Master architect Nevzat Sayın’s book Nasıl Yapmalı? (The Right Way to Make It?), published in cooperation with Kastamonu Entegre and Yapı Kredi Publications, now serves as the backbone of a four-week class series. Held on Mondays throughout November, the meetings revisit the relationship between architectural education and the know-how of making, guided by Sayın’s perspective.
As Turkey’s leading brand in the wood-based panel industry, Kastamonu Entegre continues to support the world of architecture with various initiatives. Throughout November, one of Turkey’s foremost architects, Nevzat Sayın, meets a wide audience—from students and young architects to anyone interested in architecture and early-career professionals—at a special Monday-evening series. The classes will continue with new sessions on 17 and 24 November.
From the Book to the Classroom
Drawing on Nasıl Yapmalı?, published this year with the support of Kastamonu Entegre and in partnership with Yapı Kredi Publications, Sayın invites participants to rethink the bond between architectural training and the act of making. The book’s account of transforming the Silahtarağa Power Plant into a faculty of architecture and a library forms the starting point for the lessons. Participants discover—through Sayın’s narrative—that architecture is not merely about drawings; construction knowledge, hands-on experience, and production processes should lie at the heart of education.
Emphasizing that, in both education and critique, the know-how of building often remains in the background, Nevzat Sayın notes: “Computer-heavy work—seemingly limitless in possibility—has come to dominate architecture schools, widening the gap between object and knowledge and turning projects into stacks of lines produced by numerical data.”
A Finale Inside a Landmark of Modern Architecture
Following the first two sessions, “Looking Within” and “Transforming,” the third meeting, “The Story of 4–6,” will be held on Monday, 17 November at Yapı Kredi Kültür Sanat Loca. The final session, “Making a Book of Building,” will take place on Monday, 24 November at Kastamonu Entegre’s General Headquarters—an important work in Turkish architectural history that bridges modern and traditional design by Sedad Hakkı Eldem and Hayri Şensoy.
Kastamonu Entegre’s headquarters in Altunizade stands among notable examples that unite modernity with tradition in Turkish architecture. Eldem’s typological façade language, the generous skylight illuminating the inner courtyard, half-hexagonal oriels on the façades, and the presence of water as a design element together make the building a distinctive work of contemporary architecture. Holding the final class at the Kastamonu Entegre General Headquarters makes visible the bond that architectural production forges with thought, place, and heritage.