Selen Çatalyürekli

Within the scope of course named ‘EUT 550E’ ‘Mapping Design in İstanbul’ (at İstanbul Technical University); ‘Grand Bazaar’ had been detected as the project field. In order to understand the production networks in the area, existing relations between craftsman, designer, seller and customer had been investigated. Its inner traditions and their reflections on today’s commercial system had been examined over the concrete cases. Besides, the detection of manner of work between craftsmen and designers, and their functional position within the system, was the main focus of the project.

By the several visits, it has been detected that, the area has been offering services at global scale on metalwork field. One to one interviews, analysis of the case studies over the products, were some of the main methodologies of the study. According to that formulation, ‘Grand Bazaar’s physical space and its very unique culture of production, has been inspected over cultural, economic and social network that it has generated for ages.

The main goal of the project is to create ‘Grand Bazaar Production and Design Map’ in order to help designers and craftsman to encounter. Long-term goal of that encounter is to detect the potential working models by increasing designer and craftsman collaborations within the area.

In this context, my group had aimed to map craftsmen’s entire professional relations between the other members of the region. These members are artisan, commissioner, supplier, seller, etc..

Whereby jewellery designer ‘Özlem Tuna’, the very first artisan that we met was ‘Metin Şahin’. The research of the production processes had been started over the sword in his atelier. That way, the artisans’ professional networks and the unique mentor system of Bazaar had been investigated.  

Bu bağlamda çalışmanın olası çıktıları şu şekilde belirlenmiştir:

·      Çarşı bölgesindeki bulunan metal, cam, seramik, deri, ahşap, mermer taşı vb. farklı malzemelere göre üretim tekniklerinin dökümünü yapmak.

·      Kapalı Çarşı üretim sistemi içinde yer almak isteyenlere ilham vermek.

·      Bölgeye has zanaat kültürüne dair bilgilerin yayılmasını sağlamak.

·      Küçük ölçek üretimde, malzeme olanakları ve sınırlarını ortaya koymak.

As the students, we have generated four groups, relying on our aspirations to work on a certain subject. The group that I take part in had focused on the journey of ‘sword’ ordered from another city named ‘Denizli’. The personal relations between the craftsmen and their stories about their profession are involved within the study. As a result, that journey had presented a pathway within the borders of Grand Bazaar.

Another group had focused on gathering the complex locations of craftsmen’s shops, with gps datas. And those datas were classified according to their production methods and types. I also supported this team on documenting the processes visually and gathering the locations of shops over gps datas. (Örnekler için, en sondaki 'çalışmanın ardından'- 'crafted in İstanbul' web sitesi, kısmına bakabilirsiniz.)

One group designed ‘Turkish bath bowl’ and documented all the production processes. 

And one last group had made interviews with the designers. They investigated their attitude about producing their products within the Grand Bazaar’s production system.

The Analysis Of Grand Bazaar’s Production System Over ‘The Gold Plated Sword With The Inlaid Precious Stones’

Kapalı Çarşı Üretim Sisteminin “Üzeri Değerli Taş İşlemeli, Altın Kaplama, Metal Kılıç” Örneği Üzerinden Analizi

The production story of a historical sword called ‘Prophet’s Sword’, had started with the order from city named Kütahya to a craftsman in Denizli. That craftsman did not accept the order because of the qualifications and the time required for the work. Yet, there is need for the collaboration and expertise of different masters. In order to make the work happen, they needed to work in synchronize and at close distances. So, the craftsman transfers the work to the master named ‘Aram Okçu’ in Grand Bazaar, who has skills to organize the other masters. 

So the three actors of the production network for the sword comes on the scene. The first one is the customer that ordered the work from Kütahya. The second one is master in Denizli that the customer in Kütahya had reached. Though he rejects the job, he stays in the network as middleman. And the third one is Aram Okçu whom had been not only organizing the different masters as middleman but also producing some of the pieces himself as craftsman.

Note: The parts that involves the personal stories of artisans are kept confidential in order to share with permission. Thats because they are not covered in this article

One of the difficulty that reflected to the project process in general, was the relative desire of the different actors against the aim of the project. The different producers had very opposite views and concerns on visibility issue. The inconvenient legal status of some of the producers was also one of the reasons behind that anxiety. The hesitation to work with designer and unwillingness to work with any kind of customers, can also be counted as a negative point.

That way, there are different perspectives on the issue of ‘working with designers’. Master Vedat (connected through ‘sword’ production process) had been thinking that it was not an ineluctable necessity for him to work with designers. He states his view with these words: ‘I don’t need designers, but they need me. It’s not the craftsman that gains money, but middleman as seller’. On the other hand, another craftsman named master Metin, had very positive approach for the idea of working with designers. 

Reliance on the traditional production methods and the nonexistence of standardization also creates problem. It creates problem especially on the occasions related to analysis and measurement of the production. Very basic instance for such situations were the lack of information that master Vedat had with the two shop owners he works consistently. He did not have any information about them except the phone numbers. That situation could be only explained with the Grand Bazaar’s production tradition. It has been directly related with traditional reliance on personal trust rather than formal relations between producers (craftsmen) and sellers.  

During the project process, we held in depth meetings, investigations and tours to Grand Bazaar quarter. That situation had been led to the opinion that the most influential vocational education was the traditional master and apprenticeship relation for the metal work production and design system in Grand Bazaar, remaining for ages. On the other hand, it had been found out that these strong relational networks have been declining and there was inexistence of new channels to transform that traditional production forms. Because of that, the related professions and whole network have been about to disappear. At the current state, sub- branches of design objects fed from metal production system have been facing the danger of disappearing in time. For all that, Grand Bazaar’s regional and global production hinterland (with high network capacity) has been facing the risk of disappearance. That situation can not only transform the area into physically urban deprivation area and also sweep the service providers and procurement to the periphery. 

In this pathway, the following evidences had been detected:

·      The importance of increasing the value of craftsman’s handwork.

·      The impacts of the exile of the workshops to industrial zone and its necessity for technical obligations.

·      Lack of consciousness that the most of the craftsmen have about copyrights.

·      Designers’ unwillingness to share the information and relation that they have with their corporation with a specific craftsman.

·      The importance of local foundations within Grand Bazaar, on recording the production methods and their implementers.

Related to these findings, the answers of such questions and conditions had been investigated:

·      Can existence or emergence of the designers in Grand Bazaar production line have positive impact on craftsmanship or not?

·      How did large scale companies’ approached to this threat of disappearance small- scale production and master- apprenticeship systems disappearance?

·      *Or what if, it only creates different kind of gentrification by increasing the rentals and it is only something beneficial for the one side of the medal.

·      Does both sides really need and want such an action or it depends on their scale of production?

·      ‘Visibility of the craftsman workshops’ and ‘inevitable need for standardization’ are beneficial things for especially very small- scale producers, or not?

·      What are the dangers and advantages of creating a website and labeling system telling the story of both craftsmen and designers (especially in terms of visibility issue)? Can information put onto a product with such a story, increase the value of handwork?

The first phase of the course EUT 550 had took one academic term.  The projected models had been discussed in detail from many perspectives. Its effects on artisans, pros and cons on traditional system of Grand Bazaar etc. had been analyzed in detail. At that point, the collective idea of the groups was to create updateable database through a website which can be used both by designers and craftsmen. Besides these datas could be synchronized with labels on products.  Studies conducted at that first stage, had counted as preliminary work for the development and generation of such ideas. One year after the first phase, that idea had been launched by project collegues Bilal Yilmaz, Barış Gümüştaş and Seda Erdural, at the web site named ‘www.craftedinistanbul.com’.

Followingly, at the second phase of the project course, existing studies had been developed and the possibilities to broaden that mapping study for all Istanbul, had been investigated. In this context, together with my collegue Bera Başkurt, our research focus had been proceeded on ‘Analysis of İstanbul Design Offices’* topic. The results of that study have been used as a source for the article named ‘İstanbul Design Map’ published on ‘National Design Research Conference 2014, Edition Book, (METU, Ankara)’. 

*Başkurt, Bera, ve Selen Çatalyürekli. 2014. “İstanbul’daki Tasarım Ofislerinin Analizi”. İstanbul Tasarım Haritası Atölyesi Final Raporu. YE- KON Yaratıcı İstanbul Atölyeleri.
**Er, Özlem, Şebnem Timur Öğüt, Alpay Er ve Feyza Baltacı. (2014) "İstanbul Tasarım Haritası" UTAK 2014 Ulusal Tasarım Araştırmaları Konferansı: Eğitim, Araştırma, Meslek ve Sosyal Sorumluluk, 10-12 Eylül 2014, ODTÜ Mimarlık Fakültesi