Living in Turkey [antikvár]

REWORD V After numerous visits to Istanbul, my hushand and I found ourselves drawn into the Turiiisb countryside, eager to explore fiist hand some of the fascinating places we bad read and heard about - Anizara. Cappadocia, Kenya, Antalya, Alanya, and Maramaris up to Izmir. It was south of the latter, in tijeyear 1970, that we tvere destined to come upon a series of houses in niins on the shore of tioe Aegean Sea. We fell in love with tlx place - a village called Bodrum - and soon thereafter bought our home. The excitement of restating an old, charactetful house set fire to my imagination, filling tne with a great desire to re-create so many of the things I had admired in the special order of Ottoman architecture. Most particularly, I wanted to recover, as much as possible, the unique refinement that the Ottomans had captured throughout Imndreds of years of desigtjing and building. The simplicity and purity of their domestic structures, the grandeur and proportion that prevailed even on a private scale, the romantic light filtering through shuttered ivindows the sound of water- from foitntains basins wells, and, of course, the ever-present sea - accompanying the hush of quiet voices, the scented, beautifully overgroum gardens. All this filled tny dreams! While my house may be finished, it tvill never be complete, as tvas ever the state of the classic Ottoman residence. It is a living object that dmiges as the lives about it change. Still, with all the new influences that have inevitably come into the !muse, I ardently hope to have preserved some of the old traditions tljat attracted me here in the first place. Fortunately, many others are attempting the same in modem Turkey, as the ivonderful images in this boo!?, so abundantly affinn, together iiith the beautifully informed text prepared by Professor Yerasimos. I also hope that thepresetit volume will be received as both a ivitness and a tiibute to their efforts as !cell as to the traditions that inspired them, and a shared, enlaiging, pleasurable e.xperience for all who encounter it. Mica Erthgun, Bodrum, Turkey, 1992