XXI / A Past Experience

Published in XXI Magazine, this interview explores the research and design process behind Looking from In-Between: A Section from Meşrutiyet Street, an exhibition investigating the transformation of Pera through the lens of architecture, urban history, and everyday life. Rather than approaching the subject as a conventional historical survey, the conversation discusses architecture as a medium for reading urban change, tracing how shifting social, political, and cultural conditions became embedded in the spatial evolution of Meşrutiyet Street and its surroundings.

The interview reflects on the exhibition's research methodology, addressing the relationship between archival research and exhibition-making, the translation of historical material into spatial experience, and the use of layered spatial interventions to materialize the city's transformation. It also discusses the speculative digital reconstruction of the lost Bristol Hotel as a means of engaging with architectural memory and urban history. More broadly, the conversation presents exhibition-making as a form of spatial research, where design operates not simply as a means of display but as a method for producing knowledge and opening new ways of reading the city.