Pomi (Potential Architecture Studio) is a studio class that has been run in the Department of Architecture of Osmangazi University in Eskisehir since 2002.

Pomi’s idea of creating a city catalogue as the subject of this exhibition stems from debates in a previous phase concerning the heritage of modern architecture arising from the desire to demolish the Kiliçoglu Cinema and Apartment in Eskisehir. In terms of modern architectural heritage, Eskisehir is a city with a considerable wealth of materials. For an urban studio project even the most basic approach of wandering from street to street taking photographs can be a contribution to feeling one’s way to making a simple documentation of these buildings. When you start finding buildings that are candidates for sharing the fate of Kiliçoglu Cinema, you realise that the worst thing that can happen to a building is not its demolition. When you consider in particular the urban transformation shenanigans of recent years in Turkey, it seems like the right time has come to make a study in black humour and the maxim “There is such a thing as worse than bad” takes on a bitter irony. Should the Kiliçoglu Cinema ever be demolished and some such thing as a run-of-the-mill shopping centre be put in its place, then it has become possible to impose an idea just like Cyrano embarking on his nose tirade, “Young blade! That was a trifle short! You might have said at least a hundred things”.

The Building Information Centre publishes a comprehensive history of Ottoman Architecture, “OTTOMAN ARCHITECTURE”, opus-magnum of Dogan Kuban, the internationally renown professor of architecture and art history.

Parallel with the political structure of the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman architecture developed at the point of intersection of Asia and Europe and of the Islamic and Christian worlds as a unique, enduring synthesis of the Mediterranean, Near and Middle Eastern traditions. Its history, presented in two volumes, contains a critical approach based on a half century of research and writing.

The main aim of the work has been to challenge the prejudices and remove the cliches regarding Ottoman history, culture and art, accumulated and repeated since the nineteenth century by foreigners and by the Turks themselves. It required an examination of the relations between social history and the history of architecture. It may be regarded as Ottoman history perceived in the mirror of architecture. The academic material required in a work of this size were gathered carefully and includes over 1000 photographs, drawings and engravings, comparative charts, maps, and lists of Ottoman vocabulary concerning architecture prepared for this edition.

The historiography of Ottoman Architecture started with the Album prepared for the Vienna Exhibition of 1873. Since then there has been an ever-increasing output of publication on its every aspect. But this is the first time an history of Ottoman architecture based on an original concept of presenting architectural history, elaborately comparative in its framework, conscious of the cultural complexities of a heterogeneous empire, has been prepared and presented to the public.