Yes, the timing could be better, but Istanbul is newly exciting this fall for design aficionados and anyone interested in urban planning. The city—whose historical treasures tend to outshine its thriving and compelling contemporary-design scene—is aiming to rectify that, and to make headlines for something other than bad news, by launching the Istanbul Design Biennial, an ambitious pair of exhibitions and related activities that will run through December 12.
The organizer is the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV, as it’s known by its Turkish acronym), whose contemporary museum has long been a refuge for any visitor who gets Ottomanned out. (It happens.) IKSV brought in two architects, one local and one foreign, to curate the show, which explores urban design, architecture, industrial design, graphic design, fashion, and new media. Between them, they assembled nearly 300 architects and designers from 46 countries, whose exhibits address the theme of “Imperfection,” a topic particularly suited to Istanbul, with its layered history and often chaotic change-driven present—think lots of crowdsourcing, 3-D printing, and commentaries on urban development run amok.
If you’re looking for a contemporary confirmation of Istanbul’s reputation as a crossroads of East and West, this is it. Mexico City artist Pedro Reyes’s provocative collection of guns repurposed as musical instruments and tools shares a gallery with Ireland-based photographer Frank Abruzzese’s surreal tint-shifted time-lapse images, and both are upstairs from Kenyan multimedia artist Cyrus Kabiru’s mixed-media eyeglasses (to mention a few of my favorites).
The major installations are rounded out with a full complement of academy programs, workshop exhibitions, film screenings, seminars, and walking “art tours” the let you into ateliers and design studios in eight of Istanbul’s most interesting neighborhoods. If you’re looking for an excuse to visit—or one in addition to the Byzantine and Ottoman treasures—this could well be it.
