Erdogan to tear down Ataturk-era arts centre
Turkish leader’s plan to replace it with an opera house ‘is his aim to destroy founder’s modern and secular country’
ISTANBUL // On the buzzing Taksim Square in Istanbul, the focal point of the modern city, a giant disused building looms over visitors.
Its windows are broken and a few tattered advertising banners flap disconsolately in the breeze.
This is the Ataturk Cultural Centre, opened in 1969 to realise the dream of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, for the country to become a world-class centre for the arts, including western genres such as classical music, opera and ballet.
But the building has endured a chequered, even cursed history. It had to be rebuilt after a fire in 1970 and was reopened in 1978. It then served as the centre of Istanbul’s cultural life for three decades before being closed for restoration in 2008.
But no restoration ever took place and the building has since stood unloved and decaying through the tumult of the mass protests in 2013 against president Recep Tayyip Erdogan – who was premier at the time – on Taksim Square and the failed coup against his rule on July 15 last year.
Its brooding shell has become a symbol of the troubles dogging the arts in Turkey at a time of declining funding, claims of censorship under Mr Erdogan and the terror attacks of last year, keeping some foreign artists away.
After years of debate on the building’s future, Mr Erdogan this month offered a radical and clinical solution: demolish the building and replace it with a world-class opera house.
His proposal has aroused excitement in some quarters but hostility from others – particularly those who view the modernist building as a worthy example of secular Turkish modern architecture.
“The AKM project in Istanbul is over. We will knock it down and Istanbul will gain a beautiful new edifice,” Mr Erdogan said. His government has been criticised at times for showing a lack of interest in the arts beyond Turkey’s internationally successful television dramas.
But Mr Erdogan said: “All we want is for Istanbul to have the culture and arts centre that it deserves.”
The disuse of the cultural centre left a gaping hole in Istanbul’s cultural life. The opera and ballet companies largely perform at the Sureyya Operasi on the Asian side of the city, an architecturally significant 1920s building but too small for grand shows. “We have been waiting for a proper concert hall and the news coming from president Erdogan made us more than happy,” said Yesim Gurer Oymak, director of the annual Istanbul Music Festival, organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts. Should a new opera house be built, Istanbul would be following other cities in the Islamic world, notably Dubai and Muscat, that have built new auditoriums that have been very popular with locals and visitors.
It would also be a huge boost to Taksim Square, attractions of which have diminished especially since the protests in 2013 and which is now avoided by many residents.
The 1960s Ataturk Cultural Centre, a brutalist edifice typical of its era, is regarded with scorn by some, who view it as an unwanted symbol of the “old Turkey” before Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party came to power in 2002.
But for others the building is a proud symbol of the modern republic set up by Ataturk – an opera buff – and must be restored rather than demolished.
Sami Yilmazturk, chairman of the Istanbul Chamber of Architects, said the plan to demolish the cultural centre was “part of a project to say ‘stop’ to modernisation and destroy the republic”.
“The republic project put a dream, a utopia, an objective before Turkey. The plan to demolish AKM is an attempt to reverse that goal,” he said.