Now it’s time for Istanbul

The headline may be inadequate for a “timeless” city like Istanbul, but our beautiful city promises beautiful things especially these days, at a time when there’s tension in society prior to elections.

The Istanbul Modern has just moved to its new place in Beyoğlu.

The Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) 46th music festival has begun with the theme “family ties.”

Famous artists and orchestras or those who have started to shine are performing in our city.

Yekwon Sunwoo, a South Korean pianist who we have listened to perform with Borusan Orchestra at the opening of the festival, is one of them.

South Korea, which is frequently shown to us as a model of education and welfare level is said to be passing China and Japan in classical music.

Towards the end of June, the Istanbul Jazz festival will again come under the wings of the İKSV.

Concerts and activities of both festivals will take place in different corners of the town, including the Grand Bazaar, Sirkeci train station, parks, museums, and consular gardens, as well as some places that have remained unknown to us so far, which we will discover.

Talking about discoveries, a new discovery in Istanbul is Istanbul Modern’s temporary place, which was opened last week.

The Istanbul Modern’s current building, which opened to visitors on May 23, is known as the building of Union Française. It will move to its new place designed by Italian architect Renso Piano three years later.

An architect who has left his mark on Istanbul

The building was constructed in 1896 by Alexandre Vallaury, a Levantine of French origin.

Vallaury is the architect that designed Pera Palace in 1893.

The two buildings are very close to each other.

Seventeen of Istanbul’s most important buildings are the work of Vallaury. The Istanbul Archeological Museum, the Ottoman Central Bank on “bank street,” the Abdülmecid Efendi mansion on the Anatolian side where Ömer Koç’s collection was exhibited during the last Istanbul biennale; the Greek Orphanage in Büyükada, in the Marmara Sea, which is designated by Europe Nostra among the cultural heritage under threat in Europe are among them.

There are mansions and mosques among the marvelous buildings that Alexandre Vallaury left behind in Istanbul.

The building of the Union Française constructed for the French colony, which had an important place in Istanbul’s social life at the end of the 19th century, has been restored by the Orjin group.

Istanbul Modern has rented it from the Orjin group.

Human Nature

Istanbul Modern’s new place was opened with a surprise as it hosted the exhibition “Human Nature,” by Anthony Cragg, one of the most important sculpture artists of our time.

You can visit the exhibition until Nov. 1. Levent Çalıkoğlu is the curator and Ferko is the sponsor.

Cragg came to Istanbul for the exhibition. One of his works has tremendously impressed me. A work that looked like a totem reminded me of a 12,000-year artifact found in the Göbeklitepe excavation, which I saw a few days earlier in the Şanlıurfa Archeology museum.

It seems that the exhibition has imagined the same things and has designed the same things for the past 12,000 years.

Don’t miss Cragg’s exhibition, as well as the works of several artists Tracey Emin, Hüsamettin Koçan, Olafur Eliasson, and Taner Ceylan.