Transparency as the Key to City and Architecture

In this book, architect Vedat Tokyay addresses the theory of “Visible and Phenomenal Transparency,” highly valued in urban life and architecture, through contemporary and traditional building examples, while also focusing on the issue through the lens of urban-life and humanity. He describes background consciousness as the architect's ability to imbue their structure with a totality of meanings, without using words, by creating proposals for life through spatial organization. He summarizes the background with the phrase, “it is the architect’s poem written through transparency.” He approaches the principle of spatial organization through the lens of Cubist painting, stating that it differed from classical painting because its elements "were detached from their places, dimensions, and relationships in real life and focused on conveying the meaning of the painting with a new composition," much like how architecture can no longer be done with classical spatial organization methods...

Tokyay draws attention to the analogy between architecture and cinema through the medium of "time and movement"; he links the past and future connections of lives in cinema, the state of emulating one or the other, with the connections between present-day spaces and the past in architecture. Through the medium of layering, he likens a director's concern to convey their message while shooting a film to the composition an architect creates with layers such as geometry, shell, levels of permeability, and the position of daylight in space.

While noting that the subject of “Urban Transparency” concerns not only architects but also urban planners, Tokyay emphasizes the necessity of urban democracy. According to him, this concept is about returning the right to the city to its inhabitants. That is, urban transparency. According to him, ensuring the visibility of structures that are historical-cultural heritage within the city is a necessity, and this is only possible with urban planning that adheres to the principles of transparency. Vedat Tokyay highlights the importance of the concept of “Human First” through the integration of the concepts of human-democracy, belonging, city, and history, thus bringing the book to a close by drawing attention to its main subject. In light of all this, this book not only broadens the perception of architects, urban planners, architecture students, and indeed everyone living in the city, but also reminds us once again of the kind of plane a person should inhabit to belong to a livable world, by creating new horizons and awareness.

Let’s conclude our words with architect Nevzat Sayın, who wrote the preface to the book:

“… This book, by revealing these connections, passing through permeability, focusing especially on transparency, and through specific/intensified architectural criticism based on numerous individual structures and urban-scale settlements, thoroughly clarifies the idea of transparency, enabling us to review what we know…”

Contents;

Concepts Related to Transparency
Visible Transparency and the Role of Daylight
Phenomenal Transparency