Gökhan Avcıoğlu

In Istanbul Ortakoy district, Esma Sultan Mansion is a multi-purpose event and exhibition hall located right on the Bosporus Strait. The project uses the concept of transparency to showcase the historic brick shell while creating a contemporary interior space for events, which was built inside the ruins of a 19th century Bosphorus Ottoman yali that was devastated by fire. The design concept centers on placing a glass box behind the remaining façade walls, preserving the building's heritage while adapting it to the needs of Istanbul's modern city. The box, composed of glass walls and stainless steel with reinforced concrete columns, was designed to operate as a vibrant remnant, a functional record of bygone ages with old brick walls, as part of the "building inside a building" construction approach. This first proposal was based on a technical constructive aesthetic, which was accomplished with little adjustments in the finished structure. The bare brick walls face the Bosporus on the outside, a palimpsest on a shoreline previously dotted with these yalıs. The design addresses the issue of maintaining continuity with Istanbul's ancient urban fabric, particularly along the Bosporus, which has a rigorous building code that restricts new development to the rehabilitation of buildings that predate the mid-twentieth century.

Locating at Istanbul’s art and culture center İstiklal Avenue, Borusan Music and Art House hosts music and performance events, the visual arts, annual exhibitions, and other curatorial exhibitions. The project transformed the historic building into a multipurpose cultural center. While the modern box at its core includes a lightweight steel diagrid enabling open and flexible floor plans to facilitate events, the historic core has been restored. The building’s new functions are visible solely at street level vanishing behind the neo-classic façade on the upper floors in an ideology of the limited role modern architecture can offer in this historical urban fabric dominated by Istanbul’s 19th century past. Many artworks are attached to the building with LEDs illuminating the V columns. The project targets at symbolizing İstanbul’s colorful and artistic renaissance in a dualistic tension between past and present by preserving the city’s heritage.

Beşiktaş Fish Market project, which received Archmarathon Crowd Award 2014 and International Architecture Award 2012 by Chicago Athenaeum, offers vibrant open space use for with its wide entrances on each side enabled by the steel and concrete structure without internal columns. Being located in one of Istanbul’s most populated and diverse neighborhoods, Beşiktaş Fish Market Project's main ideology regards to its formal and conceptual organization is to achieve a public and vibrant welcoming appearance,so the surface was permeated along its periphery resulting in a dynamic overwhelming form in concrete that generates programmatic and circulation elements to easily mix and flow. The design is a modern and practical solution for this significant urban location's famous Fish Market, and it has become a proud symbol of the community's efforts to upgrade their market and area. The design that met the programmatic needs of the Fish Market as a retail outlet, but perhaps more importantly realized a modern public space with an innovative approach to form and materials in the traditional fabric of the city, working collaboratively with the primary stakeholders, the municipality, and fishmongers.

Being awarded as 2012 World Luxury Spa Awards "Best Luxury Destination Spa" and 2011 International Hotel Awards "Best Hotel Architecture", The KUUM Hotel Spa & Residences brings an innovative concept for the boutique’s lifestyle of resorts. The regional beauty, resources, and historical Mediterranean legacy inspired the conceptualization of the Hotel. The Kuum is located in Bodrum, an international destination known for its mild climate, turquoise waters, and cosmopolitan atmosphere. The resort's diverse building typologies are organized to satisfy varied programming purposes, resulting in heterogeneous zones. The zones are divided into public and private zones. Another technique to add variety is to use the senses, especially the visual, tactile, and olfactory ones. Material diversity provides visual and tactile richness, as well as a sense of wholeness via difference.

Various awards holders such as 2012 Highly Recommended Hotel Architecture, International Hotel and Property Awards, 2013 Green GOOD DESIGN Award for Eskisehir Spa & Thermal Hotel project, 2015 WAF shortlisted, 2016 Pool Vision Middle East in the category Tourism and Leisure, the project re-evaluates the city’s quite rich history and former civilizations existed on this land such as Hittites, Phrygia, Alexandria, Rome, Byzantium, Anatolia Seljuk Empire, and Ottoman Empire, and particularly Odunpazarı region that has great tourism assets with its historic texture. The idea was heavily influenced and inspired by the hot spring resources of Eskişehir. For years, the people believed that the hot water had a therapeutic effect and that anyone who sat in it for a time would improve their health; this led to a rise in the amount of attention that local and foreign visitors gave to the region. Because of the increasing growth in tourism potential, there is a demand for superior accommodations for both Turkish and foreign visitors. The project is a contemporary interpretation of the vernacular architecture and historical texture of Odunpazarı. In a hillside pine forest, there is also a hotel, a wedding venue, and guest cottages. Because of its proximity to the geothermal water source, the project site is ideal for a thermal spa. To take advantage of the land's geothermal qualities, the spa, and wellness facility are buried in the ground. The project incorporates sustainable design elements by utilizing wind and solar energy. Geothermal energy is not only employed in spas but also for space heating during the winter months, thanks to a geothermal heat pump system. “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” is a fundamental waste mitigation approach that the property adopts. Cardboard, plastic bottles, glass bottles, steel and aluminum cans, office paper, newspaper, fluorescent light bulbs, cooking oil, toner cartridges, batteries, pallets, and crates are all gathered around the facility.

Avcıoğlu is the founder and has been the principal of Global Architectural Development (GAD) since 1994. Avcıoğlu taught at the École Spéciale d'Architecture in Paris. His projects include residences, office and hotel buildings, cultural, public and commercial spaces in Istanbul, Bodrum, New Jersey, New York City, Washington, D.C., Virginia, Connecticut, Libya, Beirut, Riyadh, and Kyiv. He has offices in Istanbul, New York City, Bodrum and Dubai.ft.

He was accepted to the İstanbul Devlet Güzel Sanatlar Akademisi in 1977 and after briefly attending architecture school in Edirne, Turkey, he would instead go on to start and complete his education in architecture at Selçuk University in Konya at a distance from Istanbul. Part of the reason for his decision to pursue architectural education in Konya was that it was a relatively calmer setting in a tumultuous time in Turkish history that included the urban conflicts of the Political violence in Turkey (1976–1980) and the succeeding 1980 Turkish coup d'état. He eventually graduated with a professional degree in architecture in 1983 during an extended 7 year tenure. Towards the end of his architectural education he worked as an intern with Turkish modernist architect Cengiz Bektaş from 1981 to 1983 who was also based in Kuzguncuk, Istanbul, and later started a practice Mimarlik Hizmetleri Ltd from 1990-1994 with the architect Nevzat Sayın whom he had met during his time at the office of Bektaş. He was active in the milieu of architects and archaeologists in Bektaş's circle which prompted him to explore Central Anatolia in detail including Cappadoccia. Later he would go further east, intrepidly hitchhiking on his own through Turkey to the Iranian regions of Khorasan and Isfahan on the Silk Road ending up in Samerkand in Uzbekistan. The end of his student days was marked by his internship on the restoration project of the Uzbek Sufi Lodge in Üsküdar, Istanbul, where he worked closely with the traditional carpenter craftsman, Eyup usta, on the complete reconstruction of the historical timber Ottoman building financed in part by the Turkish-American businessman, Ahmet Ertegün. This experience with traditional building would also be a trajectory he would pursue in his professional practice.

Celal Gökhan Avcıoğlu was born in Ankara, Turkey to Selahattin Avcıoğlu, a bureaucrat and Yücel Avcıoğlu, née Erkul, a housewife. He has one sister, Serihan Avcıoğlu, who is an economist. His parents met in the Hacettepe district of Ankara while his family's roots can be traced back to Istanbul and Albania on his father's side and Istanbul, Bosnia and Thessaloniki (Selanik) in the Balkans on his mother's. His father worked as a bureaucrat for the Turkish State Railways, (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Devlet Demiryolları), and the family often travelled throughout Turkey that included visits to archaeological sites such as the Greco-Roman city of Ephesus in the Mediterranean and Aegean coasts that became an inspiration for his interest in architecture. He went to high school in Istanbul at Boğaziçi Lisesi in Baltalimani from 1974-77 with his youth primarily spent in the Kuzguncuk district of Üsküdar on the Asian side of the city. During his time living in Kuzguncuk he was able to witness the construction of the Bosphorus Bridge in the adjacent district of Beylerbeyi that motivated his curiosity for structure and structural engineering. During his time as a high school student, his interest in art and architecture brought him to take classes in sculpture at Istanbul's Fine Arts Academy - İstanbul Devlet Güzel Sanatlar Akademesi now known as Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. In construction he was influenced by the work of the many "Design Build" architects working as building contractors in Turkey in the 1970s including spending time as an intern on the construction sites of his uncle, the architect and construction contractor Tandoğan Erkul. Throughout his career Avcıoğlu in addition to his architectural practice would have key relationships with Turkey's contractors and builders seeking to advance economic and operational models for construction.

Celal Gökhan Avcıoğlu is an internationally renowned architect. He was born in Ankara, Turkey in 1960. He is the principal and founder of GAD in Istanbul, established in 1994. At GAD (Global Architectural Development), Avcıoğlu has completed a number of projects of varying function and size in Turkey and regionally.