As soon as I saw a photo of the Odunpazari Modern Museum, I knew I wanted to see it in person. The building was conjured up by Japanese architecture firm Kengo Kuma and Associates, known for designs featuring natural materials such as timber, stone and paper. They aim to amalgamate nature and architecture to create…
On a recent trip I visited the Eskisehir Museum of Independence. Housed in an early example of Turkish first national architecture built in 1915, the museum celebrates Atatürk and the Turkish Republic through hundreds of photos, paintings and collages. It includes displays of events such as the battles of Gallipoli, Sakarya and Dumlupınar, models of…
Almost as soon as Kim set foot on Turkish soil he started taking photos, and he’s been doing so ever since. On his very first trip to Göreme in central Turkey he took more than 200 photos in a week. In these days of digital that might not seem a lot, but back then everything…
Reading Carla Grissman’s memoir Dinner of Herbs took me back to my first long stay in Turkey in 1990. I was in Göreme, still a small village back then with a population of 2000 and a nascent tourism sector. Most Göremeli still grew their own vegetables on plots of land wedged between fairy chimneys, ate…
Turkish shoe shine men are only one of what I call my little men, the service providers essential in my life, no matter where I live. In Kayseri, where I worked as a teacher for two years, the Turkish shoe shine men were easy to spot, just not where you might expect. Read on to…
When I arrived in Goreme for the first time, it was high summer. Nestled in the Anatolian heartland, Goreme was a traditional farming community like any other in Turkey except for its spectacular landscape. The arid countryside, already aged and yellowed over thousands of years, glared harshly under the heat of the day. My head…