GRAND OPERA THROUGH THE GRAND LENS

GRAND OPERA THROUGH
THE GRAND LENS
ROLF SACHSSE
stage is, in itself, a Camera, a large-scale optical instrument, the
effect of which is perfectly self-explanatory and dramatic. ahmet
ertuğ has captured this scena frons twice in planimetric views: once
from the ideal viewpoint of a central seating position and once from
the raised standpoint of the upper balustrade, displaying the façade
as an independent architectural work rather than as a stage area.
authors who have written on the subject of the Teatro Olimpico in
Vicenza – including Michael forsyth in his contributions to this
book – are all agreed that, even at the time of its opening, the façade
and indeed theatre appeared old fashioned and outdated from a
theatrical and art history point of view – a trait shared by the
medium of the present book and the edifice: classical, analogue,
photography is also deemed largely outdated, the very reason for
producing such magnificent images – not only in the architectural
œuvre of andrea palladio, but also in the photographic œuvre of
ahmet ertuğ.
The Renaissance, which had by this time reached its zenith and
end, was the era in the history of art following the discovery of
the central perspective as a method of human recognition; it marked
the arrival of the printing press. photography, however, was the
first technical medium to realise the recognition of the central
perspective, just as printing was in the mechanical reproduction of
printed images. four paths relating to this connection will be
followed in this essay on ahmet ertuğ and his work. The central
perspective is, in its symbolic form, directly connected to the history
of european art and science and it will be investigated how this point
of view is adopted by a comprehensively educated photographer
from the orient, particularly as the axonometric image construction
of his culture is so evident in earlier books. a further episode in the
journey from east to West in the œuvre of ahmet ertuğ consists of
his use of light and colour and in their vividness. The third path of
observation deals with a number of concepts of oriental opulence
and monumentality, similarly of photography and opera; where not
The NorTh-ITalIaN cITy of VIceNza played hosT
to a most spectacular event on the evening of March 3rd, 1585:
around three thousand members of nobility and citizens gathered in
the late afternoon in front of the recently completed Teatro Olimpico
and were greeted at the entrances by soldiers responsible for safety
and order. seating for four hundred noblewomen was provided
underneath the cavea, other audience members taking their places in
the stands throughout the course of the evening. refreshments were
served, perfumes sprayed and at around 1 o’clock in the morning,
the performance of sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus, in dramatic form
with accompanied sung Intermediae, began. The performance took
place according to the wishes of the Accademici, the founders of the
theatre, who had longingly waited thirty years for this premiere.
architect andrea palladio, to whose plans the theatre had been built,
had belonged to this learned group; he was no longer, however, able
to witness this spectacle. his son silla and his pupil Vicenzo
scamozzi had completed the building and had, most notably,
designed the scena frons, making the theatre, even to this day, the
archetype of opulent performance space: an enormous façade,
consisting of three city gates, behind which is suggested an urban
space. streets and houses are shown, some with completely sculpted
ornamentation and lit windows – all rendered in a greatly reduced
foreshortening. actors and extras had to take this into account: the
further back they appeared on stage, the smaller they had to be. only
the central seats had a view of all street scenes – all seats however,
had a view of at least one street scene.
It is indeed no coincidence that architect and photographer
ahmet ertuğ chose this theatre as the starting point of his imaginary
journey through the opera houses of europe. The Teatro Olimpico
is not, strictly speaking, an opera house – indeed, the musical form
of opera will not begin for another two decades with claudio
Monteverdi in the court of Mantua – but the scenery resident in
Vicenza does have an almost magical effect on photographers. This
48
from this bridge – through its extraordinary length despite being
narrow and low it appears almost one-dimensional – and it is indeed
a superb image when photographed by ahmet ertuğ.
ahmet ertuğ’s earlier books – besides those dealing with
traditional architecture he had encountered on his own
construction projects in Turkey – concentrate on reproduction of
important works of art in the great museums of the world
containing ancient sculptures, textiles, ceramics and publications
from the orient. here, planimetric fidelity is the first rule of
mechanical-medial depiction, the orthogonal photographic view is
the one which counts. This is not a problem for people in eastern
cultures who are, from earliest childhood on, used to forms repeated
in unending patterns or to a surface dominated by ornamentation
– all ornamented objects, through to printing on paper, function
as decorum, describing in latin reason and dignity in all things and
people. Images of carpets, cloths and other textiles, as often collated
by ahmet ertuğ in books, are therefore naturally more than just
reproductions or simple copies: they are a communication between
one plane surface art and another, to be commented on further
when dealing with light and colour.
Images of sculptures and two-dimensional art, such as reliefs,
doors and windows, also belong to the classical foundations of
reproduction, as summarised by german art historian heinrich
Wölfflin in an article on “how to photograph sculpture” in 1896.
according to this article, a greater distance must be kept from the
object in order to keep the projection as orthogonal as possible –
under the stipulation of the knowledge that photography must not
escape the central perspective – and that the picture-taking height
must be carefully chosen to best represent the original vantage point.
all these demands are met by ahmet ertuğ in his museum photography, even to the point that the objects are not moved even one
millimetre from their original position in the room. ahmet ertuğ
also fulfils Wölfflin’s demand that the ideal depiction of a sculpture
is developed from several views; occasionally, he offers the book’s
beholder various comparing views leading to detailed information
provided by his text authors. In addition, the photographed objects
are removed from the spatial context of their museums by using
black cloth or textured backdrops – placing them thereby in their
own cosmos, that of their respective book. even here, ahmet ertuğ
is following an old tradition: since their first edition, transcripts and
reprints of Sahih Bukhari and other Hadithe have become precious
and valuable, an oriental bookmaking tradition determined long
before european developments. ahmet ertuğ has taken this into
account through facsimile editions of his own work, for example the
Surname-i Vehbi.
It is, in particular, the collections of illustrations and miniatures
in facsimile editions and museum books that constantly refer to the
axonometric perspective in image construction and recognition.
plan-parallel images are – more so than central-perspective – read
from bottom to top, independent of the typographic reading
direction. europeans involved in the decoding of persian, Turkish
only the tremendous detail of ertuğ’s images can be seen, but also the
balance of all his focal planes. lastly, a comparison will be drawn
between the photography of ahmet ertuğ and that of classical and
contemporary photo-artists to provide a worthy placement of a work
stretching out over several decades.
ahmet ertuğ, after completing his training as architect, worked
for more than one and a half decades in the business before
devoting himself entirely to photography. Many of his architectural
projects involved the preservation of old buildings, others their reestablishment amidst existing traditions. on top of this, following
studies in london, he worked in Turkey, Iran, Japan and finally again
in Turkey, always retaining an impartial eye, even in his native country.
he began preserving this view early on through photography, within
his own interests as well as out of his current clients’ ideas. he soon
discovered a certain discrepancy, peculiar in each and every imagedocumentation: photography forces each given and perceivable
form into a dramatic representation of its own. every stone becomes
a part of the composition, forcing the true existence of reality into
its creation – whether architecture, sculpture or people. With enough
experience of documentary and reproduction photography, almost
every creative individual – whether architect, creative designer or
graphic artist – will come to the conclusion that an objective, indeed
impartial, record cannot exist. he must then decide if his own
perspective is more important than the execution of an existing plan.
ahmet ertuğ belongs to a not inconsiderable number of architects to
turn to photography at this stage in their careers. The construction
of buildings itself became for him, as for many of his colleagues, an
image in its own right; architecture as a whole shifted from
sketching and drafting to rendering and digital construction; a
planned edifice’s former environment became more important than
the building being fabricated.
ahmet ertuğ therefore adjusted his photographic efforts according
to two results determined by the reception of his œuvre: single, extra
large format images for exhibitions and exceptionally large, perfectly
produced books for connoisseurs of images and photography. all
technical specifications lead to the perfection of finish and details in
his work: 8” x 10”, the largest photographic standard for negative
and transparency, is used. The very latest technology is used in the
production of the individual images as well as the books themselves.
It is inevitable that these production methods should become the
foundation of any consideration of ahmet ertuğ’s work, whether
images or books, as each and every confrontation with his œuvre is
simply overpowering. however, it is also his experienced knowledge
of size and quality that leads back to the perspective from which his
work is to be considered: the gap he bridges between east and West.
he even recorded this bridge itself, an exemplary record in
broad-dimensioned photographs: the Sultan Süleyman Bridge in
Küçükçekmece [fIg 1] near Istanbul by the architect Sinan, finished in
1567 and described by the architect himself as his most important
construction. all thoughts of the recipients must return to perspective
49
or chinese miniatures will quickly notice that their perception is
abstracted from their own vantage point as the eye must construct its
own relevant perspective for practically every point of the image, at
least in order to position vanishing points on parallel lines. While a
central perspective dictates a single vanishing point per image, it also
defines a fixed vantage point, therefore defining itself as a symbolic
form, as recorded in 1924 by erwin panofsky. although photography
cannot technically record a scene in anything but the central
perspective, there are several methods of image construction that
can strengthen or weaken the effect. This describes the path taken by
photographer ahmet ertuğ: from east to West, from axonometric
to centre-perspective.
he himself describes his time in Japan as essential to his
photographic working method and this can indeed be seen in many
images, where a construction in lines of sight is evident, similar to
those in Japanese temple gardens or in woodcarvings from the
Edo-period. The view is led through a frame, a door or a dark anteroom into a bright scene, made brighter through the prevailing
constriction. This view alone indicates a global construction of
imagery – it can be seen equally well in persian shahname
illustrations and in 15th century chinese Imperial books as well as
in Jan van eyck’s 1435 portrait of “Madonna with chancellor
rolin”. The Japanese landscape artists, however, knew how to
remove every depth of field from their constructions: they furnished
the ground with the ornaments ranging from the tiniest items and
positioned various sized pebbles in the kare-san-sui of zen gardens.
leafing carefully through the books of ahmet ertuğ, one can
continually find such a background that leaves the above image
construction establishing pure planimetry. In his book on the Hagia
Sophia, one regularly finds the view shifting from dark to bright,
often led from bottom to top.
This demonstrates important elements in the photographic path
taken by ahmet ertuğ: from the orthogonal reproduction of plane
outlines, over distanced representation of sculptures to complete,
wide-scaped spaces with obvious use of depth perception and
centre-perspective projection. here, too, ahmet ertuğ sees a
continued change in his perspective from east to West: his
perception of long suites of rooms in the archaeological museum in
İstanbul, just as a Japanese monk would perceive, according to the
medieval temple plans, garan haichi, moving from the inner gate
sanmon to the two meditation halls butsuden or hattou. Whatever
appears at the front looses its significance in comparison with the
ground it stands on; it can even appear unfocussed – the view
through the room is read from bottom to top, not just from front to
back. In these views, ahmet ertuğ is perfectly able to process his
Japanese knowledge just as in those experiences relating to ancient,
persian and Turkish culture, as reflected in colouring, opulence and
attention to detail. This can be traced clearly through his previous
books, from works on the Hagia Sophia and on the Turkish
renaissance master architect Sinan through to Temples of Knowledge
and Palaces of Music. It is the trace of a transmission of ancient
knowledge into modern mediality, leading to independent images
that can readily, whether together or individually, be identified as
the œuvre of ahmet ertuğ.
ahmet ertuğ and Byzantinist cyril Mango added a series of older
plates to the book on the Hagia Sophia, from drawings by swedish
officer cornelius loos from 1710, through lithographs by swiss
architect gaspare fossati from 1852 to photographic material by
sébah and Joaillier from the 1890s – the latter of which shall be dealt
with subsequently. Viewing ahmet ertuğ’s photographs of this
construction in light of the older illustrations, one recognises, as far
as the representation of perspective is concerned, a stronger
resemblance to the elaborations of loos than to the steeply
graduated vedute of fossati. This is even the case in the images of the
south-west vestibule, where fossati creates a much stronger plastic
effect than ahmet ertuğ; for him the view from bottom to top is
important, the way the eyes wander from the floor panels over the
wall decoration to the lunette featuring a mosaic of the Madonna
and models of the church and city. The book then continues with
a double-sided view of this mosaic – photography and bookproduction merge into a single rhythmic unit. one’s view is however
constantly drawn over the complete image, not to some deep
vanishing point. again, there may well be a personal reason for this
preference: ahmet ertuğ worked together with sedad hakki eldem
in his last years, the great moderniser of Turkish architecture in the
20th century and discoverer of not only loos’ illustrations but also
Melchior lorick’s panoramas of Istanbul, to whom ertuğ dedicated
a monumental facsimile edition in 2001.
In his book on the architect Sinan, ahmet ertuğ adds a further
element to this view control, proving his fixation with the axonometric
point of view: almost all large building interiors are seen from a raised
standpoint – not unlike the early photography of the mid 19th century, as dictated by the techniques of the time. This view from above
– with its (for european eyes) disconcerting effect of chandeliers appearing below the level of the lens, the hanging cables of which cut
through the view through the mosque space – has, however, a
different background: from above, the image base appears more
clearly as an ornament; it leads less downwards than upwards. The
reverse view, from bottom to top – as primarily used in the book on
the Hagia Sophia to detect hidden murals – is applied by ahmet
ertuğ as demonstration of the sinanesque skill utilised in dome construction in mosques and medresses; here, strictly axisymmetric photography can be found. This is the appropriate form of recreation of
the architecture of early Modern Times, used by sinan as well as by
palladio, even more so in mid-european Baroque, emphasized by
ahmet ertuğ in the choices for Temples of Knowledge. Monastery libraries such as those in st. gallen, Melk or admont, with their
curved walls, cannot be depicted in any other way – yet even here,
the images of ahmet ertuğ differ from previous ones: the floor is
more obviously recognisable, leading the eye upwards rather than
further into the room.
The foundation of perspective for the latest work, the Palaces of
50
Music, has therefore already been determined: The view to the stage
is from the central upper box – often dedicated to the building’s
patron – to its curtains and to the side proscenium boxes. The
counter-shot is also included in the series in the case of most opera
houses: the view from the stage over the orchestra pit towards the
balcony or gallery with seating and boxes. In addition, hallways,
foyers and staircases are depicted, presented at least once
axisymmetrically with only smaller details being seen from the
diagonal. ahmet ertuğ’s axiality, however, is a different one to that
of his predecessors and contemporaries when capturing such
spaces: it leads more and more upwards rather than further into a
space, in many pictures directly to the richly decorated ceilings in
the opera houses. This upward view, reserved in earlier times purely
for sacred or stately elevation, is now one of marvel at the luxurious
furnishing and rich decoration, one that furthermore favours
surface rather than depth of space. The symbolic form of the central
perspective exists technically in the œuvre of ahmet ertuğ; it does
not however have the significance that it has for other photographers of similar subjects: in this form, it defines the independent
concept of his art.
photographer’s repertoire can be seen paradigmatically in the
sculptures of the Musée Guimet: Indian sandstone goddesses and
Buddhas require an altogether different light than the bronze figures
from laos with their shimmering polishes and polychromy; for the
former, it must be hard and precise, for the latter soft and undefined.
an afghan stupa requires the dramatic, deep lighting of a film noire,
whereas Indian ivory from Begram, with its traces of colour, requires
soft, flat lighting so as not to further dissolve its already uneven
surfaces. In each of these images, photographer ahmet ertuğ goes
out of his way to ensure that the true greatness of these ancient
works can be seen clearly. This also accounts for the more
consistent appearance of his books on museums: the works speak
for themselves; the photographer’s interpretations serve only for
their understanding and not for his personal artistic gain. This can
be seen most clearly in the photographs taken of the Alexander
Sarcophagus [fIg 2] in the book Sculptured for Eternity: taken in the
İstanbul archaeology Museum without the possibility of relocating
the exhibit, the sides, over three metres in length, are emphasised
by a low side-lighting; their plasticity however do not detract from
the detail of light and shadow. In contrast, both ends of the
sarcophagus are – with their sculptural function as temple façade
with pediment – interpreted in a flat manner, more architecturally
than three-dimensionally.
The role of museum photography as a means in itself changes
as soon as ahmet ertuğ turns his camera on edifices and spatial
enclosures, on façades and pillars, arcades, bookshelves or opera
boxes – here, lighting interpretation is much more complex than
that required to reproduce canonised artworks in permanent
positions. In these cases as well, of course, light impinges on the
image and in outdoor views, this lighting is dictated by the sun; the
photographer must merely understand how to choose the best
possible lighting possibilities. ahmet ertuğ has developed a unique
relationship to the plasticity of buildings and their lighting: the
monumental edifices such as the Hagia Sophia and other buildings
found in the book on Sinan are clearly depicted according to their
direction and are therefore shown in the light they were designed
to be seen in – whereas the east and west façades prefer to be
seen in a setting sun. These rules from architecture and classic building photography are however there to be broken from time to time.
The small Crown Prince Mehmed mausoleum in garden of the
Șehzade mosque by Sinan is so dissolved by light and shadow as
normally only seen in the interior of sacred buildings. [fIg 3] Together
with architectural theorist aldo van eyck, ahmet ertuğ carries out
an old building demand: “It is important to build an interior, even
outside. people often just build an exterior, even inside.” as if to
confirm this rule, ahmet ertuğ placed a reproduction of a tile wall
with floral ornamentation opposite the mausoleum image. on
another page of his book on Sinan, there is a picture of a mausoleum
taken by very low sunlight behind a number of tomb stones, each
representing a dead prince in the sultan’s family – again more an
interior than an exterior formed entirely from light; intimate and at
In 1844, William henry fox Talbot, 19th century scholar and one
of the many inventors of photography, published his book The
Pencil of Nature containing descriptions of nearly all photographic
technical processes, the names of which still remained unknown.
his pencil of light refers to the “agency of light”, the meaning of
photography, and was already in competition with the melanotype,
the “printing of shadow”. Three of the 24 plates contained in
Talbot’s book resemble the imagery in the books of ahmet ertuğ:
two pictures of a hellenic bust of patroclus and one of book spines
taken in the photographer’s own library. The advice given by
Talbot on these photographs could also be true for ahmet ertuğ’s
working method: he advises the presentation of light objects against
dark, where possible black, backgrounds; he refers to the numerous
possibilities of viewing a three-dimensional object from many
angles and the side by side presentation of the resulting images as a
comparison – the birth of aesthetic methodology from related
media technology. finally, using the “books of his library” as an
example, Talbot presents his fascination for continuous rows, not
only of the three-dimensional arrangement of the shelves, but
also, and more importantly, in the plane photographic images. one
can easily, at the highest aesthetic level, understand the english
scholar’s simple suggestions when one has the growing pleasure
of viewing ahmet ertuğ’s albums of the world’s museums again
and again.
a photographer is an agent of light printing shadows. The
method is simple and effective yet difficult to put into practice.
each museum exhibit, in particular works of sculpture, must be
individually lit and captured. a dark background will allow any
object to stand out and its plasticity depends on the angle of
lighting as well as the reflection of each surface – this part of the
51
the same time dignified. [fIg 4]
In the interiors of large spaces, the subject of light and lighting
becomes a significant entity in their interpretation. large sacred
spaces such as the Hagia Sophia and the mosques of Sinan are
characterised by a sequence of light and dark through selective
window lighting: some areas remain completely dark; most areas
appear in a mystical semi-darkness while the windows themselves
shine brightly, as do the walls they illuminate. To master such
extreme contrasts in light is the greatest challenge for the
photographer – all sacred buildings play with the adaptability of the
human eye: the bright windows contain colourful surfaces and black
trusses between the panes of glass; murals and mosaics adorn the
dark walls; floors and pillars are denoted in shadows and shafts of
light by the incoming light. ahmet ertuğ has, particularly in the large
interiors of Istanbul’s mosques, excelled in this work – he sends the
eyes of the viewer on a journey of discovery through illuminated
spaces and details. It is no coincidence, according to himself, that
the effect of his exhibition in the Hagia Sophia was so impressive that
visitors spent more time in front of his images rather than in front of
the walls themselves in the place of worship – they found it easier to
deal with his medial balance of contrast than with the reality of the
light and shadow filled space itself.
The step from here to the libraries in Temples of Knowledge was
for the photographer, as far as light is concerned, a small one, which
for a number of working aspects must have come as something of
a relief. Many libraries are located in spaces belonging to monastery
organisations and are therefore long, narrow spaces and well lit
from at least one side by windows. other older libraries contain very
high windows, so as not to distract from reading and to provide the
light necessary. libraries of the 19th and 20th centuries on the other
hand have no side windows at any height, relying instead on large
skylights; and since the age of the gas lamp, extensive artificial light
is to be found. Turning the pages of this book by ahmet ertuğ, a
typical characteristic of modern Western architecture, even in the
case of buildings from earlier centuries, is noticeable in comparison
with his older works: the varied colour temperatures coming from
direct or diffused daylight through side windows and from all
forms of artificial light, here in many different forms of electric light.
These colour variations can be recognized to a certain degree in
the works on Sinan and the Hagia Sophia with the application of
concentric lamps suspended from the dome, replacing the
original oil lamps as parts of the image; [fIg 5, 6] in the libraries, this
difference plays a more important role and for the Palaces of Music,
working with ambient lighting has become the essential component
of all images, indeed a central element of the statement of the space
in picture form.
To the opulence of all opera houses – more on that later –
belongs the extensive use of artificial light, it is a key factor in the
complete artwork, as seen in each opera. Torchbearers lit the façades
in the Teatro Olimpico, in later houses, great oil lamps – today
replaced by electrical bulbs – were carried by atlases at the sides and,
since the days of gas and electric lighting in the 19th century, all
opera houses were resplendent with light, mostly appearing from
countless miniature light sources; only the latest houses are lit by
diffused ceiling lighting. The wealth of boxes in Baroque theatres led
to a corresponding wealth in smaller lanterns and lamps in the spaces
between them. large chandeliers were to be found in the foyers and
mirrored halls, just as in mosques and churches; giant candelabras
carrying many hundred candles, their light refracted through their
tear and crystal-shaped glass pendants – the candles, of course, today
replaced by electrical light as well. The effect of refraction has been
reproduced in several of ahmet ertuğ’s photographs: here, the
chandeliers glisten just as the windows in church spaces do, only
here; they do not lead the light in an outwards direction, rather
directly to the ceiling decoration.
as extensive ceiling lighting became possible, ceilings were –
mostly in the form of an oval cartouche – the medium for iconographic ceiling frescos, similar to those found in sacred buildings of
Baroque times. occasionally – as in the Palau de Musica in Barcelona
– these frescos were replaced by large expanses of glass; this
approach suggests regular daylight use as found in music halls and
not necessarily in opera houses. The ceiling fresco tradition has been
preserved throughout the 20th century and the destruction of two
World Wars: in the 1950s, the Palais Garnier received a fresco by
Marc chagall and the Gran Teatre de Liceu in Barcelona was faithfully
restored following a fire in 1994, including the frescos by Perejaume
that mirror the theatre seating in a most peculiar way. even these
new, pictorial applications in older buildings have an older function:
they divert the view from the ceiling back downwards into the room
and its lighting; even the visitors become part of the performance
just as on stage when the house lights are down. This is precisely how
they have been photographed by ahmet ertuğ.
artificial light in opera house interiors – that is, in addition to
the auditorium, the vestibule, foyers, staircases, mirrored halls
and of course other ancillary rooms and boxes – determines the
colour scheme of the room and therefore the image taken by the
photographer. concerning this colour scheme, one can once again,
through the œuvre of ahmet ertuğ, trace the journey from east to
West, from the orient to the Modern World. his earlier books are
devoted to the faithful reproduction of ancient and medieval asian
masterpieces whilst in the objects remain concisely bathed in a light
resembling the reflection of the sun. This effect is heightened
through the use of an ivory toned printing paper and a mostly
dark-brown background; this principle is only broken in the works
on textiles and ceramics – here, a sky blue plays a metaphoric as well
as technical role. a highly differentiated scale of yellow and red
shades – that can be toned down to shades of brown by adding
minerals – forms the basis of oriental colour charts. a strong
contour line is often used to separate two colours; almost always
black or off-white – just as in ceramic ornaments and tiled walls.
Iconologically important colours – for instance the green of the
prophet Mohammed and the blues used in various heavenly
52
fIg 1 Sultan Süleyman Bridge. Büyükçekmece, İstanbul. sinan: an architectural genius, p.144, pl. 47
fIg 2 Alexander Sarcophagus, from royal tomb complex at Sidon, late fourth century BC., painted marble, L: 3.18 m. Inv. 370, sculptured for eternity: Treasures of
hellenistic, roman and Byzantine art from İstanbul archaeological Museum, p. 101, pl. 21
53
fIg 3 The Tomb of Crown Prince Mehmed surrounded by the graves of dignitaries. sinan: an architectural genius, p. 84, pl.21
54
fIg 4 Princes’ tombs, Şehzade Mosque. sinan: an architectural genius, p. 16, pl. 8
55
fIg 5 Selimiye Mosque, Edirne: The imperial pew (the screened enclosure at the corner) commands a prominent position in the vast interior.
sinan: an architectural genius, p.216, pl. 77
fIg 6 The nave of the Hagia Sophia. hagia sophia: a Vision for empires, p. XI
56
fIg 8 The Valley of the Swords, Cappadocia. panoramic landscapes of cappadocia, p.259, pl. 49
fIg 9 The Oval room, National Library of France, Paris. Temples of Knowledge: historical libraries of the Western World, p.84, pl. 15
fIg 7 Duke Humphrey’s library, Oxford, England. Temples of Knowledge: historical libraries of the Western World, p.192, pl. 85
58
59
fIg 10 The Labrouste room, National Library of France, Paris. Temples of Knowledge: historical libraries of the Western World, p.82, pl. 13
60
fIg 11 The Library of Sainte-Geneviève, Paris, France. Temples of Knowledge: historical libraries of the Western World, p.90, pl. 18
61
62
fIg 12 Trinity College Library,
fIg 14 The annex of the
the Long room, Dublin, Ireland.
Temples of Knowledge,
p.202, pl. 92
Library of Senate, Paris, France.
Temples of Knowledge,
p.94, pl. 21
fIg 13 The Picton Reading
fIg 15 August Herzog
room, Liverpool Central Library,
England. Temples of
Knowledge, p.199, pl. 90
Library, Wolfenbüttel, Germany.
Temples of Knowledge,
p.180, pl. 78
63
fIg 16 The modular classroom units of the medreses at Süleymaniye are capped with a battery of domes and chimneys that add a powerful architectural statement to the
edifice. sinan: an architectural genius, slipcase image
64
anthracite of Jean Nouvel and the clinical white of santiago
calatrava, who in their modernity, do not even contrast the stage
area from the auditorium. It is therefore a journey from ancient
times and renaissance to the modern age of building undertaken
by ahmet ertuğ in his Palaces of Music. With this, he cautiously
introduces his books’ observers to his role as photographer that
uses his medium – as do all active architects – in the context of
modernisation, i.e. adjusting in time towards the present. ahmet
ertuğ reveals himself as a photographer who is capable of more than
just capturing the moment: he directs our view of history. That he
uses more than just light and colour for this shall be seen in the
example of european opera and music house opulence as further
defined in this portrayal.
references – are rarely used for large surfaces, rather in smaller
contrast areas superimposed on the red/yellow background. The
best and, for all following designs, most significant colour-palette
was developed in around 1540 by Maqsud Kashani for his Ardabil
carpets; it contains a basic scale of reds, yellows, and sand tones
upon which the highlights are set in blue, green, white, and black.
Without it, the colour scheme found in oriental art cannot be
understood and this has therefore become a natural cornerstone for
ahmet ertuğ in his photographic colour scheme.
as in the case of perspective, this results in a fundamentally
different version of colour contrasts as found in christian-Western
image construction: whereas here, a colour scheme dictates that all
colours of the spectrum are considered equally, thereby leading to
contrasting effects and harmony, the oriental colour scheme is built
up more linearly and is only broken up through use of contrasts.
precisely this principle is true in the photography of ahmet ertuğ –
beyond the strong contrast in brightness seen in practically all of his
images; almost all colours are based on a light yellow or sandcoloured tone. Images can be found in the books on the Hagia
Sophia and on Sinan that, on this basis, show small inclusions of light
blue and cold white: the interior of sinan’s Süleymaniye mosque is
a symphony of sand colours with brown contrast lines over red
foundations, however, here and there white or blue window details
and small tiles and lamps in cold shades can be found, leaving the
rest to bask in the warmth of the afternoon sun. In the european
libraries, this contrast becomes the signet of an imaginary journey
from east to West: where the prague National library evokes a
strongly contrasting colour scheme between the dark brown of
the wood and the reflecting blue of the ground, the bright and
thoroughly cool Baroque rooms of the monastery libraries in
admont and einsiedeln provide the transition to the understated
splendour of the libraries in salamanca and Mafra with their bluered-green and blue-white fundamental tones. green also dominates
in the large national libraries in paris and london, while finally, a
warm, wooden contrasting tone is provided by the private library of
lord humphries in oxford, representing a harmonious balance
between orient and occident. [fIg 7]
a similar journey through colour and light can be undertaken
in the work of ahmet ertuğ on the opera houses of europe, but only
under slightly different conditions: the contrasts are – according to
the object in question and its artificial illumination – less and the
colour scheme is still based on the oriental red/yellow foundation.
here, however, lies the contrast to the previous books: the
imaginary journey no longer moves in space, but in time. from
palladio and scamozzi, with their austere renaissance triumphs –
only contrasted by the narrow, brown streets in the rear stage area
– the path leads to the intimate stage areas in Bayreuth and Bologna,
with their warm monochromes in red and beige. The classical opera
houses, with their opulent furnishings in red and gold lead to the
colourfulness of the art Nouveau and art déco, as seen in both
Barcelona buildings. at the end of this journey lie the cold blue-
on July 16th 1782, Wolfgang amadeus Mozart scored a triumph:
his Entführung aus dem Serail was received with great pomp after its
premiere in Vienna’s hofburgtheater on Michaelerplatz, marking
the crest of a wave in the current music business, the opera turca. The
fact that this was a commissioned opera to celebrate the hundredth
anniversary of the last battle against the Turks at the gates of
Vienna, remains insignificant; equally unimportant was the fact that
it had been written, as ordered by emperor Joseph II, as a Singspiel
in the german language, at last providing the maniera italiana of
opera buffa with an opposing form. Important alone was the fact
that, with this opera and its huge success, the furnishings of the
theatre, the staging and the actors were equally as important as the
musical or dramatic foundation. Mozart’s Entführung was the peak
of Turquerie in opera; less than a decade later the genre had ebbed
away completely, save later orientalism in the 19th and 20th
centuries. The complete work; from the music with its Janissary
instruments, through the allocation of roles from the libretto to the
richly furnished stage and costumes, reintegrates all possible forms
of Turkish (in the broadest sense oriental) elements into the Western
culture of the 18th century.
daily life in feudal Vienna had long since been awash with all
things Turkish: coffee houses were scattered throughout the city
centre, meeting places for poets and debaters; carpets are not only
seen in Imperial family portraits by court artist Johann zoffany,
whereby the 1776 portrait of crown prince pietro leopoldo of
Tuscany – six years before Mozart’s opera – featuring its 15th
century cairo silk Mamluken carpet, is the most famous. This
painting, like so many others by the same artist who came to Vienna
from london, displays the carpet in its european position, unable
to give of its opulence and greatness: it lies on the floor to be walked
upon. Its pattern, creative elements and their meaning are barely
recognisable; the colours are, through daily wear and tear and
cleaning, long since gone. only indirectly, via other media such as
the book – ahmet ertuğ has produced a series of books on carpets
and textiles from the orient and also included these objects in his
museum books – has the carpet returned to its original, intended
position: on the wall, in plan-parallel view as with a painting. similar
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changes are also true for other oriental cultural goods such as coffee:
by the beginning of the 19th century, the Imperial company
product register commissioned a set of finest coffee cups from a
Viennese producer – the drink could not possibly be enjoyed from
a less than worthy vessel – and from this, the very porcelain and glass
assortment was developed that is still found in the Viennese coffee
house culture of today. The adaptation of an unknown art and
culture is a slow process that must spread out in both directions; this
is equally true of craftsmanship, manufacture, industry, design and
art, and therefore also of photography.
The historical development of cultural exchange until the
modern age – including the development from the renaissance
image construction through to technical media such as photography
and the internet – is intrinsically reflected in the development of
the works of ahmet ertuğ. The forerunners to the opulence of the
Palaces of Music can first be seen in his books on museums, on
sacred buildings, cappadocian landscapes [fIg 8] and finally in
the Temples of Knowledge. The ultima ratio in european library
architecture, henri labrouste’s Bibliothéque Nationale de France,
[fIg 9] demonstrates the wealth of knowledge preserved by it in two
rooms, for which ahmet ertuğ sought and found suitable picture
formats: the larger oval room is depicted in full use by its students,
representing itself in photographic form with a layout of the room
seen at the lower edge of the image. The axial view shows, from the
bottom of the telephones, card indexes, and computer parts over
the large reading tables with their green glass lamps to the ceiling
which displays – similar to the panthéon – some of the cultural
stages of ahmet ertuğ’s life: Byzance, alexandria, paris, and london.
The smaller reading room from the year 1868 – today known after
the architect as the Salle Labrouste – is, however, depicted rather
like a restaurant after closing time: chairs are upturned on the
tables, workplaces cleared away. [fIg 10] This is actually the time
prior to the room’s restoration but the image can also be taken as a
reference to the conception of the german photographer candida
höfer, who wanted her book on the subject Bibliotheken be understood as a collection of memory spaces; again, this comparison
will be dealt with later in the essay. looking at the two pictures
ahmet ertuğ took in the older Bibliothéque St.Genévieve in paris and
recognising the various computers and numerous signs and
regulations on the tables, one must, inevitably, remember that the
avant-garde artist Marcel duchamp worked here for two years as a
librarian. In these images, all libraries represent themselves by a
structural subdivisionality that can be recognised as lush, indeed
opulent and is to be found in the smallest details of its locality. This
is true for the dark space of the Trinity College Library in dublin as
well as for the austerity and brightness of Liverpool Central Library;
it is however just as easily recognisable in the more modern steel
constructions such as the extension to the Senate Library in paris or
the Herzog-August-Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel. [fIg 11 - 15] In the case
of the latter, the white leather spines provide an almost exotic contrast to the cool clarity of the shelf structures under the lavishly dec-
orated historic dome.
This is similarly true for the staging of grand opera: since the
introduction of the exotic in libretti, the couleur locale has been a
demand of the press and audience alike; indeed, in the décoraddicted 18th century, the staging, decoration, actors, opera house
and audience added up to make a most grand event to be readily
repeated – Mozart’s “entführung” was performed fourteen times in
its first year alone, each time with exactly the same pomp in the
furnishing and decoration of the hofburgtheater. even the young artist
gustav Klimt – the famed grand Master of Viennese art Nouveau
around 1900 – had, in 1886, furnished the former Burgtheater with
oriental paintings on the back wall and ceiling; all to no avail, the
building was torn down in 1888 – opera stagings had long since
been moved to the opera house, opened in 1869 with a
performance of Mozart’s “don Juan”. Irrespective of the preferred
style of contractor or architect, opera houses were always richly
decorated and furnished with the finest materials available, much
like the operas themselves. In this respect, the view from the stage
into the auditorium, presented by ahmet ertuğ in all opera houses,
is always a view of the audience splendour planned for the
performance occasion. precisely this splendour is, since the time of
opera turca, inseparably connected to the orient; here, ahmet
ertuğ’s particular perspective is at home. at this point, two details
should be mentioned that stand for the whole: the arrangement of
the boxes and rows and the view towards the stage – and in most
cases – the curtain.
The small-scale structure of the boxes and rows, as seen in from
the stage, is reminiscent of ahmet ertuğ’s photography of persian
ornaments and Turkish carpets. The arch-formed completion of
the boxes in Bayreuth and Bologna as seen from a distance, appear
to evoke the Herati motif. In the palace theatres of Versailles and
Munich, the balcony ornamentation reminds us of the laces of
Kelim’s Chahar-Mahal. In more modern houses, with strong
centre-fixed accents, one is involuntarily reminded of Kerman
garden carpets with their precisely coffered form. finally, the
unending motif of the palm or the rose as room decoration and carpet
feature can be found; an element joining east and West since the
renaissance, whether in
Anthemion or Shah-Abbas pattern – both revived from ancient
times. These associations are the result of the two-dimensional
layout vision of ahmet ertuğ; they are even stronger when viewing
ceilings, where here, frescos take on the role of the central carpet
element and where, in the case of the Palau de Musica in Barcelona,
it becomes, besides the enormous glass teardrop, an independent
three-dimensional ceiling rose; in the Gran Teatre de Liceu in the
same city and for the same reason, the modern fresco also attracts
the interest of the photographer. The associations with these
patterns are obviously only justifiable after seeing the photographic
images; likewise, tracing these connections is dependent on
previous knowledge of the photographer’s work – an important
indicator for ahmet ertuğ’s handling of the subject opera houses.
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daguerre on the Boulevard du Temple in May 1838 showing a man
getting his boots polished – a trick by talented theatre director
daguerre himself. ahmet ertuğ – barely after arriving thematically
in the West with his Palaces of Music – places himself here in the
picture history of photography, selfconfidently finding his own track
of imagery therein.
furthermore, they constantly refer to previous works of the
photographer. on consulting his view of the entrance dome to the
Süleymaniye mosque [fIg 16] by sinan with its calligraphically placed
shadows, one recognises the same ornamentation found in
oriental carpet art just as in the rows of boxes in opera houses. even
staircases and pillars in grand foyers, such as in the Palais Garnier in
paris, disappear in the texture of the image, as in the similar motifs
found in a finely woven carpet.
The stage view uncovers two further levels of association: for
one thing, the stage curtain is an important feature of the entire
production; it begins and ends the actual performance. The Safety
Curtain in Covent Garden Opera in london provides a double
metaphor: it correlates strongly with the functional coolness of the
entire space whilst also revealing a most post-modern medial
pleonasm in the visible linguistic term itself. In the age of digital
image editing, such lettering can raise discussion amongst observers
in which the credibility of the recorded image is debated by speech
itself – is the lettering proof of analogue picture taking without
retouching or did it appear on the image during print preparation
using an image editor? It is the old Epimenides paradox – “cretans,
always liars” – with which we today must broach the subject of
images, as we did language in those days. Naturally, ahmet ertuğ
has photographed this lettering analogue, i.e. it remains unchanged,
just as he has captured the unnaturally white safety curtain in
Munich’s Residenztheater by François de Cuvilliès, only visible as
actual material through a minute gap at floor level. The counterpart
in the book’s great series seems to be the large and complex-folded
stage curtain in the Palais Garnier, as it was when unfolding before
and after performances with a unique dynamic: in ahmet ertuğ’s
photographic image, it appears once again as a reminiscence of the
orient and its magnificent textiles. But as in london and Munich,
this curtain was replaced by an iron ruleau for safety reasons,
painted in the form of the old textile construction.
The other level of association regarding the stage view is to be
found in the images where the stage is visible through open or partly
opened curtains: here, the theatre is shown as a machine, a
construction site of ingenious, magical theatrical arts, for which,
from the beginning of the history of opera, the finest technicians of
the time were enlisted. Not only the strong contrast in colour is
shown here, but also the view beyond the stage to the backstage
area and even outside the theatre demonstrates the difference
between the performance off and on stage. The stage flooring shows
direction markings; lamps and tools lie around; the stage managers
table has not been cleared away and occasionally, people are
visible in the shadows: opera is just the same as other illusions. This
is not only obvious in the Opéra Nouvel in lyon, due to the fact that
no colour contrast exist between stage and auditorium, but also – in
the case of the Palais Garnier photographs, most likely as a contrast
to the magnificent stage curtain – particularly where a rehearsal or
performance itself appears in the picture: The first photograph to be
taken of a human being was done by louis Jacques Mandé
architects often refer to their role models in their work, no matter
how far back in history they appear. photographers, until recent
decades, were less likely to do this, which makes it all the more
surprising that ahmet ertuğ, in his Hagia Sophia book, should allow
many pages of photographs by pascal sébah and policarpe Joaillier,
often presented in the same scale as his own. he need not have
feared this competition in any way, neither regarding technique –
the finest available in 1895, just like for ahmet ertuğ a century
later – nor regarding perspective or axes of sight. sébah and Joaillier
were certainly not the first to capture Istanbul in photographic
panoramas and documentations. They rather saw themselves as
part of a tradition, formed over forty years: in the 1850s, felix Beato
and James robertson took the first panoramas of the city and the
Bosporus; they were followed by many others, the best known of
which, besides sébah and Joaillier, were the abdullah Brothers and
the swede guillaume Berggen. panoramic views appear regularly
in ahmet ertuğ’s books, not only in the works on the Hagia Sophia
or on Sinan, but also in single editions, for example that on
cappadocian landscapes. his wide-scale images depict pervasive
areas and are taken from a medium to large height – for instance
from church towers and minarets or from mountain platforms;
“regular” panoramas, adjusted to compensate for the conformity of
angularity, are rarely found in his work.
early photographers captured images of the city of Istanbul as a
whole as well as interiors and exteriors of individual buildings, all
for much the same reason: they were able to sell their pictures to
tourists, who from the late 18th century travelled to the eastern
Mediterranean as part of the Grand Tour and therefore to Istanbul
– in addition to Jerusalem and cairo or gizeh – as one of three tour
highlights. To make sure the pictures could be sold, they had to be
absolutely perfect in every detail as the travellers’ accounts retold
the descriptions of the local guides and archaeologists. a large
proportion of buyers was made up of diplomats, import/export
merchants and the military; an altogether demanding clientele, in
possession of enough knowledge to accept only the finest quality
photographs. Travel photography – as this genre was named
and generally accepted in historical collections – was offered in
various formats and sizes, (until around 1900, picture print in books
was barely possible) limited by the technology of the time: as
enlargements were practically impossible, positives were exactly the
same size as the negatives with formats greater than 12” to 16” are
rare in the field of travel photography. ahmet ertuğ doubtless
came across travel photography during his time as preservation
architect; the collegial reference to sébah and Joillier is therefore a
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noble gesture.
at the same time, there were already trained architects in many
points throughout europe who turned to their large cameras and
provided portfolios of large scale images of exemplary buildings for
their younger colleagues and their studies. The formats of these
model portfolios conform entirely to those of the special editions
issued by ahmet ertuğ’s publishing house today: for example,
hermann rückwardt, a Berlin architect, published from 1895 on
two portfolios “Architekturteile und Details von Bauwerken des
Mittelalters bis zur Neuzeit” with a total of 150 plates in 12” x 16”
format on card in 22” x 26”; the emphasis between old and new was
likely to awake customer interest: ninety new objects were
introduced alongside sixty older ones – the buyers were themselves
architects who took suggestions from these images for building
solutions, ornamentation and façade design. Many 19th century
architects collected every possible kind of photographic model that
was for sale, from travel photography to these modern portfolios –
their archives were to them, as fritz schumacher later wrote about
his teacher gabriel von seidl, “the herbaria of their artistic ecstasy”.
It must not be forgotten at this point that all heroes of the architectural modern age, from adolf loos to le corbusier, from Walter
gropius and erich Mendelsohn to frank lloyd Wright, kept
substantial photo archives in which they collected not only
examples their own work, but also that of other architects and
photographers. The modern age was – literally and in terms of
ancient death cults – built on the remains of the photographic
history of building.
ahmet ertuğ places his work not only in the tradition of the
travel photographers in Istanbul or of the 19th century Grand Tour,
but also in the impressive history of architectural documentation
that accompanies the modern age of the 20th century and out of
which came a entire series of architecture photographers, whose
work is deservedly dealt and displayed in international auctions and
exhibitions. It would be impossible to mention all names here and
equally difficult to cite those whose output has directly or indirectly
influenced ahmet ertuğ and his work. In great Britian, worth
mentioning are herbert felton, eric de Maré and edwin smith – in
particular the latter, a studied architect and collector of works on
historic buildings; in france, claude gravot and lucien hervé; in
the Usa, Ken hedrich, ezra stoller, evelyn hofer and Julius
shulman; in germany, arthur Koester, father and son hugo
schmölz and heinrich heidersberger; in Japan, Ishimoto yasuhiro
– these are only the great names spanning the past thirty to sixty
years. Therefore, only those immediate forebears and contemporaries shall be mentioned whose works can, in some way or another,
be related to the œuvre of ahmet ertuğ.
from earlier generations, it is primarily worth mentioning yukio
futagawa and reinhart Wolf. The first made his name as the interpreter of the Heroic Period of Modernism – as peter and allison
smithson used to call it – after having gone a long way from
looking at Japanese architecture into the structuralism of moder-
nity. Not only in his way from east to West his œuvre is similar to
the one of ahmet ertuğ: futagawa produced large format and
perfectly printed book marking the level of understanding architecture and culture for generations of students. reinhart Wolf, due to
his early death, has not had the influence on european photography that he deserves: in the 1970s, as distinguished portraitist and,
for more than twenty years, germany’s best (and most expensive)
commercial photographer, Wolf began, parallel to the works of hilla
& Bernd Becher, a series of large-format, extremely delicately
captured images on historical architecture. In the fifteen years
he dedicated to this subject, he was able to, much like a building
preservationist, master a series of disparate yet post-modern
themes: german historic buildings and social housing, skyscraper
towers in New york, spanish castillos and mausoleums, shelves of
rice wine in Japanese temples and also encyclopaedic series of
regional recipe books – all exquisitely captured with precisely the
same technique used also by ahmet ertuğ and likewise presented in
greatly enlarged formats for exhibitions and in large-format books.
Much of the fascination of large-format and precise photography, as
attributed to the class of Bernd Becher in the düsseldorf academy
today, leads directly back to reinhart Wolf.
standing out from precisely this class – by all means an important
class yet not to be overestimated – is a photographer who had
previously learned her trade from one of germany’s best architecture
photographers: candida höfer. höfer returned to architecture
photography following training by hugo schmölz Jr. and, after a
number of detours, including the “Becher-class”, concentrating on
many similar subjects to ahmet ertuğ: a book of hers exists on
libraries and she has published a work on the Palais Garnier,
whereby she quotes, on the one hand, an old german book
tradition, especially the works on the same subjects by helga
schmidt-glassner – whose book on older libraries is a true
encylopaedia of photogenic spaces – and on the other, older
documentarians such as dirk reinartz or Manfred hamm. The
latter developed his programme of precise spatial representation in
industrial interiors, just as did reinhard Matz or ferit Kuyas; a
contrast to the conceptual programme of the Bechers could be
sought here in order to determine the documentary qualities of
ahmet ertuğ’s work. he, however, stands confidently amongst the
ranks of his travel photography predecessors, who have handed
down those photographic images deemed important enough to
their contemporaries and for posterity.
The greatest difference between the work of candida höfer and
ahmet ertuğ emerges from this tradition: höfer captures explicitly
memory spaces, as much her own as also those of a collective
Western society, using central perspective as the metaphor of the
plastic effect of an evolutionary historiography, emphasised by her
preferred use of square-format images. her images nearly never
show a planimetric perspective, as do the compositions of ahmet
ertuğ. comparing both of their images of the same spaces, some
taken from practically the same position, one quickly notices that
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The material tradition is less important here than the ideal, even if
the quality must be the finest available at the time of execution. This
certainly applies to ahmet ertuğ and his photographic books: The
images represent the view of an age, the books are long-lasting
products and therefore culturally sustainable, exhibitions of
photography serve as a better awareness of the true world.
the höfer image is instantly recognisable and understood fully,
whereas ahmet ertuğ’s image entices the eye on a journey through
the room which can last for hours and is to be repeated again and
again. candida höfer’s compositions – continually reproduced
axial-view images tend to be the exception in her work – live from
their plastic effect into the depth of perspective, whereas ahmet
ertuğ discloses the full opulence of his subject in his work, making
it a lot more accessible to the viewer and holding the memory of it
for a much longer time.
a comparison is also possible between ahmet ertuğ’s generation
and his predecessors and a series of american photographers: over
several decades, richard Nickel documented building work in
chicago in meticulous images of the construction and demolition
of large edifices. richard pare and cervin robinson dedicated
themselves to special types of buildings such as law courts or urban
roof landscapes, collated in extensive series and publications –
mostly however in black and white, not in colour. a series of young
architects and photographers have, in turn, taken the same journey
as ahmet ertuğ, but in the other direction: Wilmar Koenig and
Klemens ortmeyer have completed series of images of mosques
and temples throughout the orient, presenting their work in
large-format colour photographs. here, too, is the difference to
ahmet ertuğ more than obviously clear: these photographers are
so fascinated by the architecture that they capture more their own
marvel at the building than presenting its finer characteristics thus
failing to create a true documentation of the edifice itself – in most
cases not knowing what exactly they depict. Whether these images
will survive as art, only time can tell.
a similar artistic-conceptual approach to ahmet ertuğ’s is
followed by german photographer Michael ruetz; his large-format
work Eye on Eternity depicts, in ruthless honesty, monuments of the
ancient world in their current environment, surrounded by refuse,
traffic and pollution. although his images appear completely
different to those of ahmet ertuğ, he is close in spirit, the images
merely showing the other side of the coin: material preservation of
the testimonies of history is only available through the transfer of
media, not just through its cultivation alone. concerning the layers
of preservation, the coincidence of discovery and disappearance has
become the constructive ground of historical identity. perhaps a
Japanese experience influenced the photographic work of ahmet
ertuğ: temples may only appear correct if they are, materially
speaking, new and fresh – Kyoto’s restorers must possess the oldest
workshops in the world, some more than eight hundred years old.
ask an architect about his work and you will hear a great number of
theories on why he was not able to build as he would have liked. ask
a photographer the same question and he will regale you with neverending anecdotes on the circumstances of his work and just how the
shown image was made to appear incidental. When an architect
decides to become a photographer (the reverse is practically
unknown), he wishes to tell a story that becomes history – as in his
previous architectural work. ahmet ertuğ is a true exponent of
history in stories; in his individual images just as in the context of his
exhibitions, portfolios and books. his route from the orient to the
Modern age was dictated by a view to preservation, initially leaving
his own architectural and civil-planning modernity in doubt. That
this view itself would become a historic moment; that the books and
their images would themselves make history, could not have been
anticipated by ahmet ertuğ at the outset. Now, after a quarter of a
century and over twenty books on historic themes, he is finally able,
in Palaces of Music, to capture the most up-to-date objects as he is
able to predict their going down in history. he is now able to look
back on each picture – and we with him – and find his own history
reflected within. he furthermore represents the progression of
photographic history and its social acceptance as art. ahmet ertuğ
has become one of the greatest of his kind.
one final aspect of the story seems worth mentioning: as long
as ahmet ertuğ continues to work as architect and photographer,
the United Nations World cultural heritage agreement will
continue to exist. Unlike any other photographer, ahmet ertuğ has
implemented the intentions of this agreement. Whichever theme
he chooses for his photography, whatever he turns into a series of
stunning images – the objects of his curiosity inevitably become
part of the world’s cultural heritage. his vision, his images stand for
the independence of the recognition of eurocentric history; they
guarantee a post-colonial glimpse of that which is worth preserving
in the world. ahmet ertuğ is not just an active contemporary of the
world cultural heritage – his work has become part of this cultural
heritage itself.
Translation Fraser Gartshore
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