Places of worship special field of interest for Turkish-Armenian Architect

The Surp Vortvots Vorodman Church was in a bad state of disrepair. Its recent renovation breathed new life into the building (inset).

ESIN KAYA, İSTANBUL
17/7/2011

Turkish-Armenian architect Kevork Özkaragöz, who comes from the province of Malatya in eastern Turkey, differs from many colleagues in his profession in that he does not confine his abilities solely to a certain category of buildings.

Instead, he works on almost all types of places of worship from various faiths, including mosques, cemevis (Alevi places of worship) and churches.

Speaking to the Aksiyon weekly, Özkaragöz said an architect must be extremely sensitive when designing a place of worship.

The architect recently completed the restoration of the Surp Vortvots Vorodman Church in İstanbul as an İstanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture (ECOC) initiative, with the assistance of the ECOC Agency and members of Turkey’s Armenian community.

Özkaragöz moved to İstanbul when he was 6 years old. Özkaragöz’s father was a carpenter and his grandfather a builder. His father, who did not know how to speak or write in the Armenian language, sent him to an Armenian school hoping his son would learn his mother tongue. Özkaragöz went on to study architecture at İstanbul Technical University and became an architect just as his father hoped he would.

“I have designed pretty much every type of building except for an airport and a hospital,” Özkaragöz told Aksiyon. His first experience in designing a place of worship was a cemevi in İstanbul’s Okmeydanı neighborhood. When the mayor of the district of Şişli first asked him to contribute to the construction of the Hacı Bektaş Veli Cemevi and Culture Center in 1994, he did not know much about cemevis or the Alevi faith. In taking on the project he decided to learn about the Alevi faith, so he attended religious ceremonies by the Alevi community in Göztepe for four months. There he spoke at length with Alevi dedes, men who offer spiritual guidance to members of the Alevi community. He then went on to design a new cemevi which was considered to be modern in comparison to traditional cemevis. Özkaragöz said the new design delighted regular attendees of the cemevi.

He is currently working on a mosque, a project that he says he finds highly motivating. A municipality building he had designed in Gönen in the province of Balıkesir was complimented by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. As a result the mayor of Gönen then asked Özkaragöz to also design a mosque for the district. For this project Özkaragöz contacted a number of imams and regular mosque goers to learn about what to pay attention to when designing a mosque. After drafting the initial design for the mosque, he experienced a first in his career when he presented the design to the local Muslim community for their approval. The project has since been praised by many and Özkaragöz said he has received many phone calls from people congratulating him on his design.

Özkaragöz believes Turkey has a serious problem in the design of new mosques. He believes that architects are making “bad copies” of gorgeous mosques built during the Ottoman era. “People want modern mosques, not traditional ones. Architects should see this,” he said.

Özkaragöz first worked on the restoration of a patriarchate building when he took on a project at the Armenian Patriarchate in İstanbul, which was damaged after the 1999 Marmara earthquake.

He does not refer to himself as an “expert” on the design of places of worship because he believes such expertise would require greater experience. However, he does love the excitement of designing new buildings and his excitement grows if the building is a place of worship. For Özkaragöz, the places of worship that he has designed to date are his pride and joy.

Surp Vortvots Vorodman Church in particular is of special significance to Özkaragöz. The church’s name means “Children of Thunder” in English. Built by Armenian architect Krikor Balyan in 1828, the church holds importance with Turkey’s Armenian community. It has been closed to religious services since World War I. Work to restore the building started in 1998 but was not completed due to lack of funding. The church is expected to finally open in the coming weeks. Özkaragöz is one of many architects working on the restoration of the church. According to Özkaragöz, this restoration is much more than a simple restoration of a building for the Armenian community in Turkey. For Armenians it is also a “mental restoration,” pointing to the renewal and repair of once-tense relations between Turks and Armenians.

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