Istanbul, a treasure house of cultural heritage, has long been under the scrutiny of various research disciplines that aim to define, explore, conserve and restore the multidimensional assets of the city’s historical capital. Including intangible assets that are passed down from generation to generation in a myriad of human relations, this capital does neither refer to a homogeneous and monobloc body nor a permanently stable state. It is rather an energetic flow that is hardwired to the currents of politics, culture and economy. As this dynamism may be associated with progress and prosperity, this also points to threats of decay, loss and extinction.

This is the point where design research enters the stage. What can design’s unique capacities offer Istanbul to revitalize the city’s historical capital in sustainable ways? How can design activate local human knowledge and experience to resist the burden of everyday concerns that damage the sustainability of heritage? To answer such complex questions, a rich laboratory is Istanbul’s traditional market-complexes, namely bazaars. Bazaars offer multi-layered service platforms where economic and social patterns of trading converge with dynamic modes of production, shopping and consumption. Bazaars, in this context, do not address a mere site for purchase, but rather a complex product of collective experience that has evolved for centuries via key socio-economic and moral encounters.



A bazaar firstly relates to a lively social space where goods are exchanged in forms of established rituals. Such a socio-spatial content is collectively built by actors who meet, mediate and negotiate a myriad of meanings and customs that vary from simple concepts of material culture to more complex and specific contexts such as trade norms and labour conditions. Secondly, a bazaar refers to functions of spatial design where the spatial relationship of these actors and commercial traffic are effectively structured and organized with traces of greater networks such as technology, urban morphology, climate conditions and globalization. This interconnection is the key to understand the contemporary bazaar. Integration of national economies into global economy, concentrated forms of social interaction, dramatic expansion of tourism industry, flexible manufacture and labour are some examples that shake the traditional bazaar to its core. Within this context, Lab of Heritage studio will focus on projects exploring interdisciplinary design methods that safeguard the heritage of İstanbul’s bazaars while responding to the emerging requirements of a globalized world. We will deal with research questions about, for example, how we can generate safeguarding tools or methods that resist rapid identity shifts imposed by lucrative tourism business such as in the case of Kadıköy Çarşısı. As more questions can be generated, an alternative research question may address supportive and revitalizing projects for local sectors that feed the bazaars’ product supply sustainably. In addition, a variety of angles can be developed with regards to competitive issues such as strengthening authentic and commercial qualities of bazaars in competition to modern shopping malls.

In a creative and collaborative interdisciplinary format, students are encouraged to think critically and problematize the transition in space and time. Building dialogues and narratives, students are expected to intervene designerly in how systems of exchange are conserved, imagined or reproduced.

Walking with Theory is a discursive and moving intervention. Its trajectory guides us to the Istanbul Market Complex – İstanbul Manifaturacılar Çarşısı. The walk takes place as part of the Interdisciplinary Course DES 508 whose theme addresses this year the study of Systems of Exchange.

Walking can serve as a demythologizing research tool, when aiming to activate and disseminate the public functions of history, memory, politics, and knowledge. In this sense, walking is proposed as an embodied Lab of Heritage, which delves into the dynamics of exchange as living trajectories with contradictions, limitations, and frictions. Walking with Theory is an invitation to critically study these dynamics and to open the possibility for imagining non-capitalist and non-cohesive ecologies of exchange. For this exercise, the nomadic aspects of knowledge-building will set the rhythm of our walk to transgress discipline and its borders.


In the following day, the workshop concludes with a lecture by David Muñoz that extends the theoretical framework to an international context. Muñoz introduces some internationalist resources in the quest for social, ecological, political and economic justice through architecture and design advancement. Presenting practical elaborations that emerged from two Schools of Architecture, UNAM—Mexico and UIAV—Italy, during the 1960s and 1970s.

Walking with Theory is a continuation of the (exhibition-forum-research) project Every Straight Line Bends By Its Own Weight. The title suggests that the predominant narrative of historical linearity tends to fall apart from its own gravitational heaviness and gaps. The project engages the question of heritage from a demythologizing position, it exercises the public use of memory as collective critical power to debate societal transformation, and it addresses the social aspect of imagination to ask: what can design/art do?

The Istanbul iteration for this project is produced by David Muñoz, Fahrettin Ersin Alaca, and Giovanna Esposito Yussif. The workshop is formulated under the collective-connective research platform NÆS—Nomad Agency/Archive of Emergent Studies. Upholding the interdependent political space of research as the right to know and study together, the platform aims to activate collective capacities to claim agency over historical processes, and to configure spaces for emergent knowledge transmission through transversal cross-disciplinary processes. Part of this project benefits from the support of KONE Foundation—Finland.

Exchange, as the fundamental facility of interrelations, derives from ecological and cultural paradigms. A fundamental concept in the heart of living beings and Anthropocene socialness that may be found in a myriad of power relations where one can read the nature and history. Not surprisingly, the origin of exchange has long been under scrutiny of study disciplines that vary from abstract, natural, social human, and historical sciences.

The second case study is based on an examination of the cross-cultural transferability of the Finnish case. In my doctoral research, I argue that the Finnish case can provide inspiration and movable lessons applicable to different cultural contexts and make useful contributions to the cultivation of a more sustainable consumer culture. In order to ground this discussion, I borrow the term “common stock” from anthropologist Lévi-Strauss (1952) to indicate that continuous intellectual interaction and cultural exchange constitute a fundamental part of humanity’s social history and development. Accordingly, I claim that the Finnish experience of addressing sustainability may be able to penetrate the intellectual capital of different cultures. In this context, I focus on countries with constantly growing economic capacities, such as emerging markets, that demonstrate alarming levels of growth in consumption and spending patterns. I explore these markets as potential areas for the transfer of a sustainability strategy of the kind represented by the Finnish case.

In order to discuss the necessity and feasibility of the real-world transferability of the hypothetical strategy, I concentrate on my home country, Turkey. As an emerging market economy, I discuss that Turkey may constitute a suitable context and pave the way for further cross-cultural application cases in the context of different emerging markets. This suitability depends first on distinct cultural and historical differences between Finland and Turkey. Unlike Finland, Turkey does not possess a modern design identity, but does have a rich traditional arts and crafts character. This character has taken shape over thousands of years through constant cultural interchange in the realms of architecture, arts, and crafts. In this context, I consider these distinctive cultural and historical differences as a favourably challenging environment in which to test the scalability of the research’s hypothesis in a theoretical context. I do not argue that the Turkish case is one that flows naturally from the Finnish. Rather, the argument is that Turkey presents a distinct case from that of Finland, and that it is this distinctiveness itself which will prove this research’s widespread applicability. Accordingly, I suggest that Turkey may have much potential in terms of achieving a certain degree of “heritage sensibility” in pursuit of social change. Aiming to guide future adopters of this research’s strategy to adopt models from different cultures, I discuss the feasibility and necessity of nurturing a heritage-oriented ethos in Turkey across economic, social, political, cultural, and design domains. I also argue that Turkey is a representative case of- some very large, important market segments globally that must be taken into account in efforts towards achieving sustainability (i.e. emerging markets, of which Finland is not an example).

I refer to the organised brotherhood of Turkish tradesmen and artisans of Akhism (Ahilik) – considered to have been founded in the 13th century by a local saint (dervish) Ahi Evran – as the institutional actor of Turkish arts and craft. Due to its humanist philosophy and teachings that show respect to all humanity, I suggest that the Akhis constitute the anonymous actor who can be mythologised in a way inspired by the Finnish case. In this vein, I attempt to outline a conceptual Akhi Myth where their creative power, life-long dedication to arts and craft, and self-discipline are praised allowing narrations in the service of contemporary understandings of design and sustainability. I ground my theoretical discussions within the study of a concrete case, that of Istanbul’s monumental Grand Bazaar, within which I conducted ethnographic research in two different sets of three-month time periods in 2014 and 2016. In my investigation, I again employ the term “cultural icon” to stress, acknowledge, and express the importance of the mythological ethos and national cultural fabric that surrounds permanent valorisation in design. In addition, discussion of this term helps me to recognise environmental consumer anxieties across the world as important components of an ideological platform to implement a specific heritage management model. The bazaar’s historical and social significance depends on its centuries-long role as the Ottoman Empire’s most important harbour, one shaped by the Ottomans’ unique organisational trade and crafts culture. I translate aspects of the latter into a contemporary lexicon of design, policy-making, and innovation. As centuries have passed, the identity of the Grand Bazaar has been transformed under ever-changing economic and social parameters, up to the present day. Currently the Grand Bazaar largely serves a market for tourists coming to Istanbul from abroad. Through a thick description of the bazaar derived from my qualitative research, I describe the mounting problems of authenticity and sustainability that currently face the institution.

This leads, ultimately, to outlining challenges and opportunities of the application of the lessons of Finnish heritage management to the example of the Grand Bazaar. In doing so, I designate a certain myth and identity peculiar to Turkish arts and craft capital and the Grand Bazaar’s foundational values, inspired by the strategies undertaken by Artek. I shape the framework to the extent of identifying a certain opportunity in light of current market-dominating commercial approaches and consumer aspirations with regards to Turkish-Islamic historical capital, one that speaks to the profound potential of the heritage design approach to the Grand Bazaar, what may well be the world’s most famous marketplace. I subsequently discuss the potential of the Turkish case for a meaningful contribution to sustainability in terms of the concerns and interests of the varying stakeholders of the bazaar, from the tourists and domestic consumers who shop there, to the collaborating designers, craftsmen, and entrepreneurs who make their living there. Special focus is laid on existing academic projects in Istanbul that seek to revive the crafts culture through seeking new forms of collaboration between craftsmen and designers. Informed by the cumulative experience of these projects and the review of the related literature, for example, the research suggests an implementation order for the hypothetical strategy in the case of the Grand Bazaar. The suggestion involves four hierarchical processes that develop from the initiation of the implementation to the transformation of the bazaar’s local community into an “empowered” and “self-organizing” network. Each process is described through a network designation, an expansion programme with governing and facilitation tactics, and a plan for specific actions.

The Grand Bazaar case study was launched in the January of 2014 involving interviews with 16 store owners and salesmen in the bazaar in order to gain a better understanding of the bazaar’s current problems, and to discuss the feasibility of the potentials outlined above. I also interviewed four artisan jewellers whose workshops are located near the bazaar. Interview questions focused on the store owners’ historical awareness and their opinions on the ongoing stream of changes occurring within the bazaar. The final round of interviews took place between October and December of 2016 with artists from a group of design studios, an academician, and a rug company owner. I named the group “collaborators” to emphasise their relationship with the traditional craftsmen and craft production methods. The interviewed designers were chosen due to their experience of adopting craft techniques.