Cengiz Bektas

Architecture community mourns loss of seminal figure in 20th c. Turkish architecture.

Architect, historian, poet and writer, Cengiz Bektas passed away at the age of 85 in Istanbul. One of the main figures of modern architecture in Turkey in the 20th century, Bektas left behind an architectural legacy that fused together Modernism, the Turkish vernacular and a profound understanding of the social basis of architecture. His modernist architectural projects such as the masterpiece Turkish Language Association, Ankara, 1974 were complemented later in his career by the architecture that fused modernism with the vernacular with the Aga Khan Award for Architecture winner, Akdeniz University Olbia Social Center, Antalya in 1999.  His numerous books on regional vernacular architecture in Turkey continue to provide insight into the complexity of architecture in Anatolia.