This talk will explore how architects collaborate within the framework of a single masterplan and will demonstrate some of the different ways upper-scale decisions are interpreted for architectural design. Organized around three case studies, the talk will delve into Nexus Housing in Fukuoka, Japan, whose masterplan was supervised by Arata Isozaki. It will continue with the IBA Berlin 1984/87, directed by Josef Paul Kleihues and Hardt-Waltherr Hamer. It will conclude with Borneo Sporenburg in Amsterdam, whose masterplan was designed by West 8. The talk will also discuss some critical examples of urban blocks with various morphological configurations.

Biography:

Aslıhan Günhan is an assistant professor of architectural history at Bilkent University Department of Architecture. She received her PhD in the History of Architecture and Urban Development Program at Cornell University in 2023. Her first book project, “Displaced Modernities: The Ottoman Empire, Turkey and the Specters of Armenian Architects,” is an architectural study of the displacement of Armenians from the Ottoman Empire, their silenced legacy in the built environment, and the contested modernity in Turkey which crafts a legal basis for the confiscation of properties, dispossession of ex-citizens and bureaucracy of denial. She received her B.Arch. and M.Arch. degrees from the Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara, Turkey. She previously held a research position at MoMA and teaching positions at Cornell and METU.