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TURKEY • NATIONAL Saturday, February 06 2010 19:54 GMT+2

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Mystery shrouds iconic restoration in Tarabya

Friday, February 5, 2010

Vercihan Ziflioğlu

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

The giant tarps covering the Büyük Tarabya Hotel and the cranes around it are piquing curiosity. Experts are confident that an illegal new building is being constructed out of sight. Both Bayraktarlar Holding, which recently purchased this hotel on the shore of the Bosphorus, and the Boğaziçi Zoning Directorate refuse to comment on the current status of the building

Restoration on a historic hotel has experts worried that one of the city’s most valuable cultural assets is being ruined. For three years, huge tarps have clung to the hillside neighborhood of Tarabya, which offers one of Istanbul’s best panoramic views of the Bosphorus, sparking rumors about what exactly is being built behind the curtain.

The location where this work is being done was home to the Tokatlayan Hotel, the city’s second biggest hotel in the 19th century after the Pera Palace and one of Istanbul’s first tourism buildings. A family with Armenian heritage owned the hotel before it was destroyed in a fire of unknown origin in 1954. The State Retirement Fund constructed the Büyük Tarabya Hotel in its place in 1966.

In recent years, the fund has put the building up for sale through a bidding process that was won by Bayraktarlar Holding. The renovation of the building was named the “Tarabya Project” and then work was cloaked behind the giant tarps.

Will it be a mall?

The Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review has been trying to contact Feridun Duman, project manager for Bayraktar Holding, for a year and a half to ask about the ongoing work, but has always been turned down with the excuse that his schedule is too busy. Officials from the holding have only said that there have been changes in the project and that they will release a press statement in the months to come.

Entering the construction site is not allowed. Some have alleged that part of the Büyük Tarabya Hotel has been demolished and a new building is silently being constructed on the site.

“Cracks were formed on surrounding buildings because of the construction. We have learned that the firm that is handling the construction wanted to buy the small buildings around the hotel to include in the project,” said Süleyman, a neighborhood resident who preferred to be identified only by his first name. “The construction workers say this will be a shopping mall.”

Tarık, 80, another neighborhood resident who also preferred to withhold his surname, said he has spent most of his life in Tarabya. “The most magnificent location on the Bosphorus is being slaughtered by such a structure,” he said. “It has illegal [extra] floors too.”

Architect Sinan Genim, a member of Istanbul’s Second Preservation Board in the 1990s and head of the board for the Foundation for Preserving Monuments and the Environment since 1997, said he believes the allegations are inappropriate. “It is no good to talk about it at this point,” he said. “It is true that [the building] is a mass that does not become the Bosphorus, but what has been done is done. I do not agree that an unlawful act is being committed.”

Boğaziçi Zoning Directorate

Oktay Ekinci, former general president of the Chamber of Architects, disagreed with Genim. “I cannot say anything on historical artifacts, but there is a special article in the law for the Bosphorus concerning the construction of new buildings. This article allows only repairs for the buildings on the coastline with the exception of old artifacts,” Ekinci told the Daily News. “However, the Büyük Tarabya Hotel has been demolished and now a new building is under construction.”

When the Retirement Fund sold the building, it also sold the zoning rights, Ekinci added. “So, the state has delivered the zoning rights it has provided them to a private organization by its own hand,” he said.

The Daily News sought a statement from the Boğaziçi (Bosphorus) Zoning Directorate on the matter but the directorate refused to comment. The Istanbul Directorate of Survey and Monuments said only that the subject is a matter for the preservation boards.

‘Expert opinion not valued’

Professor Afife Batur, an architectural history expert and a scholar at the Architecture Faculty of Istanbul Technical University, said she also believes a new building will soon rise behind the tarps. Claiming the ongoing construction is unlawful and is not being inspected, Batur said: “We were hoping this building would be demolished someday, but now a new one is being constructed. It is unbelievable.”

Noting that experts were against the construction of the Büyük Tarabya Hotel in the 1960s, she added, “It looks like nobody in this country values the opinions of experts.”

Fatma Sedes, an architect and renovation expert, also pointed out that since Tarabya is located at one of the tightest spots along the Bosphorus and extends over the water, the hotel is a potential danger to seagoing traffic and could cause an accident.