GEMSS’21
Selection Committee
Ömer Selçuk Baz
Yalın Architecture
Architect, Founding Partner
Born in 1978 in Nürnberg Germany. He finished primery and secondary education in Antakya. After receiving his Bachelor Degree in Architecture in 2002 from Bursa Uludağ University, he started working on his Masters Degree in Vienna Technical University. He received many prizes at various national and international competitions during his studies. While studying at Vienna Technical University, he also worked at Atelier Stelzhammer on various architectural projects especially on housing and shopping mall projects. In 2005, after winning the first prize in a national competition in Turkey, for Bursa Branch Office of Turkish Central Bank he started to work in Turkey. He has been taking part in post graduate architectural studios in Bilgi University and İstanbul Kültür University as a project coordinator. He has been involved in various international and national architectural competitions as a juror.
Central Bank of the Turkish Republic ( 1st prize) Museum of Troia (1st prize) Riyadh Mosque, Cappadocia Museum are the major projects that he has produced with Yalın Team.
He has been working for Yalın Mimarlık which is founded with urban planner Okan Bal since 2011.
Şebnem Yalınay Çinici
İstanbul Bilgi University
Architect, Academic
Şebnem Yalınay Çinici (Prof.Dr.) received her B.Arch (1989), M.Arch (1991, in Architectural Design) and Ph.D. (1999, in Architectural Design) degrees from Middle East Technical University (METU), Department of Architecture; and completed her Post-Doctorate studies (2001) in Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University. She started and pursued her academic career at METU, Department of Architecture (1991-2006), and Yıldız Technical University, Department of Architecture (2006-2011). In 2007 she started delivering courses in the Graduate Program of Architectural Design at İstanbul Bilgi University. In 2003 she founded and initiated Digital Design Studio in the Faculty of Architecture at METU. Besides conducting basic design and architectural design studios, her major field of research is ontology, technology and philosophy; architectural design; high-end design+production technologies and their integration into design education. She has numerous national and international publications; exhibition participations and curations. She was the curator of VCMD 3 on Architecture and Education (Dreams to Realities: Projections on Education Exhibition at İstanbul Modern); and exhibit her studio work at the collateral events of 16th Venice Biennale 2018 and architect@Work 2018 (First Year Student Projects: Carapace and Woodle; ComputationBased BasicDesignStudio@BILGI, 1:1@1 Material Performance).
Şebnem Yalınay Çinici, being a co-founder of Department of Architecture (2009) and ComputationBased_BasicDesignStudio@BİLGİ (with an alternative approach for first year design education), is continuing her academic career at Istanbul Bilgi University, where in years 2011-2020 she was the founding Head of Architecture Department.
Pelin Derviş
Pelin Derviş Publication Project
Architect, Independant Researcher, Author, Editor
Her researches and related activities focus mainly on 20th century design and architecture in Turkey. Her works and associated cultural activities come to life with the cooperation of various institutions, independent architects and designers.
Graduated from Istanbul Technical University, completed her master’s degree at the History of Architecture Program of the same institution. After working in her architectural practice, Atmosphere Planning and Design Office, on projects of various types and dimensions ranging from urban inventory projects to spatial and to object design between 1999 and 2004, she focused on the cultural production aspect of and researches on architecture and design. While working as the director of Garanti Gallery, Istanbul (was an institution based on urbanism, architecture and design) worked on various exhibitions, events and publications (2005-2010). She contributed to the founding efforts of SALT (while Garanti Gallery, Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center and the Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Center merged to form it). In 2010 she started working as an independent. In 2014 founded Müşterek Yapım where she still continues to perform projects in these fields. In 2020, she founded Pelin Derviş Publication Project, an initiative of Müşterek Yapım.
Murat Germen
Photographer, Academic
Murat Germen is an artist, academic and archivist using photography as an expression / research tool. Born 1965, he currently lives / works in Istanbul and London. Has an MArch degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he went as a Fulbright scholar and received AIA Henry Adams Gold Medal for academic excellence. Works as a professor of art, photography and new media at Sabanci University in Istanbul. Having many papers, photo series published on architecture / photography / art / new media in various publications; he has lectured at tens of conferences internationally.
His oeuvre focuses on impacts of over-urbanization and gentrification, dis/possession, new forms / tools / methods of imperialism, civic rights, participatory citizenship, sustainability of local cultures, human devastation of nature, climate change, global warming, water rights. Notions like cultural legacy, local archiving, documentation as crime scene investigation, personal / collective memory conflicts, dynamics of custody / betrayal are very central in the works that the artist produces. Representation, simulation, interpretations of history, objectivity pledges, hegemonic grids are other topics I frequently question.
He has two monographies, one published by Skira (Italy) and the other by MASA (Turkey). He has opened/joined over eighty inter/national (Turkey, USA, Italy, Germany, UK, Mexico, Portugal, Uzbekistan, Greece, Japan, Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Poland, Iran, India, Australia, France, Canada, Bahrain, South Korea, Dubai, China, Sweden, Switzerland, Egypt) solo+group exhibitions. Numerous editions of the artist’s several artworks are in personal collections of eminent art collectors inter/nationally, in addition to several that are in Istanbul Modern, Proje4L Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art (Istanbul), Centre of Contemporary Art in Toruń (Poland), Benetton Foundation’s Imago Mundi – Istanbul Codex, Yapi Kredi Bank Culture and Arts Center (Istanbul), Odunpazari Modern Museum (Eskisehir, Turkey), Evliyagil Museum (Turkey) collections.
Tülin Hadi
TECE Architecture
Architect, Founding Partner
She was born in 1969 in Istanbul. She graduated from the Department of Architecture of ITU in 1993. Until her graduation, she worked with Sevinç Hadi on the implementation stages of the Teşvikiye Milli Reinsurance Complex, on various competition projects with Ergün Aksel, and on implementation projects at the Mehmet Tataroğlu-Ömer Bortaçina-Mesut İşcan office. Since 1992-1994, when she worked in Turgut Cansever's office, she has pursued her professional life together with Cem İlhan under the roof of TeCe Architecture. She received awards in national and international architectural project competitions, and she was a jury member in national competitions.
She was the producer/presenter of the Design360 program broadcasted on CNNTurk between 2003-2006. She received the Young Architect Award in 2006. She received the National Architecture Building Branch awards for the METU Northern Cyprus Campus Rectorate, BİM and Library Buildings (2006) and the Vehbi Koç Foundation Ford Otosan Culture and Life Center (2012), which she designed with Cem İlhan. She was selected as a jury member of the 11th National Architecture Awards and Exhibition held in 2008 and as a jury member of the Arkitera Young Architect Award. She is still working as a project studio director at Bilgi University.
Luca Molinari
Luca Molinari Studio
Architect, Author, Curator
Architect, critic, curator, full professor of Theory and Architectural Design at the University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli".
Editorial director of Platform Architecture and Design magazine, he collaborates as an independent author with Italian and foreign newspapers and magazines, including Corriere della Sera, La Stampa, L’Espresso, Domani, Domus, Lotus.
From 1995 to 2019 he was editorial manager of the Architecture and Design for Skira publishing. He currently collaborates for Architecture and special projects with the Marsilio Group. In October 2020 Luca Molinari has been appointed scientific director of M9 Museum.
In 2014 he founded his own firm Luca Molinari Studio in Milan, which tailors and supplies integrated services of curatorship, consulting, and project management within the fields of architecture and museum management.
He received the Ernesto Nathan Rogers Award for architectural criticism and communication in the context of the 10th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia and the UIA Jean Tschumi Prize for Architectural Criticism.
Among his latest publications Dismisura (Skira, 2019) and Le case che siamo (nottetempo, 2016).
Among the latest curatorial projects: architecture coordinator for the ADI Design Museum (Milan, 2019); The Master of the Net Garden (Suzhou, 2019); The far / o / other, (Istanbul, 2019); Divine Section. Italian architecture for the Divine Comedy (Reggia di Caserta, 2018); scientific curatorship for the new Museum of the History of the City of Istanbul (Istanbul, 2016 - 2019); scientific coordination of the nine Clusters exhibitions, Expo Milano 2015.
Erden Timur
NEF
Chairman Of The Executive Board
Erden Timur is a businessman. He is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Nef. He was born in 1982 in Mersin. Having completed his secondary education at Tarsus American College, Timur graduated from Marmara University Faculty of Law in 2005. After studying economics at the London School of Economics, Timur founded Timur Gayrimenkul Geliştirme Yapı ve Yatırım A.Ş.
Timur, who introduced many novelties to the sector with the concepts of “Foldhome” and “Guaranteed Project” he created, closed the last 4 years at the top in total house sales with Nef brand. Nef, which has delivered over 6000 residences in the last 3 years carries out projects in Istanbul, Bodrum, New York and Kazakhstan. Nef also attracted attention with the sponsorships of FC Barcelona and Galatasaray.
Erden Timur was also the only business person included in the list from Mersin, which hosts the Mediterranean Economic Forum.
He appeared as the youngest male billionaire in the "Forbes 100" list, which lists the richest 100 Turks. Erden Timur also drew attention as the only business person from Mersin to be included in the list.
Erden Timur, who was born in 1982, stands out as the youngest rich person on this year's list, along with İpek Kıraç, and ranked 88th on the list with a fortune of 550 million dollars this year.
Erden Timur is also on the “Forbes 40 under 40” list.
Sait Ali Köknar
Kadir Has University
Architect, Academic
(Selection Committee Moderator)
He completed her undergraduate education at ITU with an Archiprix award. He completed his master's and doctoral studies at the same school. After working in offices such as Karabey Limited, Mono, DS architecture, he joined ITU Faculty of Architecture in 2001 as a research assistant. In 2015, he became associate professor in the field of architectural design. Since 2017, he has been coordinating the first class courses at the Faculty of Art and Design at Kadir Has University. and lecturing on architecture and criticism and contemporary architecture. He participated in the coordination of 40 Nasihat Made in Istanbul and İzmirDeniz projects as part of the Istanbul Design Biennial and has curated exhibitions such VÇMD: Happiness Factories, Nurus Contemporary Turkish Architecture 2017 held in the Gallery Işık Teşvikiye.
