Social Security Complex

Istanbul, Türkiye

Recipient of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1986.

In the 1960s when this complex was designed and in construction, Turkish architects were engaged in a reassessment of the tenets of the Modern Movement, leading them to seek a "new regionalism" in architectural expression, as an answer to the dominance of the International Style. This office complex reconciles both theoretical positions. It is as disciplined and rational as the modernist canon requires, yet without compromising its modernity, it responds to its regional context, respecting the historic landmarks nearby, and remains sensitive to its site, which is a steeply sloping plot at the corner of a major intersection. At the time of its design the architect would have been expected to assemble the space into a high-rise slab that dominated its setting. This low, cascading structure links a dense old quarter of wooden houses at the top of the hill with contemporary buildings along a modern boulevard below. The jury believes this building to be "one of the earliest and most refined examples of contextual architecture in the international Modern Movement."

Source: Aga Khan Trust for Culture