Doğan Tekeli & Sami Sisa (pair)

1 · POSITION

Doğan Tekeli and Sami Sisa enter the Library through the architectural life of buildings that became places of hospitality and serviced residence. Their clearest residential connection is the original Valikonağı apartment building in Istanbul, subsequently redeveloped as The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Istanbul. Their hotel work also includes Ankara’s Stad Hotel, designed with Metin Hepgüler. These are different forms of authorship: an original residential commission later adapted by others, and a purpose-built hotel with a documented third architect. [5, 6, 9]

2 · WHY A JOINT CARD

The joint entry follows the partnership credited on the original project records. It does not imply that the two architects had identical careers, that every project bearing the practice name was personally designed by both, or that later alterations belong to them. The useful unit here is the documented architectural collaboration. Individual biographies and subsequent practice leadership remain separate parts of that account. [1, 2, 3]

3 · TEKELI’S FORMATION

IstanbulSMD records Tekeli’s graduation from Istanbul Technical University in 1952 and early work at İzmir Municipality under Rıza Aşkan. It also documents teaching and professional responsibilities, including the chairmanship of the Chamber of Architects in 1957. This places his design practice within a wider professional culture of municipal work, education and institutional service. Such positions provide context; the evidence for this card’s hospitality relationships remains the individual project record. [2]

4 · SISA’S FORMATION

Şeker GYO’s biographical account identifies Sisa as an Istanbul Technical University graduate of 1952 and describes early work in Istanbul’s municipal planning organisation. His career therefore also began within the practical concerns of a rapidly developing city. Read together, the biographies help explain the partnership’s broad architectural scope. Neither supports reducing Sisa to an unnamed collaborator in a practice whose public history is sometimes told principally through Tekeli. [3]

5 · THE PRACTICE ESTABLISHED

The official practice history dates its foundation by Tekeli and Sisa to 1954. IstanbulSMD identifies the original office as Site Mimarlık. The practice’s work extended across residential, commercial, administrative, industrial and transport commissions. Hospitality belongs within that larger career rather than defining the whole office. This breadth is relevant to the Library because the design of a residence or hotel can draw on experience of circulation, repeated accommodation units and complex building programmes. The last point is an editorial reading, not a documented statement of the founders’ philosophy. [1, 2]

6 · COMPETITIONS AND COMMISSIONS

Two anchor projects share a documented competition origin. Salt records the Stad Hotel scheme as a first-prize competition entry in 1964 and the Yapı Kredi foundation apartment building as a first-prize entry in 1972. This establishes competitions as a route into these particular commissions. It does not, by itself, establish the procurement history of their entire portfolio. The distinction is useful: the awards belong to project selection, while later architectural recognition concerns the wider careers. [5, 9]

7 · VALIKONAĞI: THE ORIGINAL CLIENT AND USE

Salt identifies the Istanbul project as an apartment building for the Yapı Kredi Bank employees’ assistance and retirement foundation. It credits Tekeli and Sisa and dates implementation to 1972–1975. The archival description is more precise than the shortened “bank building” language found in later promotional accounts. Its original residential use matters: the subsequent branded residences occupy a building whose documented history already belongs to urban housing, rather than a proven conversion from bank offices. [5, 6]

8 · AN ARCHIVE OF THE BUILDING

Salt preserves the original construction drawings. Detailed comparison with the redevelopment would require examining these alongside later plans. The present card does not claim that today’s layouts, materials or service spaces reproduce the original design unchanged. [5]

9 · THE LATER DEVELOPMENT SEQUENCE

Bilgili’s project account records the acquisition of the company holding the Valikonağı freehold in June 2014 and a Ritz-Carlton licence agreement in February 2019. It lists 2022 as the project’s year built and states that construction was completed and operations commenced. These are developer-published milestones for the later residential development. They should not replace the archival dates of the original building, and the 2022 field should not be read as its first construction date. [7]

10 · THE REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORS

The residences’ official architectural page identifies Tanju Özelgin with the later architectural transformation and Mahmut Anlar’s Geo_ID with the interiors. Tekeli and Sisa’s credit belongs to the original building. This division is fundamental to an accurate People record: present-day interiors and the redevelopment’s architectural interventions have their own named authors. The building connects successive practices across time; it does not collapse them into one act of design. [6]

11 · A RESIDENTIAL HOSPITALITY PROGRAMME

Bilgili describes 121 residences, including penthouse triplexes and garden duplexes. Its opening account lists shared facilities such as a pool, cinema, library and children’s spaces. Such provisions help explain the hospitality dimension of the later development: private homes are accompanied by services and collective amenities. These facilities describe the redevelopment offering. They are not evidence that the original architects designed a Ritz-Carlton programme decades before the brand became attached to the property. [7, 8]

12 · OWNERSHIP, BRAND AND SERVICE

The official residence website states that the property is not owned, developed or sold by The Ritz-Carlton and that Bilgili uses the marks under licence. The Library should therefore distinguish the brand relationship from development ownership and architectural authorship. A brand can shape the market identity and service proposition of a residence without being the author or original client of its building. Here, that separation allows the earlier architectural contribution to remain visible within a later commercial identity. [6]

13 · STAD HOTEL, ANKARA

Salt’s photographic record credits the Stad Hotel to Doğan Tekeli, Sami Sisa and Metin Hepgüler. It records a first prize in the Retirement Fund’s 1964 competition and implementation between 1966 and 1970. The record locates the building in Ulus, Ankara, and connects it with the later Radisson Blu Hotel Ankara name. This is a direct hotel-design relationship and a useful counterpart to the Istanbul residence: hospitality was part of the original commission rather than solely a later adaptation. [9]

14 · PRESERVING HEPGÜLER’S CREDIT

Hepgüler should remain a named co-author in the related house record. No division of labour among the three architects is asserted here: the archive does not assign individual rooms, façades or systems to a particular member of the team. [9]

15 · THE OPERATING HOTEL TODAY

Radisson’s current property page presents an operating Ankara hotel with 202 rooms, meeting facilities, dining and a fitness centre. It describes balconies and views towards Gençlik Park and the city’s historic setting. This confirms a contemporary hotel identity, while Salt supplies the historical architectural link. Present room counts and amenities are operator information at the research date. They should not be used as a substitute for the original accommodation schedule or as proof that no intervening alterations occurred. [9, 10]

16 · RECOGNITION BEYOND HOSPITALITY

Salt records Tekeli and Sisa’s joint receipt of the Sinan Grand Prize in 1994. The same institutional account discusses publications about their architecture, including monographs issued in 1975 and 1994, and Tekeli’s later autobiographical writing. These references establish a substantial professional and documentary context beyond the two hospitality relationships discussed here. The award recognises the architects’ wider work; it is not presented as an award specifically for the Istanbul residences or the Ankara hotel. [4]

17 · ARCHIVE AND INTERPRETATION

Salt’s 2019 programme placed the practice within a discussion of architectural publishing and the preparation of Tekeli’s archive. The surviving project records make it possible to distinguish original commissions, construction histories and later names. For the Library, that is an important methodological contribution: architectural history need not begin with a property’s latest branding. Announced digitisation totals are not treated here as proof that every planned document subsequently became available. [4]

18 · SUCCESSION AND THE PRACTICE NAME

The firm’s history records Sisa’s death in 2000 and describes a subsequent reorganisation with new partners. The continuing office is part of the partnership’s legacy, but its later commissions require their own project-level credits. In particular, a post-2000 building under the Tekeli–Sisa name cannot automatically be attributed personally to Sisa. The People card therefore avoids using the contemporary firm’s entire portfolio as if it were a list of works jointly authored by the two founders. [1]

19 · RELATED HOUSES AND PEOPLE

The confirmed residential brand anchor is The Ritz-Carlton Residences · LHL-R-222, linked to The Ritz-Carlton · LHL-222. The named Istanbul development should preserve the original building’s history alongside the redevelopment credits. Stad Hotel / Radisson Blu Hotel, Ankara supplies the second direct property relationship; no unverified individual house code is assigned. Tanju Özelgin, Mahmut Anlar and Metin Hepgüler are recommended cross-references, each for the specific contribution documented above.

20 · ⚑ CANDOUR

⚑ The original building dates conflict: Bilgili’s architect metadata gives Tekeli–Sisa “1970”, while Salt documents a 1972 competition and construction in 1972–1975. This card follows the archive for that sequence. The original programme is recorded as apartments for a bank employees’ foundation; later “bank building” shorthand does not establish office use. [5, 7]

⚑ The practice’s post-Sisa reorganisation is dated 2003 by the firm and 2004 in IstanbulSMD’s Tekeli biography. No attempt is made to resolve whether these represent different stages of the same process. Developer counts, amenities and completion statements remain attributed disclosures. Neither structural conservation nor the extent of retained original fabric has been independently audited for this card. [1, 2, 7, 8]

21 · ASSESSMENT

Tekeli and Sisa belong in the Library as architectural authors whose work supports two distinct readings of hospitality: a hotel designed for visitors and a residential building subsequently reworked for branded living. The most useful account preserves those differences. Their contribution is the documented original architecture; later designers, developers and operators explain how the buildings acquired their present forms and identities. The result is a record of continuity through change, with credit assigned to the appropriate phase rather than inherited automatically from a building’s current name.