'KENTSEL MİMARİNİN ŞİİRSELLİĞİ' BİR SERGİ AÇILIŞI İÇİN SÖYLEM

Our built heritage is a continuous process from past to future. It contains an ongoing story of life, the presence of which we live today, and to which we have to create a possibility for a future. As a practicing architect, I want to underline the meaning of life and the way of life as a starting point of architecture. Cities and buildings should be seen as results of life. The preservation of the quality of life within the new buildings and environments should simultaneously be the preservation of our heritage. This is why the understanding of the layered structure of a balanced and healthy city environment, in terms of physical, social and psychological lives, is essential. While preserving the quality, we should see both buildings and city structures as springs of life and creativity. We have to understand that spiritual values in the cities are forming the base in raising the quality of our lives. Basically architecture is solving everyday problems in a very practical manner. By the help of building, needs generated by life are being solved. One would think that it should not be too complicated a thing to do. However reality proves the opposite. It would be a natural thing to expect the increasing knowledge and know-how to produce increasingly better environments. But this is not so. On the contrary, the physical, psychological and social condition of the living environment seems to be further declining. On top of all, this seems to be the outcome of the will of the people, of the purposefully planned actions. Our built environment is the mirror of the set of values of our society. It uncovers all that is positive within our set of values, but also all shortcomings and weaknesses. The materialistic, modernistic world-view has come to its end. It is clear that changes needed for redeveloping our environment require major changes in our values and goals. The world is now in an unparalleled period of transition. At the moment the situation in some parts of the world is chaotic, and it is impossible to forecast the future. However, there is a deep change that will also reach the set of values in architecture. This century has been characterized by superficiality and the shattered portrait of the man. One can think, or at least in a positive way wish, for the next century to be the time of healing, of integration of the man and his world. This is for the reason that there hardly exists any other alternative for survival. Why would't we architects, already now, declare ourselves as the integrators of our architecture and environment, and therefore create the prerequisites for the integration of the human being, for the integration of life, for rediscovering the richness and diversity of man? The Odyssey of modernism is over. Diversity, the natural order of the world will return to architecture. One will, once again, appreciate the past and the necessity of continuity. Past will regain its importance as the spring of the present and future of architecture. Maybe now we can say history is over; long live history! Architecture should treat the man as a whole (it should correspond to the content of life, state of life); it should be born out of life. This requires sensitivity towards meanings, ability to listen to and to get anxious about connections, the ability to internalize an experience. It means adopting a totally new kind of a stand, returning to the roots of the original man that had the ability of feeling and experiencing strongly; and in a natural way, the existence of life and the environment. I think that this quality has not totally disappeared from the modern man, not even in the countries of modern civilization. It is existing within us, as a hidden feature in the background, while we get stressed in the world that has requirements against our nature, against the man within us. I am positive that it is a necessity to re-evaluate our way of life and our goals, and this is exactly why it will happen.