Anthology Magazine / Istanbul

AN INSIDER’S ISTANBUL Turkey’s largest city is a place of contrasts— ancient and modern, artistic and political Text by SHONQUIS MORENO Photographs by ANDREA WYNER 42 ANTHOLOGYMAG.COM 43 This page: Karabatak offers coffee along with an extensive collection of magazines. Previous page: Turk- ish bath Kiliç Ali Pasa Hamam. Opposite, clockwise from top left: Fresh-squeezed juice vendors dot the streets. Turkish döner. Chef Beril Sanal¸ of Noi restaurant (formerly Backyard). Dolmabahçe Palace. An alley off of Istiklal˙ is set up for alfresco dining. Ferries and boat tours on the Bosphorus offer stun- ning views. Mama Shel- ter’s rooftop. A waiter takes a break outside of StarCays. Arasta Bazaar. rom a ferry, it is possible to survey Istanbul from the waters that con- nect Europe to Asia, and both continents to the rest of the world. Though it is a sprawling, gritty, cosmopolitan city, Istanbul remains close to both open water and open air. Its 15th-century skyline, marked F by the Middle Eastern geometry of domes and minarets, starts on the hill where the Topkapı Palace guards the confluence of the Bosphorus Strait, the Sea of Marmara, and the Golden Horn. From there, the strait flows north, busy with the submarines, tug boats, freighters, and the shoals of fish around whose daily migrations the city was anciently settled. After that, it disappears behind two austere gunmetal gray bridges and into the Black Sea. Where the shallows of the Golden Horn dead-end at the foot of a funicular, the Pierre Loti Cemetery offers a panorama of the ever-renewed city. As much as they value their views, Istanbullus treasure their shrinking green spaces. The most opulent manifestation of this is in the former sultans’ winter garden at the Dolmabahçe Palace, an iron-and-glass jewel box that is, like much of the city, an oxymoron: spring in eternal defiance of winter. This city is built on brazen contradictions. Although most people think of Istanbul as part of the Middle East, it straddles Europe and Asia and has weather pretty much like New York. (Yes, it snows. No, it’s not a desert.) It is 44 ANTHOLOGYMAG.COM 45 Santralistanbul was the city’s first power plant. In 2007 it re-opened as an temporary Crafts in Beyoglu,˘ Emel arts and culture campus. Guntas has stocked silk scarves illustrated by local label Rumisu and furniture, carpets, and ceramics ra- diating with color from Turkey, the Middle East, and Africa. In 2005 when he moved into the neighborhood, there wasn’t a shop or cafe in sight; now he’s surrounded. “Beside the texture of the 19th-century architecture, the thing that makes the area interesting is its inhabitants— the remaining Anatolian migrants, the bohemian rich, the young artists, and tourists,” Emel says. “What makes Istanbul interesting is the AROUND THE CITY, TRADITIONAL energy that comes from the mixture of the first and third worlds and CRAFTS ARE BEING PRESERVED from the coexistence of Eastern and Western lifestyles.” AND CELEBRATED—IN THE MOST Above, left to right: The the cultural capital of a secular republic, where calls to prayer ripple through Karaköy, Ottoman Istanbul’s Adahan Hotel’s craft- the streets like light through water, five times a day. I tell time by it and time commercial hub and still an ac- MODERN FORMS. focused shop sits on its roof; the landmarked feels short. Lately, Turkey’s neighbors on every side are imploding or explod- tive port, is where those collisions 1874 building was ing: Syria into civil war, Iraq into religious extremism, Greece into a depres- began. Now Karaköy is the epicenter The Karaköy Galeri, launched last February by designer and recently refurbished sion. Even Ankara, the seat of Turkish politics, has descended into corruption, of Istanbul’s creative earthquake. artist Sema Topaloglu,˘ inhabits a four-floor void in a building with ecological features. Canadian expat Jennifer conservatism, and authoritarianism. And yet, during political protests two Selda Okutan established her the width of a staircase. Sema’s own studio is in the Balat neigh- Gaudet of Jennifer’s summers ago, I watched Turks on Twitter, Facebook, and graffitied walls prove eponymous contemporary jewelry borhood, which abuts Fener and Fatih on the Haliç, perhaps Hamam is working to themselves resourceful, broad minded, and full of inexhaustible humor. Istan- gallery there in 2011 under a canopy the city’s most richly historical—and poorest—areas. The Saint revive traditional weav- ing techniques. bul is a city of infinite variety that can absorb anything—from cultures to chaos. filigreed with ivy, next door to the Stephan Church is located here, an iron-framed Bulgarian And perversely, after the protests, which followed a decade-long bull economy, vividly tiled Karabatak Cafe and a Orthodox building prefabricated in Vienna in 1898, as well as irrepressible self-expression and creativity have made it richer than ever. five-minute walk from theIstan - the Kariye Camii or Chora Church, famed for its intricate Every field, from modern art to traditional craft and fashion to progres- bul Museum of Modern Art. The golden mosaics. Close by, bridging old and new, the restaurant sive design and architecture, is at a boil. The Istanbul Art Biennial has earned museum’s opening in 2004 effec- Asitane serves historical Ottoman food based on meticulously international kudos; in December last year, the city hosted Turkey’s second tively established the neighborhood researched recipes. In fact, these areas are increasingly, if spar- design biennial—the first felt like a cultural rite of passage. Alcohol-free Is- for creative colonists. Selda works in ingly, dotted with signs of newness: shops conspicuously selling lamic nightclubs have become as cool to the “covered” as craft cocktails are to an atelier in back, but sells her own wine, the contemporary furniture-filled Reformist, and artists’ the coiffed, and coffee is the newest habit in çay land. Servers at the Heirloom detailed sculptural pieces alongside ateliers. Sometimes the most modern spaces are a synthesis of hotel will make siphon coffee at your table, stopwatch in hand. At the city’s first work by emerging artists like Arman timely and timeless, such as Cahide Erel’s whimsical and earthy micro-roaster, KronotRop, you’ll get Hario V-02 and Kyoto cold drip, too. Suciyan out of the sun-filled, gallery of glass, ceramics, and curated coffees. Floating like a But, of course, Old Istanbul is there behind the diversifying: Cemil Üsta serves glass-paned storefront. “Back then, stage set beneath a flock of glass birds inside a modern ware- Turkish coffee, and only Turkish coffee, at a few low-slung tables atMandabat - there were only mechanic shops and house, Perispri feels like a speakeasy modeled on a tony mid- maz, which means “[so thick even] a water buffalo wouldn’t sink [in it].” spare-parts suppliers,” Selda recalls. century Turkish home: polished wooden furnishings, China Around the city, skills like this and other traditional crafts are being pre- “Karaköy is changing and people cabinets, brass candelabra, a fireplace, and a tufted Chesterfield served and celebrated—in the most modern forms. Since 2011, at Hiç Con- want to be part of this synergy.” sofa. If you look closely, you will also find that the balcony’s bal- 46 ANTHOLOGYMAG.COM 47 THOUGH IT IS A COSMOPOLITAN CITY, ISTANBUL REMAINS CLOSE TO BOTH OPEN WATER AND OPEN AIR. Visitors flock to the Pierre Loti Cemetery, which includes a hilltop café. Right: A grocer stands in the doorway to his Galata shop. ustrade is actually a section of the city’s crumbling Byzantine walls. Farther north along the strait in Etiler, next to the new metro CITY GUIDE station, Fem Güçlütürk has sown LaboFem, which feels more like a greenhouse in someone’s home than a retail space. A former GETTING AROUND doyenne of communications and branding, Fem now sells succu- The Istanbul metro is clean, calm, and lents and cacti in vessels of infinite variety, from triangular pots, easy to navigate, but not extensive. Fer- copper pots, and pinch pots to porcelain, hollowed-out logs, or rying your way between Europe and Asia is the most enjoyable way to get around. salt-fired raku. In 2013, an installation she composed from moose- Dolmuşes are vans that won’t move head ferns, rope, and industrial cooking sieves was shown at a local until full, but let you off anywhere gallery, confirming that in Istanbul, art has its fingers in every along their route. Signs in the window pot, so to speak. “Overcrowded, therefore locally improved,” is how announce the route and different desti- Fem describes the city. “Local shops and neighborhood cafes, small nations cost different amounts; tell the designer boutiques, and art galleries are popping up every day, driver where you want to go when you and neighborhoods are defining themselves by their interests,” she embark. (It’s common to pass money to says. There’s an “area for cats, artists, and intellectuals,” an “area the driver through fellow-riders and get perfect change in return.) Round up in for designers, handmade goods, and Old Istanbul,” and even just lieu of tipping. And watch the meter in a “place to live and feel safe.” Young people are seeking out areas taxis, but don’t be surprised if you find that retain some patina, some fume of the past; but Istanbullus have yourself on a circuitous route—avoiding metabolized their past. To those shaping the city today, the future is Istanbul’s traffic is an art practiced by another story altogether. men with high blood pressure. 48 ANTHOLOGYMAG.COM 49 Clockwise from left: A vendor at Nopa a local market.

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