Adaptive reuse of historical buildings that lost their function to keep them alive as acultural heritage is a matter of discussion in Turkey as it is in the rest of the world. Istanbul with its historical background had a chance to experiment lots of different reuse projects. In this case study I will analys an adaptive reuse project from Istanbul to look into the reasonswhy it has the repitation as a succesfull reuse project when lots of others are facing lots of critisism from various groups.



Istanbul modern museum was orignally one of the warehouses of the old Istanbul port.Since the port no longer in use except cruise ships the warehouse lost its function and became an inert building. In 2003 after the 4th Istanbul Bianel took place in this warehouse which called ANTREPO 4 the long time idea of making the first modern art museum of Istanbul onceagain come into question. The main obstacle to make this modern art museum was the very limited budget. So re-functioning an exsisting building that no longer in use was the perfect solution. That is how Tabanlıoğlu Architecture designed and applied the project. Minimum interference has been the architectural approach; the warehouse maintained its structural essence, simplicity is preferred to put the emphasis on the exhibited artwork to stand out. Interior of the museum got designed only with two colours; white in exhibition areas and grey in all the rest. The intention was to create a space that the dwellers can not feel the architecture but only art and freedom.[Tabanlioglu, 2005]


In my personal experience the contrast between the old and new , outside and inside is impressive. Exhibition halls that has a very big completly white area made me feel that the architects really achived their goal. Once you enter the building you see nothing but art and freedom to dwell inside the museum. However it was a risky choice to make a modern art museum in a country that majority does not have the culture/interest to modern art, by adding extra functions such as cinema, library, cafeteria and workshop areas the museum became a public space where people meet, study, spend some quailty time and experience modern art.

Conclusion

Reuse is an economic and ecologic solution in every dicipline as it is in architecture but to have this economic and ecologic profit the main step is to analys the building and its structure really well and choose the right function for the existing building. Ofcourse the aim of the reuse projects is not always economical. In most of the examples in Turkey the main intention is to keep a historical building alive by giving it a new function as a public space. The projects that gets the most critisizm is the ones that lets the new function get ahead of the characteristic values of the historical building such as Tarlabasi 360 project in which traditional wooden houses are modified to an office building that couldn´t go further than hanging the facade of old houses on a completly new building. So in my point of view nowadays in this concumptionsociety reuse is a great way to respect our past and our future. So only discussion we can have about reuse should be ‘’how can we do it better?’’