With a comprehensive exhibition, “Imagining New
Technology: Building MIT in Cambridge” in 2016, the MIT Museum brought together architectural
drawings, photographs and interviews to show the influence of the university on
cultural, economic and scientific development of Cambridge. This exhibition offered the history of education,
science, and industry in and around MIT through
rarely seen architectural textual and visual materials and uncovered how
the MIT-Cambridge Campus developed into one of the best innovative educational
and scientific institutions in the global world through its architecture,
community and its relationship with the local environment. This inspiring exhibition motivated us to unfold “Turkish Chapter at the MIT-Architecture” and
we produced a short documentary film to draw attention the significant role
diversity and underrepresented communities at this pioneering research-based
university through a case from secular and the Modern Middle East. Produced by a volunteer team, this short
documentary film aims to underline the gap in the history of women and gender
at MIT-Architecture in relation to the Republic of Turkey. This architectural
encounter merits a considerable attention to examine how architecture students from one of
the distinctive countries with their own architectural cultures in the
modern Middle East could integrate their backgrounds and potentials to one of the oldest and
pioneering architectural programs with its own techno-scientific vision and
pedagogy in the global world. Needless to say, MIT is one of
the most inspiring destinations for students, scholars and professors from this
country: According to the international enrollment statics by MIT in 2016-2017,
Turkey is the second country with its undergraduate and graduate students from
the Middle East. It is a
critical fact that the historical background of Turkish architects’ education,
their scholarly endeavor, professional practice, and life stories in the U.S.
have been still undocumented and waiting for its archival projects, systematic
and in-depth scholarly examinations within its specific time periods and
research problems. It is so crucial not only for their self-recognition in
their discipline, profession and practice but the understanding of their
contributions to the multicultural and diverse context of the U.S.
architecture. Following the end of the Second World War,
this short documentary film project provides a chronological and descriptive perspective
on four master theses conducted by graduate architecture students (1946-1964) from
the Republic of Turkey in order to raise an awareness of this subject and the
problem.
Research
based on MIT digital archive by Meral Ekincioglu
Production
by Dr. Hurriyet Aydin Ok and volunteer team of the Turkish-American TV
For
more, please: https://www.slideshare.net/MeralEkincioglu/a-short-documentary-film-on-architecture-by-dr-meral-ekincioglu,
accessed on 4.5.2019