Emre Arolat: Scent of the trace

Turkish architect Emre Arolat, who won the Aga Khan Award in 2010, discusses his work.

March 16, 2018

Current Work is a lecture series featuring leading figures in the worlds of architecture, urbanism, design, and art.

Emre Arolat founded Emre Arolat Architecture (EAA) with Gonca Pasolar in 2004. Today, the firm has offices in London and New York in addition to Istanbul. Its projects have received the Mies Van der Rohe Award and the Aga Khan Award.

Arolat has taught and lectured at design schools around the world, including Pratt and Yale, where he was the Norman R. Foster Visiting Professor. In 2012, he was a co-curator of the first Istanbul Design Biennale.

For his Current Work lecture, he discussed projects including:

  • Eyup Cultural Center, whose roof forms a pedestrian walkway leading to Istanbul’s waterfront
  • Sancaklar Mosque, which sought to strip away design conventions and return to the essence of Islamic philosophy
  • Antakya Museum Hotel, a novel design strategy for a hospitality center that straddles archeological ruins.

The lecture was followed by a conversation with Adam Yarinsky, a partner at Architecture Research Office (ARO) and board member of Places Journal.

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