You are kindly invited to follow LAUD TALKS: Fall 2021-2022 organized by the Department of Urban Design and Landscape Architecture, FADA, Bilkent University.
Speaker: Namık ERKAL
Title: “Liminality of Seafront Architectures: Past and Present”
Date & Place: December 7, 2021, Tuesday, 16.30-17.30 & FB309
Summary: Liminality, condition of being on threshold, on entrance, or in between is related to Turkish liman, (derived from Greek limen), meaning harbor, haven, retreat, refuge. Liman in its original context represents the safe space between land and sea, between city and the maritime world. Following a brief survey of seafront architectures in history (as places of safe-landing, defense, food provisioning and recreation), the presentation will point to the liminality of present seafronts in between continuing demands for construction projects and upcoming consequences of climate change. From an architectural historian’s point of view this condition asks for new ways of theorizing and exemplifying seafronts, which rather than being monumental, linear and formal are vernacular, interfacial and informal.
Biography: Namık Erkal is Professor at TED University Department of Architecture. His academic research and publications focus on early modern urban morphology, architecture of city frontiers, the architectural history of Ottoman marketplaces, custom houses and maritime ports, specifically the urban history of Istanbul. He has completed architectural projects on the topics of new buildings in historical settings and museums.