Memoirs of a Galatasaray Architect “Without Forgetting the Melon”

Prof. Dr. A. Aydın Kunt: The Story Behind the Nickname "Kavun"

His student years at Galatasaray High School in the 1960s were full of lively and mischievous memories. The nickname "Kavun" (Melon) given to Prof. Dr. A. Aydın Kunt by his high school friends was inherited from this period. Perhaps growing up in a multicultural, multilingual, and multi-religious Istanbul neighborhood gave him the ability to look at life from such a humorous perspective. His ability to offer insights from different viewpoints and to interpret life in detail was also a reflection of this past.

His habit of recording his experiences, the diaries he kept, and the notes he took helped him to observe his own life from an external perspective and create a detailed outline. This narrative, woven from his own memories, became not only a personal work but also a work that shed light on a particular era of Istanbul.

This book you hold in your hands takes us back to Istanbul half a century ago. It invites us to the Şişli and Kadıköy of that period, to times when human relationships were warm and neighborhood culture was strong. It describes an Istanbul where people interacted more, where shopkeepers and drivers respected each other's languages and religions. This narrative, which progresses between the world he observed in his childhood and the time he stepped into university and architectural education, is not only the story of an individual but also a vivid portrayal of an era.

After becoming an architect, Aydın Kunt began to establish a different relationship with the Istanbul he grew up in. Through this book, he presents us with the contradictions and emotions he experienced in this city, as if completing the missing pieces of a mosaic. But always with an inherent sense of incompleteness and perhaps a desire to lighten the burden he carried on his shoulders... And for this, he turns to his greatest companions: pen and paper.

If you ask "Why did I write?", he has a few answers to this question. But the most dominant one is perhaps hidden in this sentence of his:
"I think the first and most important reason was the fear of death. I was afraid of dying without being able to convey my experiences to anyone. Especially to my daughter... Many things that might not mean much to others, I thought, were things my daughter needed to know."

Prof. Dr. A. Aydın Kunt dedicated his book "Kavun Unutmadan" (Melon, Before Forgetting), first published in 2006, to his daughter Ebru Kunt Akın, whose growth he could not witness. This reissued work reminds readers of Kunt's memories and the era. However, sadly, many of the people mentioned in the book are no longer with us, and Aydın Kunt, who passed away in 2012 while continuing his academic career in the Department of Architecture at Bahçeşehir University, is also no longer with us.

Contents of the Book:

• Why Did I Write?
• Who Am I?
• Hatçe
• Our Home Full of Love
• My Blunder Women
• Kite - Reading
• Neighbors
• Primary School
• Peeing is an Art
• Kadıköy
• Bahariye Primary School
• Kadıköy Bazaar
• Kadıköy Again
• Cim Bom Bom
• Turnip Juice
• Danny Kaye
• Beyoğlu
• An Older Student (Etüd Ağbisi)
• Acting Management
• Theater
• Are you one of those we made into Galatasaray fans?
• Kadıköy... My Early Youth
• Ebony
• A Friend
• Timur
• The House in Kuzguncuk
• The House in the Bazaar
• Classes, Classes
• 11th Grade Literature
• Cheating
• Pearls of Youth
• Priest
• Them
• Them Again
• Ali Baba
• Galatasaray Vocal Group
• Erdek Musicians
• Alex Vasif Efendi
• Always Them
• Academy of Fine Arts
• My Father, the Main Actor of My Life's Journey
• Concluding
• Cumhuriyet Interview
• Selection; what he wrote and what was written about him...
• Album

This book, while offering a nostalgic panorama of Istanbul, also serves as a document that traces individual and societal memory. It continues to be an important reference book for those who wish to grasp both Prof. Dr. Aydın Kunt's personal story and the warm Istanbul of the past.