Art-tech concept comes to life at Point Hotel Barbaros.
It is a fact that İstanbul is no longer only a center of tourism but also of business in Turkey as well as in Eurasia. In this respect, the architectural aspect of the city produces its own urban structures such as the hotels, which serve for more than mere touristic purposes, offering a wide range of services for their visitors.
Point Hotel is one of the most significant examples of contemporary hotel projects in Turkey that offer “concept-based” services for both domestic and foreign visitors. While the group’s flagship Point Hotel Taksim houses a permanent exhibition titled “İstanbul 1950,” comprising 232 black-and-white photographs by Ara Güler, Point Hotel Barbaros claims to be the first “art-tech hotel” in Turkey.
While the hotel offers a total understanding of business, with all its rooms designed to meet the needs of businessmen -- from the desk to a sitting area and comfortable beds -- it integrates business life with its unusual services including a library and an İstanbul Museum of Modern Arts gift shop. It even has a unique music album composed and produced specifically for the hotel, titled “Sweet Dreams,” with the collaboration of Lounge FM. There are plans for another CD of lullabies in 13 languages.
Among the artists whose works are on display at the hotel are Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Okan Bayülgen, Yeşim Ağaoğlu, Murat Morova, Gülçin Aksoy, Volkan Aslan, Ali Cabbar, Nejat Çınar, Melih Görgün, Hakan Gürsoytrak, Gül Ilgaz, Bengü Karaduman, Esen Karol, Serhat Kiraz, Sıtkı Kösemen, Mohaç Yücel, Pablo Martinez Muñiz, Sinan Niyazioğlu, Kadri Özayten, Ardan Özmenoğlu, Kemal Tufan, Günnur Özsoy, Gülay Semercioğlu, Nilhan Sesalan Yüzsever and Başak Ürkmez.
Art in living spaces
“This was our point of departure,” says Cihan Yılmaz, the general manager of Point Hotel Barbaros, in an interview with Today’s Zaman. “We gained experience with Point Hotel Taksim where we are displaying the photographs of Ara Güler. We realized that an emotional bond was established between the photographs and the visitors. The visitors wanted to stay in the room where their favorite photograph was displayed. In this way, the visitor began to communicate with the work, with the photograph. Now we’ve begun to see the same things here.”
With 265 pieces by 26 artists in the hotel’s collection, it is truly a living museum with the coexistence of artwork and daily life. “Many people may hesitate to go to a museum,” says Yılmaz. “However, inside the hotel, there’s a living space where daily life goes on, with visitors and meetings. What we wanted to do was to maintain this actuality with the art itself. We wanted to let art live, to embrace it in our daily lives and to be able to live in it.”
Rising from among the business towers and skyscrapers in Esentepe, Point Hotel Barbaros aims to reflect the contemporary face of İstanbul. “We’re looking towards the modern aspect of İstanbul,” says Yılmaz, “this is why we wanted to continue with contemporary art. And we are receiving very good reactions.”
“Our greatest advantage was working with a curator like Beral Madra,” says Yılmaz, emphasizing that there’s no other example of hotels working with curators. “Madra and the artists worked simultaneously with the construction process. That’s why the artwork is so suitable for the structure.”
“There are other hotels built with the art-tech concept,” says Yılmaz, “and there are many hotels decorated with the personal art collections of the hotels’ owners. But none of these have worked with curators up till now. This is what separates us from the others.”
In this respect, the works are more than merely decorative, they are an inseparable part of the structure. “The places the art would go were determined during the building process,” says Yılmaz. “And it took us one-and-a-half years to work with the artists. We never intervened in their work, their productions, their outlooks, anything.”
Password: İstanbul
The project is called “Şifre: İstanbul” (Password: İstanbul) and has been documented in a book with the same name. Every corner of the hotel seems to give clues about İstanbul for those who want to discover more about İstanbul than usual.
“We included all our staff in the research process,” says Yılmaz. “And we realized that there has never been a hotel library [in Turkey] before. So, we decided to work on this. First the İstanbul Kültür A.Ş. İstanbul Kitapçısı gave us 800 books, then we added 1,000 books and it became a library of 1,800 books.” The library has turned into a collection of mostly rare books about İstanbul. “We have books from the 17th century,” notes Yılmaz. “The oldest book is dated 1633. Busbecq’s ‘Turkish Letters’. There are some people who only come to see these ancient books. The range of books vary from 17th century to the 21st century and are in more than 20 languages such as Armenian, Russian, Hebrew and so on.. The gravures, postcards and photographs are all collected from booksellers individually.”
“Whoever comes to İstanbul, either for tourism or business, they wonder a lot about İstanbul,” Yılmaz says. “And we try to meet this curiosity, that’s why we called it ‘Password:İstanbul’. We tried to depict İstanbul in small snapshots.”
Source:http://www.todayszaman.com
