursued her PhD at UCLA. In addition to her own work, she has participated in collaborative research projects, conducting fieldwork in Chandigarh as part of the Getty Research Institute's ‘Museology and the Colony’ project and archiving the work of the structural engineer Heinz Isler with a team of scholars for the ETH.

Tulay's co-edited book, Pedagogical Experiments in Architecture for a Changing Climate, is forthcoming from Routledge. Her writing and scholarship has appeared in journals and books such as OASE, Future Anterior, Architektur Aktuell, Byzantium / Modernism: The Byzantine as Method in Modernity and Fragile City. She has taught at SCI-Arc, Cornell, RISD, Cooper Union, RPI and Pratt Institute. The Angewandte’s interdisciplinary art and design culture leads to a diverse range of work, making it a unique place to teach and develop research. I oA, with its focus on spatial, technological and conceptual experimentation in architecture, has been at the forefront of architectural education.

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, 2022
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