Gökhan Karakuş is an Istanbul and New York based designer, curator, entrepreneur, historian, educator, architecture critic and theorist who focuses on the indigenous in modern architecture and design. He is noteworthy for his design work in biophilic design and his history of design in Turkey in the postwar period. As a designer he work in design in stone, digital and biophilic design including biourbanism. As a curator he has focused on locality in design and placemaking in public space leading to the realization of environmental graphic design.
Early Life
Gökhan Karakuş, was born on April 10, 1966 in Nusaybin, in the province of Mardin, Turkey, the son of engineer, Kadir Karakus, and teacher Aysel Karakus, née Sakarya. He has a sister Neslihan Karakus Eames. Gökhan Karakuş grew up in various locations in Turkey in the 1960s while his father, a mechanical engineer, was working in the construction of dams and power plants for the Repulic of Turkey State Hydraulic Works (Devlet Su İşleri Genel Müdürlüğü). His family is from the the Central Anatolian town of Niksar, Tokat, famous for its Medieval Turkish Islamic architecture from the Danismend Period in the 12th and 13th century which made an early impression on Karakus motivating his lifelong interest in architecture. His family would eventually emigrate to the United States in 1971 where his father had completed his graduate school education at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He attended Westwood High School in Washington Township, New Jersey, graduating in 1984.
Education
He studied architectural history and theory at the Columbia University and Vassar College in New York. At Vassar College, he was an International Studies major advised by the the modern European historian Hsi-Huey Liang while concentrating on architecture with the African American architect Jeh Vincent Johnson and the history of modern architecture with the architectural historian Richard Pommer. Karakus was exposed to Vassar's rich collection of modernist buildings such as Ferry House by Marcel Breuer, Noyes House by Eero Saarinen and the Brutalist Chicago Hall by Schweikher and Elting. He would later move to New York City to study initially in 1989 at the Ph.D. Program in Art History at the CUNY Graduate Center Graduate Center with art historian Rosalind Krauss and German architectural historian Rosemarie Haag Bletter. Deciding to focus on the history and theory of modern architecture he would transfer Columbia University in 1991 to pursue a Ph.D. in architectural history and theory in the Department of Art History and Archaeology in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences under the direction of his advisors Robin Middleton, Barry Bergdoll and Mary McLeod. At Columbia he would also work on this eventual focus on architecture and technology with the architect Sulan Kolatan in the scope of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation where the Dean Bernard Tschumi had introduced Post-Structural and technology oriented curriculum into architecture.
Work
Karakus would eventually move to Istanbul, Turkey in 1997 where he was an entrepeneurial leader in the creation of the internet industry setting up Turkey's first ISP in the management team of Superonline and as CEO and Founder of Turkey's first technology incubator, incubaTR. Later he would go on to be Founder and Director of Emedya Design, an interactive and environmental design studio that produces design projects, exhibitions, publications and research in the areas of environmental graphic design, way finding, architecture, computational design, craft and design history for corporate and government clients.
He would continue to write about architecture as a critic on architecture and design focusing on the architecture and design in Turkey in relation to the local and vernacular. He was a regular contributor to leading global publications on architecture, such as The Architect’s Journal, Architectural Record, Dwell and Wallpaper and in Turkey for Icon Turkey; from 2011-2015, he was the Editorial Director of Natura, Stone Architecture, and Interiors.
Curation
As a curator, he was Founder and Research Curator at the Architecture and Design Archive Turkey at Salt. He would curate with Pelin Dervis the exhibition, "The Performance of Modernity. Atatürk Kültür Merkezi, 1946 - 1977" at Salt Galata that would later be exhbited at the Turkish Pavilion of the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2014. He has curated many exhibitions on design and architecture in Turkey and internationally at events including in London at the London Design Festival, Milan at Design Week, Moscow at ArchMoscow, New York City By Design in New York as well as exhibitions in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and Bodrum. He is a co-founding curator of the Danish based collectible design online site, Adorno.design.
Architecture and Design
Karakus' personal practice area of design includes architecture in stone, computational design, collectible design, digital fabrication, spaces for wellness and biophilic design. His design work brings together mathematics and geometry in pattern in the traditions of abstraction found in stone and ceramic architecture and design of Turkey and the East.
Design and Mathematics in Natural Stone
Karakus' design in the 2010s focused on in stone mosaic murals and 3 dimensional tiling methods. His “Hyperarchaic Tectonics: Looking back to move forward in design and architecture”, an exhibition of marble mosaics was initially presented at London's Studio 62 (September 16th-October 24th, 2014) during the London Design Festival 2014. Hyperarchaic Tectonics was based on research on how computational design rejuvenates the ancient art of mosaics through the application of advanced mathematics and digital fabrication methods. Aperiodic tiling based on the infinite but never repeated geometric patterns last used in architecture in the medieval Islamic era, were presented as a new idiom for architecture and design today using computation. These marble murals suggest expansive spatial and tectonic geometries organizing and expanding the vocabulary of contemporary design through mathematics. The marble mosaic murals and sculpture in this series seen at this exhibition in London and then at the Istanbul Design Biennial 2015 were produced through a collaboration between research partners and engineers, Adams Kara Taylor II of London and Silkar Stone of Istanbul, Turkey.
Teaching
Karakus has taught design and architecture at Istanbul Technical University (1999-2014), Politecnico di Milano, Milano, IAAC Summer School, IAAC-Kadir Has University, Bilgi University, Istanbul, Medipol University, Istanbul and Abdullah Gül University, Kayseri as well being guest critic at Pratt University and University of Pennsylvania - Weitzman Architecture.
Awards and Advisory
Karakus is reviewer and nominator for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture and The European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award. He has been on the Advisory Board for the Turkish National Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennial (2014), Istanbul Design Biennial (2016) and Design Week Turkey, (2018, 2019).
GAD Foundation
Karakus has been Consulting Director at the GAD Foundation of Istanbul, Turkey, founded by the architect Gokhan Avcioglu in 2014 since 2017. At the GAD Foundation, Karakus has coordinated a number of exhibitions and publications including:
"New Publics: Contemporary Architecture and the Public Sphere in Turkey"
The rapidly expanding urban context and real estate development activities in Turkey in the 21st century generated a series of important public buildings for culture, education, sports and public space with distinctive and exemplary architecture.This architecture was the focus of an exhibition entitled “New Publics: Contemporary Architecture and the Public Sphere in Turkey” that took place at the Arch Moscow 2019 XXIV International Exhibition of Architecture and Design held from 15 to 19 of May, 2019 at the exhibition hall “Manege” in Moscow. Organized by the GAD Foundation and Moscow architecture practice SPEECH led by Sergei Tchoban and co-curated by architecture critic Gokhan Karakus and Anna Martovitskaya - chief editor of speech: magazine , the exhibition aimed to expand the notion of public architecture as civic minded and spatially inventive design.
"Alpaslan Ataman - Timeless Architecture"
The exhibition “Alpaslan Ataman - Timeless Architecture” exhibition opened at GAD Gallery in Nisantasi, Turkey, in March 2021, curated by Gokhan Avcioglu with the consultation of Gokhan Karakus. Alpaslan Ataman was an architect, researcher and intellect, a crucial figure who connected Ottoman urbanism to our modern world. He provided research in the form of his drawings of Ottoman architecture that analyzed the planning and organization of this history based on spatial typology. This exhibition was the first time Ataman’s archive was opened to the public. The GAD Foundation has collected his drawings from the last 40 years into an “Open Archive” to show his unique output and working method, March 18 - May 3, 2021 at GAD Gallery, Tesvikiye, Istanbul, Turkey.
GAD Documentary Films, Bodrum
The architecture critic Gokhan Karakus as presented and guides leading viewers in this documentary film series on the natural and historical features of GAD's projects in Bodrum, Turkey presenting a synthesis of architecture and landscape that is the principal architectural strategy of GAD and Gokhan Avicoglu. In these films, Karakus critically noted the continuity between history and contemporaneity as GAD's architecture presents a modern mode of living in and amongst the archaeological remains and natural topography of this ancient region on the Bodrum Peninsula. The GAD Documentary Films, Bodrum, films' photography emphasizes the design, atmospheric and ecological features of the Turkish Aegean coast that is the subject of this documentary film series by the GAD Foundation with Istanbul Media Production on GAD architectural projects in Bodrum from 2009 to the 2021.
Realized Architectural Design Projects
Zorlu Center Wayfinding, 2011
42 Maslak Wayfinding and Exhibitions, 2015
Quasar Wayfinding, 2018
Memorial Bahcelieveler Wayfinding and Public Art Curator, 2018
Semt Piyalepasa Public Space Curation and Wayfinding, 2020
Gulbaba Parki, 2021
Published Works
Tasarıma Türk Dokunuşu - Turkish Touch In Design, Edited by Özlem Alkan Karakuş, Nurus, Istanbul, 2007.
‘Handmade Modernity’: A Case Study on Postwar Turkish Modern Furniture Design" in Global Design History, Edited By Glenn Adamson, Giorgio Riello, Sarah Teasley, Routledge, London, 2011.
Contemporary Turkish Architecture in Stone - Çağdaş Türk Mimarlığında Doğal Taş, foreword by Hanif Kara, Edited by Özlem Alkan Karakuş, İstanbul Maden İhracatçıları Birliği, Istanbul, 2015.
"Modern Ceramic Design in Turkey" with Gamze Güven, Edited by Pelin Derviş as part of “Design Chronology Turkey | Draft”, 3rd Istanbul Design Biennial Curated by Mark Wigley and Beatriz Colomina, Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts, Istanbul, 2016.
"Hyperarchaic Tectonics: Looking Back to Move Forward in the Making of Form and Space." in Journal of Biourbanism (2015) Volume III #1&2/2014, International Society of Biourbanism, Rome, 2014.