We Refugees Archive

Burcu Dogramaci 

Introduction

During the first half of the twentieth century visual artists, architects and intellectuals from Europe sought refuge in global metropolises. As hubs of globalizing modernism these cities were places of entrance, transition and creativity for people fleeing their native countries due to changes in political systems, dictatorships and wars, repression, persecution and violence. Flight, exile and migration brought artistic and architectural concepts, objects and actors around the world into contact, resulting in transformations that are legible in the topographies and structures of cities, particularly in the “target” cities. Their urban topographies contain neighborhoods, places and spaces that were populated, frequented and run by migrants. In addition to providing the migrants with income, employment and exposure, urban institutions, academies, associations and museums were crucial settings for interaction and exchange between the local and migrant populations. Exhibitions curated by and including the work of migrant architects were also connected to specific sites and spaces in the urban fabric, as was the circulation of media and dissemination of discourse pertaining to them. In their stations of exile and their final destinations, the migrant artists, architects and intellectuals attempted to continue their production and to build up new networks. There were inspirational and conflict-laden encounters, as well as collaborations and exhibitions between the exiled and local artistic communities. En route and within these cities new theoretical concepts were developed and elaborated upon, pushing the boundaries of art theory and practice. This article draws on ongoing research from the European Research Council funded project Relocating Modernism. Global Metropolises, Modern Art and Exile (Metromod). 22Relocating Modernism. Global Metropolises, Modern Art and Exile (Metromod) is a five-year research project that started in 2017, is based at the Institute of Art History, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Munich and led by Burcu Dogramaci. Metromod follows the hypothesis that the migration movements of artists, architects and intellectuals in the first half of the twentieth century in and out of Europe had a profound and long-term impact on art and architectural history. By establishing new transcultural places of artistic encounter in global metropolises, concepts and works were significantly changed. Recent publications on current migration movements in particular have highlighted the importance of large cities as cities of arrival. “No City without Migration?” asks Jens S. Dangschat in his contribution to the catalogue Metropole: Kosmopolis. 33Jens S. Dangscheit, “Ohne Migration keine Stadt? No City without Migration?,” in Uli Hellweg (ed.), Metropole: Kosmopolis = Metropolis: Cosmopolis, Berlin: Jovis, 2011 (Metropole, 5), p. 60-67. The German Pavilion at the Architecture Biennale in Venice 2016, with reference to Doug Saunders, dedicated itself to the German “Arrival Cities” as target cities for twentieth-century migrant workers and the fugitives of the present. 44Peter Cachola Schmal, Oliver Elser and Anna Scheuermann (eds.), Making Heimat. Germany, Arrival Country, Exhibition Catalogue (Venice, 15th International Architecture Exhibition, 28 May-27 November 2016), Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2016. These urban research perspectives on contemporary migration movements are starting point to locate the historical emigration phenomena more clearly in an urban context and thus conceptualize the direct living environment of many emigrants as an important field of action. In the following findings on the connections between exile, modernism and the urban environment in Istanbul will be discussed.

The emigration of architects, artists, and sculptors to Turkey has so far been the subject of studies dealing with the import of skilled workers into the country and the premise of modernization. In their works, Inci Aslanoğlu, Aydan Balamir, Sibel Bozdoğan, Ali Cengizkan, Burcu Dogramaci, Bernd Nicolai, and Bülent Tanju have examined, often in monographic studies, the commitment of German-speaking architects to the construction of the Kemalist republic, taking Turkish domestic and foreign policy into account. 55See in chronological order: İnci Aslanoğlu, “Bruno Tauts Wirken als Lehrer und Architekt in der Türkei,” in Bruno Taut, Exhibition Catalogue (Berlin, Akademie der Künste, 29 June-3 August 1980), p. 143-150; Sibel Bozdoğan, “Against Style: Bruno Taut’s Pedagogical Program in Turkey 1936-1938,” in Martha D. Pollak (ed.), The Education of the Architect: Historiography, Urbanism and the Growth of Architectural Knowledge, Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1997, p. 163-192; Bernd Nicolai, Moderne und Exil: Deutschsprachige Architekten in der Türkei 1925-1955, Berlin: Verlag für Bauwesen, 1998; Bülent Tanju, “Türkiye’de Farklı Bir Mimar: Bruno Taut,” in Afife Batur (ed.), Atatürk için düşünmek. İki eser: Katafalk ve Anıtkabir. İki Mimar: Bruno Taut ve Emin Onat. Für Atatürk gedacht. Zwei Werke: Katafalk und Anıtkabir, Zwei Architekten: Bruno Taut und Emin Onat, Istanbul: Istanbul Teknik Üniversitesi Rektörlüğü, 1998, p. 22-25; Ali Cengizkan, “Bruno Taut: Duygu ve Gönül. Türkiye’ye Gönül Veren Duygulu Dünya Yurttaşı,” in Id., Modernin Saati. 20. Yüzyılda Modernleşme ve Demokratikleşme Pratiğinde Mimarlar, Kamusal Mekan ve Konut Mimarlığı, Ankara: Mimarlar Derneği; Boyut Yayın Grubu, 2002, p. 29-35; Burcu Dogramaci, Kulturtransfer und nationale Identität. Deutschsprachige Architekten, Stadtplaner und Bildhauer in der Türkei nach 1927, Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 2008; Aydan Balamir (ed.), Clemens Holzmeister: çağın dönümünde bir mimar = An Architect at the turn of an era, Istanbul: Boyut Yayın Grubu, 2010. The connection between national identity and architectural modernity in particular has been exposed. The main focus has been on the new capital Ankara, which was seen as pars pro toto for the Turkish ministries’ will to build. In Architecture in Translation 66Esra Akcan, Architecture in Translation. Germany, Turkey, & the Modern House, Durham: Duke University Press, 2012. Esra Akcan adapted the theory of “cultural translation” and examined the circulation of actors and ideas between Germany and Turkey. Her focus was on the transfer and transformation of new housing concepts. In other words, the perspectives have been based on a bilateral framework, rather than a multilateral, global one. A review of previous publications shows that the connections between Istanbul and emigration movements of the 1920s to 1940s has not yet been made, and the metropolis on the Bosporus has not been investigated as an arrival city — but rather mainly as a laboratory for urban planning by foreign planners. 77Ipek Akpınar, “Pay-i Tahtı Sekülerleştirmek: 1937 Henri Prost Planı,” Istanbul, no. 41, 2003, p. 20-25; Uğur Tanyeli, İstanbul 1900-2000 Konutu ve Modernleşmeyi Metropolden Okumak, Istanbul: Ofset Yapımevi, 2005. So far, the private and professional spaces of emigrants in Istanbul have not been in the spotlight, nor has the question of how emigration in the time of National Socialism inscribed itself into the urban matrix of the city.

Despite its diverse political and economic situation in the first half of the twentieth century, today Istanbul is commensurable on a global scale. It is a megacity and hub of the global art world. Moreover it can undoubtedly be characterized as “world city” which are “places in themselves, and also nodes in networks; their cultural organization involves local as well as transnational relationships” in which transnational business, immigrant populations, creative culture and tourism play constitutive roles. 88Ulf Hannerz, Transnational Connections: Culture, People, Places, London; New York, NY: Routledge, 1998 (Comedia), p. 128. In the 1930s and 40s, Istanbul, the former centre of the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, became the cultural capital of a newly modernizing nation state, the Turkish Republic, which invited qualified exiled artists, architects and scientists to build its cultural and scientific landscape.

The following dicussion will shed light on the emigration history of the metropolis Istanbul as a target destination for exiled modern artists and architects, discussing how the urban matrix and the interaction with local actors shaped their lives and work while also searching for the traces they left. Which neighborhoods became home to migrants and how did the urban topographies support contact — through social spaces, institutions, or exhibition spaces — but also segregation, exchange and isolation? Which spaces were inhabited, designed or built by the emigrants? How can historical emigration, architecture and the city be brought together? By shifting the focus away from Central Europe and analyzing the development of artistic modernism in this diverse urban context beyond Europe and in a historical megacity, questions relating to dichotomies such as centre and periphery, colonial and post-colonial, north and south are brought more sharply into relief. The terms “centre” and “periphery” also gain meaning within the city itself; for while most emigrants preferred a central residential location in Istanbul, some also settled on the periphery of the city.

Istanbul: Histories and Traces of Exile

Istanbul has a long history of internal and transnational migration. As the centre of the Ottoman Empire and also after the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923 with the new capital Ankara, the city at the Bosporus was a destination for people who had to change their place of residence for economic or political reasons. 99See Deniz Sert, “Bringing Together, Dividing Apart: Istanbul’s Migration History,” in Hou Hanru, Çeren Erdem, Elena Motisi and Donatella Saroli (eds.), Istanbul. Passione, gioia, furore = Istanbul. Passion, Joy, Fury, Exhibition Catalogue (Rome, MAXXI Museo nazionale delle arti del xxi secolo, 11 December 2015-30 April 2016, Macerata: Quodlibet, 2015, p. 219-222. Modernist architects including Le Corbusier or Bruno Taut visited the metropolis on the Bosporus in the 1910s as travellers. 1010See Giuliano Gresleri (ed.), Le Corbusier. Reise nach dem Orient. Unveröffentlichte Briefe und zum Teil noch nicht publizierte Texte und Photographien von Edouard Jeanneret, Zurich: Spur Verlag, 1991. For Taut’s trip to Istanbul in the context of the competition Haus der Freundschaft see Burcu Dogramaci, Kulturtransfer und nationale Identität, op. cit. (note 4), p. 53. Twenty years later Taut returned, but this time as an exiled person who embarked on a new chapter of building activity in the city.

As a city on two continents with a multi-religious and multi-ethnic population, Istanbul exhibited a heterogeneous picture to the arriving people: contrasting environments depending on the neighborhoods, their development and population, their proximity (or distance) to the water, their accessibility by public transport. Thus, this urban body provides numerous clues for exploring the interaction between migration or exile, architecture and the city. Here institutions such as academies, universities or social “contact zones” 1111The notion of “contact zones” is borrowed from Mary Louise Pratt, “Arts of the Contact Zone,” Profession, 1991, p. 33-40. such as cafés and bars, or even private residences where there was an exchange between emigrants and/or locals, are significant. For the Gay New York of the 1930s and 1940s, George Chauncey pointed out the importance of urban places as contact zones and for the formation of identity. 1212See George Chauncey, Gay New York. Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, New York, NY: Basic Books, 1994. This approach can be adapted for the examination of migrant Istanbul and discussed referring to specific places of contact, exchange and debate. In addition, the buildings built by foreign architects also refer to the history of migration and exile in the city.

In the following, Beyoğlu and Bebek, two neighborhoods in which emigrants of the 1930s settled or where migrated architects built, will be examined. From the perspective of German-speaking architects, Istanbul was less important than Ankara, where architects such as Clemens Holzmeister and Ernst Egli developed diverse portfolios of construction activities. 1313See Thomas Lier (ed.), Bir Başkentin Oluşumu: Avusturyalı, Alman ve İsviçreli Mimarların Ankara’daki İzleri = Das Werden einer Hauptstadt: Spuren deutschsprachiger Architekten in Ankara, Ankara: Goethe-Institut, 2011. Nevertheless, Istanbul (fig. 1) was an important point of reference for the emigration movements of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. In the nineteenth century Istanbul was the target city of Polish emigration with one of its main centres in Beyoğlu/Pera on the European Side. 1414Paulina Dominik, “From the Polish Times of Pera. Late Ottoman Istanbul Through the Lens of Polish Emigration,” in Anna Hofmann and Ayşe Öncü (eds.), History Takes Place: Istanbul. Dynamics of Urban Change, Berlin: jovis, 2016, p. 92-103. Polish émigrés built their own social infrastructure with cafés and shops; until the middle of the twentieth century a side street from the main Rue de Péra was named “Leh Sokak” (Polish Street). After the Russian Revolution and especially after the Crimea Crisis several thousand refugees from southern Russia sought refuge in the Ottoman Empire via the Black Sea. In 1920, Rimscha writes of circa 50,000 Russian emigrants in Turkey (thus being a preferred refugee destination after Poland, Germany and France), most of whom went to Istanbul. 1515Hans von Rimscha, Der russische Bürgerkrieg und die russische Emigration 1917-1921, Jena: Frommann, 1924, p. 51. Many lived on the European side in the Galata district, in the vicinity of the main street, which was initially called Grande Rue de Péra, later Istiklal Caddesi, and which leads to Taksim Square. In this neighbourhood, the following places and institutions were important points of reference for the Russian emigrant community in Istanbul: the Russian Embassy, a Russian hotel, an Orthodox monastery and a church, which offered the emigrants a first refuge and an infrastructure for social contacts. The direct consequence of this Russian emigration, which turned Istanbul into a “Russian Constantinople,” at least temporarily, were numerous restaurants, pastry shops and cabarets on Grande Rue de Péra. In addition, various dance and ballet performances testify to the presence of Russian artists in Istanbul. 1616Aleksandr Vassiliev, Beauty in Exile. The Artists, Models and Nobility who fled the Russian Revolution and Influenced the World of Fashion, New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, 2000, p. 68-72. In 1921, the first Russian book store “Kultura” was opened and in the same year the “Union of Russian Artists” presented their first exhibition in the Mayak Club. The members of this Union included Vasily Iosifovich Ivanov, Vladimir Konstantinovich Petrov und Boris Isaevich Egiz. The migration of Russian artists to Istanbul has received little scholarly attention so far and numerous sources (e.g. Burnakin’s almanac Russkiye na Bosfore, Istanbul 1928) have yet to be examined.

Interesting is a comparative perspective on the second wave of emigration in the twentieth century to Istanbul — the arrival of exiled artists, architects and urban planners from Nazi Germany. Despite the fact that not many refugees came to the Turkish Republic (about 1,000), which had been established in 1923, the constellation of the emigration community is significant. In contrast to other countries of exile, it was a relatively homogeneous group of academics, including many university teachers or artists, with few exceptions regarding social status and education, who sought refuge in Istanbul. They had been invited by ministries to participate in the construction of universities, urban redevelopment and the artistic life of the Republic. 1717For the emigration of architects and city planners to Turkey see Bernd Nicolai, Moderne und Exil, op. cit. (note 4); Burcu Dogramaci, Kulturtransfer und nationale Identität, op. cit. (note 4). This elite emigration of established, well-known persons was especially bound to certain institutions of the city of Istanbul: the emigrants from Germany and Austria worked at the Academy of Fine Arts, Istanbul University and the Technical University. The emigrants also settled in the radius of these institutions on the European continent. Many emigrants lived on the European side of Istanbul 1818With the exception of Martin Wagner, for example, who lived on the Asian side in Moda/Kadıköy. in the European-style district Beyoğlu, where embassies, cultural institutes, bookstores and international restaurants were located. For example, the Academy of Fine Arts, for a long time Turkey’s only art academy, was also an important reference point for artists and architects: the sculptor Rudolf Belling, architect Bruno Taut and urban planner Gustav Oelsner taught there. 1919For the history of the Academy see Buket Altinoba, Die Istanbuler Kunstakademie von ihrer Gründung bis heute. Moderne Kunst, Nationenbildung und Kulturtransfer in der Türkei, Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 2016. German-speaking architects such as Clemens Holzmeister, Paul Bonatz and Gustav Oelsner also taught at Istanbul Technical University’s Faculty of Architecture, which was founded in the 1940s and is located in Istanbul-Macka, not far from Taksim Square. Some of the aforementioned artists may have chosen their places of residence so that they were able to reach institutions such as the Academy and the Technical University on foot: The proximity to these institutions could explain why many of the German-speaking emigrants of the 1930s and 1940s settled in Beyoğlu/Pera. For example, Rudolf Belling and Gustav Oelsner lived in Beyoğlu. In addition, the district, which is located on the European continent and opposite the historic Stambul, has been an important trading and transhipment centre for international goods since the thirteenth century, and in the nineteenth century the number of merchants and diplomats and thus also the Western European inhabitants in Beyoğlu increased considerably. Embassies, foreign schools, churches, hotels and restaurants were established along the Grande Rue de Péra, the central shopping street. 2020Orhan Pamuk describes the Grande Rue de Péra through the eyes of the French writer Gérard de Nerval in his book Voyage en Orient (1851): “Nerval describes the avenue leading away from the lodge as resembling Paris: fashionable clothes, laundries, jewelers, sparkling display windows, candy shops, English and French hotels, cafés, embassies.” Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul. Memories and the City, New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, p. 219.

Beyoğlu was European in character, and the development of the infrastructure was certainly a concession to the foreign inhabitants and tourists who stayed in this part of the city. The tram and the underground Tünel provided good connections to the port and other parts of the city. 2121See Zuhal İbidan, The Urban Development of Istanbul in the Nineteenth Century. The Role of Expropriations, Istanbul: Libra, 2015, p. 91-106. And luxury Hotels like the Tokatliyan, the Pera Palace and the Park Hotel in Beyoğlu served not only as places to meet but also gave incoming emigrants residency for a couple of days or weeks. Like many exiled artists, Rudolf Belling was first accommodated in the Park Hotel, a luxurious hotel that opened in 1934 in Beyoğlu-Gümüşsuyu, designed in Art Deco style. It (fig. 2) was extremely popular among the arriving emigrants, not least because of its panoramic view of the Bosporus.

In a photograph by Gertrud Hindemith, the view of the water from the Park Hotel is captured (fig. 3); sitting on the balcony of the hotel room is the composer Paul Hindemith who was brought into the country by the Turkish Ministry of Education. 2222See Burcu Dogramaci, Fotografieren und Forschen. Wissenschaftliche Expeditionen mit der Kamera im türkischen Exil nach 1933, Marburg: Jonas, 2013, p. 82-84. Many descriptions by the newly arrived emigrants referred to the experience of the Bosporus. The author and director George Tabori, who stayed in Istanbul at the beginning of the 1940s, writes about the aesthetics of the water landscape, 2323George Tabori, Das Opfer, Göttingen: Steidl, 1996, p. 239. just as Rudolf Belling expressed himself at the beginning of 1937:

Beyoğlu/Pera was a central place and an arrival city for the German-speaking emigrants of the 1930s who found an environment that provided a degree of comfort with newly built apartments, coffeeshops, restaurants and a European flair with different languages spoken on the streets and an infrastructure connecting them with their working places. Besides, the “oriental” Istanbul was close; Eminönü and the old Stambul with its mosques, the hippodrome and the University of Istanbul was not far away and connected to Beyoğlu by the Galata bridge. The doubleness of “West” and “East” or “Occident” and “Orient” is visible in a photograph (fig. 4) showing the architects Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky and Wilhelm Schütte, who arrived in 1938 in Istanbul and lived in an apartment in Hacı İzzet Paşa Sokak in Beyoğlu. The camera captured their image with the minarets of a mosque at their back. Schütte-Lihotzky wrote after her arrival: “All in all, this time Istanbul seems much more eastern and oriental than the last times when we didn’t come from the West [but from the Soviet Union].” 2525“Alles in allem kommt uns diesmal Istanbul viel viel östlicher u. orientalischer vor als die letzten Male, wo wir eben nicht aus dem Westen kamen [sondern aus der Sowjetunion],” Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky to Adele Hanakam, 25 August 1938, Vienna (Austria), Collections of the Universität für angewandte Kunst, Estate of Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky.

The “Orientality” of the city was less visible a few kilometres further down the waterfront in the former suburb of Bebek, where some emigrants settled. In those days Bebek was no more than a fishing village. Since the nineteenth century the Ottoman elite had begun to build summer houses in Bebek 2626Cahit Kayra, Bebek. Mekânlar ve zamanlar, Istanbul: Akbank, 1993 (Akbank kültür ve sanat kitapları, 57), p. 50-119. which was not too far away from the very centre of the Empire—the old Stambul—but far enough to build up a prestigious closed community. This might be the reason that also in Kemalist times, after the founding of the Republic in 1923, rich and wealthy Turks—the new elite—began to build houses in and around Bebek. Especially Ernst Egli’s villa for the engineer Ragip Devres in Istanbul-Bebek (1932/1933, Cevdet Paşa Caddesi No. 101, fig. 5) has to be mentioned as an example for modern housing with architectonic reference to the International style as well as to the Viennese interiors of Adolf Loos. With its wraparound balconies, steel columns, flat roof and panoramic windows and its interior with wooden wall panels, the house followed the parameters of international architectural modernity and thus differed from the classic Turkish residential building.

Not far away, the biologists and zoologists Kurt and Leonore Kosswig lived in a house built around 1900 (Inşirah Sokağı No. 32, fig. 6). They kept an open “house on the mountain,” where many emigrants met, theatre performances took place and music was played. The Kosswigs, who both spoke Turkish, were part of an association of scientists—a kind of “private academy”—which was led by the economist Alexander Rüstow and the jurist Andreas Schwarz and included representatives of various disciplines—including the financial economist Fritz Neumark. The meetings took place at the homes of the members of the “Privatakademie,” and participants lectured on their own field of study. 2727See Horst Widmann, Exil und Bildungshilfe. Die deutschsprachige akademische Emigration in die Türkei nach 1933. Mit einer Bio-Bibliographie der emigrierten Hochschullehrer im Anhang, Bern; Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1973, p. 180; see also Fritz Neumark, Zuflucht am Bosporus. Deutsche Gelehrte, Politiker und Künstler in der Emigration 1933-1953, Frankfurt; Main: Knecht, 1980, p. 190-191. The Kosswig’s house in Bebek was a place of exchange between emigrants, a refugium in exile, but also an island or an exile in exile. In 1943 Kurt Kosswig founded with other emigrants like Alexander Rüstow, Ernst Reuter and Gerhard Kessler the political circle “Deutscher Freiheitsbund.” In their pamphlet “Was soll werden?” [What shall be?] they formulated ideas for the reconstruction of Germany, the restoration of democracy and the prosecution of Nazi crimes. 2828Kemal Bozay, Exil Türkei. Ein Forschungsbeitrag zur deutschsprachigen Emigration in der Türkei (1933-1945), Münster; Hamburg; London: Lit, 2001, p. 72-73. The periphery, at a distance from the sites where history, culture and migration agglomerated, offered on one hand the opportunity to build a social place where life could unfold at its own rhythm and pace. On the other, distant neighbourhoods like Bebek gave other possibilities for cultural and political self-organization of the emigrants. For Bebek it is possible to say that different minorities settled here including people from England or Levantines. 2929Ernst E. Hirsch, Als Rechtsgelehrter im Lande Atatürks, Berlin: Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2008, p. 47. The socializing between the German-speaking emigrant community was easy because several professors lived close to each other with their families. 3030Ibid., p. 131.

The importance of the house as an additional place of refuge can be seen in series of photographs by Kurt and Leonore Kosswig, showing their home from inside and outside, and the view from the terrace of the Bosporus (fig. 7). Photographs from 1940 were devoted to the living room (fig. 8) as a relaxed place with a canapé in the foreground, a dining table with four chairs and a child’s chair in the corner. The residents do not appear in most of the pictures; rather the furnishings—most of which they brought with them from Europe—are centre stage. The deserted interior is photographed in detail, clearly showing that European conventions have been retained. Other Turkish immigrants also photographed their apartments, including the Indologist Walter Ruben and the municipal scientist Ernst Reuter, who lived in apartments in Ankara. These photographs could be interpreted as proof of self-assurance about one’s own status in exile. In addition, the photographs were also taken as a means of communication and were intended to provide friends and relatives who remained in their country of origin with information about their living conditions in exile.

Bebek as well as Beyoğlu/Pera were two different neighbourhoods offering diverse “entries” to Istanbul for the arriving emigrants: while the vivid cosmopolitan Beyoğlu/Pera was an important place in the very centre of the metropolis and well connected to central institutions, the calm Bebek at the periphery was a place of retreat where the Kosswigs actively used their own agency to build social networks.

 

Conclusion

In Istanbul, migrant artists, architects and intellectuals established and sought institutional spaces of discourse, by teaching and lecturing at a variety of universities. As well as innovatively addressing challenging issues such as nationalism in art, these fora also contributed to building the migrant artists’ networks and may have led to collaborations. The Istanbul case suggests that networking in private residences generally took place among emigrant groups, perhaps to the exclusion of locals.

The government of Turkey actively invited persecuted artists, architects and intellectuals to assist in its nation-building program. In Istanbul there seems to have been an inclination among the migrant artists and architects to settle in the perhaps more culturally familiar “European” parts of the city. Hotels too, seem to have played an important role in Istanbul — as temporary places of residence, as meeting places and as spaces of cultural production.

It can be assumed that the emigrants identified themselves more intensively with their immediate environment and context: the close community, the neighborhood, the quarter or the city. In their everyday lives, they reacted directly to the challenges and opportunities offered to them by their places of work and residence. They settled in certain places and thus shaped the face of the neighborhoods in which they lived. While some preferred to live and work in the central areas of their cities, others chose more peripheral locations where they lived in close proximity to each other. The topography challenged and constituted their identities as emigrants. Water seems to have been a decisive factor in the choice of residence and as a stimulus for visual production, as Leonore and Kurt Kosswig’s photographs show.

This article also underlines the limits of approaching the city studied as an autarkic entity. Similarly, rather than conceiving of the migrant artists as in flux and the local art scene as static, the Istanbul case illustrates that it was undergoing dynamic processes of change.  For further research, an essential task is to grasp this microcosm of emigrants more precisely and thus synthesize exile research and urban research with one another.

Footnotes

• 2Relocating Modernism. Global Metropolises, Modern Art and Exile (Metromod) is a five-year research project that started in 2017, is based at the Institute of Art History, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Munich and led by Burcu Dogramaci.
• 3Jens S. Dangscheit, “Ohne Migration keine Stadt? No City without Migration?,” in Uli Hellweg (ed.), Metropole: Kosmopolis = Metropolis: Cosmopolis, Berlin: Jovis, 2011 (Metropole, 5), p. 60-67.
• 4Peter Cachola Schmal, Oliver Elser and Anna Scheuermann (eds.), Making Heimat. Germany, Arrival Country, Exhibition Catalogue (Venice, 15th International Architecture Exhibition, 28 May-27 November 2016), Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2016.
• 5See in chronological order: İnci Aslanoğlu, “Bruno Tauts Wirken als Lehrer und Architekt in der Türkei,” in Bruno Taut, Exhibition Catalogue (Berlin, Akademie der Künste, 29 June-3 August 1980), p. 143-150; Sibel Bozdoğan, “Against Style: Bruno Taut’s Pedagogical Program in Turkey 1936-1938,” in Martha D. Pollak (ed.), The Education of the Architect: Historiography, Urbanism and the Growth of Architectural Knowledge, Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1997, p. 163-192; Bernd Nicolai, Moderne und Exil: Deutschsprachige Architekten in der Türkei 1925-1955, Berlin: Verlag für Bauwesen, 1998; Bülent Tanju, “Türkiye’de Farklı Bir Mimar: Bruno Taut,” in Afife Batur (ed.), Atatürk için düşünmek. İki eser: Katafalk ve Anıtkabir. İki Mimar: Bruno Taut ve Emin Onat. Für Atatürk gedacht. Zwei Werke: Katafalk und Anıtkabir, Zwei Architekten: Bruno Taut und Emin Onat, Istanbul: Istanbul Teknik Üniversitesi Rektörlüğü, 1998, p. 22-25; Ali Cengizkan, “Bruno Taut: Duygu ve Gönül. Türkiye’ye Gönül Veren Duygulu Dünya Yurttaşı,” in Id., Modernin Saati. 20. Yüzyılda Modernleşme ve Demokratikleşme Pratiğinde Mimarlar, Kamusal Mekan ve Konut Mimarlığı, Ankara: Mimarlar Derneği; Boyut Yayın Grubu, 2002, p. 29-35; Burcu Dogramaci, Kulturtransfer und nationale Identität. Deutschsprachige Architekten, Stadtplaner und Bildhauer in der Türkei nach 1927, Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 2008; Aydan Balamir (ed.), Clemens Holzmeister: çağın dönümünde bir mimar = An Architect at the turn of an era, Istanbul: Boyut Yayın Grubu, 2010.
• 6Esra Akcan, Architecture in Translation. Germany, Turkey, & the Modern House, Durham: Duke University Press, 2012.
• 7Ipek Akpınar, “Pay-i Tahtı Sekülerleştirmek: 1937 Henri Prost Planı,” Istanbul, no. 41, 2003, p. 20-25; Uğur Tanyeli, İstanbul 1900-2000 Konutu ve Modernleşmeyi Metropolden Okumak, Istanbul: Ofset Yapımevi, 2005.
• 8Ulf Hannerz, Transnational Connections: Culture, People, Places, London; New York, NY: Routledge, 1998 (Comedia), p. 128.
• 9See Deniz Sert, “Bringing Together, Dividing Apart: Istanbul’s Migration History,” in Hou Hanru, Çeren Erdem, Elena Motisi and Donatella Saroli (eds.), Istanbul. Passione, gioia, furore = Istanbul. Passion, Joy, Fury, Exhibition Catalogue (Rome, MAXXI Museo nazionale delle arti del xxi secolo, 11 December 2015-30 April 2016, Macerata: Quodlibet, 2015, p. 219-222.
• 10See Giuliano Gresleri (ed.), Le Corbusier. Reise nach dem Orient. Unveröffentlichte Briefe und zum Teil noch nicht publizierte Texte und Photographien von Edouard Jeanneret, Zurich: Spur Verlag, 1991. For Taut’s trip to Istanbul in the context of the competition Haus der Freundschaft see Burcu Dogramaci, Kulturtransfer und nationale Identität, op. cit. (note 4), p. 53.
• 11The notion of “contact zones” is borrowed from Mary Louise Pratt, “Arts of the Contact Zone,” Profession, 1991, p. 33-40.
• 12See George Chauncey, Gay New York. Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, New York, NY: Basic Books, 1994.
• 13See Thomas Lier (ed.), Bir Başkentin Oluşumu: Avusturyalı, Alman ve İsviçreli Mimarların Ankara’daki İzleri = Das Werden einer Hauptstadt: Spuren deutschsprachiger Architekten in Ankara, Ankara: Goethe-Institut, 2011.
• 14Paulina Dominik, “From the Polish Times of Pera. Late Ottoman Istanbul Through the Lens of Polish Emigration,” in Anna Hofmann and Ayşe Öncü (eds.), History Takes Place: Istanbul. Dynamics of Urban Change, Berlin: jovis, 2016, p. 92-103. Polish émigrés built their own social infrastructure with cafés and shops; until the middle of the twentieth century a side street from the main Rue de Péra was named “Leh Sokak” (Polish Street).
• 15Hans von Rimscha, Der russische Bürgerkrieg und die russische Emigration 1917-1921, Jena: Frommann, 1924, p. 51.
• 16Aleksandr Vassiliev, Beauty in Exile. The Artists, Models and Nobility who fled the Russian Revolution and Influenced the World of Fashion, New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, 2000, p. 68-72.
• 17For the emigration of architects and city planners to Turkey see Bernd Nicolai, Moderne und Exil, op. cit. (note 4); Burcu Dogramaci, Kulturtransfer und nationale Identität, op. cit. (note 4).
• 18With the exception of Martin Wagner, for example, who lived on the Asian side in Moda/Kadıköy.
• 19For the history of the Academy see Buket Altinoba, Die Istanbuler Kunstakademie von ihrer Gründung bis heute. Moderne Kunst, Nationenbildung und Kulturtransfer in der Türkei, Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 2016.
• 20Orhan Pamuk describes the Grande Rue de Péra through the eyes of the French writer Gérard de Nerval in his book Voyage en Orient (1851): “Nerval describes the avenue leading away from the lodge as resembling Paris: fashionable clothes, laundries, jewelers, sparkling display windows, candy shops, English and French hotels, cafés, embassies.” Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul. Memories and the City, New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, p. 219.
• 21See Zuhal İbidan, The Urban Development of Istanbul in the Nineteenth Century. The Role of Expropriations, Istanbul: Libra, 2015, p. 91-106.
• 22See Burcu Dogramaci, Fotografieren und Forschen. Wissenschaftliche Expeditionen mit der Kamera im türkischen Exil nach 1933, Marburg: Jonas, 2013, p. 82-84.
• 23George Tabori, Das Opfer, Göttingen: Steidl, 1996, p. 239.
• 24Rudolf Belling to Alexander Amersdorffer, 23 January 1937, Berlin (Germany), Akademie der Künste, Historisches Archiv, , I/284, Bl. 37-39.
• 25“Alles in allem kommt uns diesmal Istanbul viel viel östlicher u. orientalischer vor als die letzten Male, wo wir eben nicht aus dem Westen kamen [sondern aus der Sowjetunion],” Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky to Adele Hanakam, 25 August 1938, Vienna (Austria), Collections of the Universität für angewandte Kunst, Estate of Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky.
• 26Cahit Kayra, Bebek. Mekânlar ve zamanlar, Istanbul: Akbank, 1993 (Akbank kültür ve sanat kitapları, 57), p. 50-119.
• 27See Horst Widmann, Exil und Bildungshilfe. Die deutschsprachige akademische Emigration in die Türkei nach 1933. Mit einer Bio-Bibliographie der emigrierten Hochschullehrer im Anhang, Bern; Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1973, p. 180; see also Fritz Neumark, Zuflucht am Bosporus. Deutsche Gelehrte, Politiker und Künstler in der Emigration 1933-1953, Frankfurt; Main: Knecht, 1980, p. 190-191.
• 28Kemal Bozay, Exil Türkei. Ein Forschungsbeitrag zur deutschsprachigen Emigration in der Türkei (1933-1945), Münster; Hamburg; London: Lit, 2001, p. 72-73.
• 29Ernst E. Hirsch, Als Rechtsgelehrter im Lande Atatürks, Berlin: Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2008, p. 47.
• 30Ibid., p. 131.

This article is a shortened and edited version of:

Burcu Dogramaci and Rachel Lee, 2019: “Refugee Artists, Architects and Intellectuals Beyond Europe in the 1930s and 1940s: Experiences of Exile in Istanbul and Bombay,” Abe Journal 14–15 (2019), https://journals.openedition.org/abe/5949#ftn74.

Reproduced here with the kind permission of Burcu Dogramaci.