Architects’ Own Houses: The Case of Raimondo D’Aronco
Hatice AdıgüzelRaimondo D’Aronco was a figure who made valuable contributions to shaping the late Ottoman Period and modern Italian architecture. While the buildings this architect designed in both the Ottoman Empire and Italy have been the subject of much research, his own private living spaces have generally been excluded from these studies. This article focuses on the architectural analysis of a mansion in Arnavutköy that D’Aronco restored and lived in during his Istanbul years, as well as the house he designed for himself and his family in Turin. This article evaluates these private living spaces in relation to the emergence and development of the concept of “architects’ own houses”. In this context, the article involves the individual approaches of architects who shaped their own houses, taking examples from the Western world and the Ottoman Empire during the period from the end of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century. As an architect who was sensitive to the architectural transformations of his age, D’Aronco designed his house in Turin with inspiration from architectural trends originating in England, Central Europe and Ottoman lands; this house was known as Javelli-D’Aronco and was builtbetween 1903-1906. The Ottoman housing tradition includes the mansion in which D’Aronco had lived in Arnavutköy since the early 1900s and also had an important place in his architectural formation. In parallel with his designs in Istanbul, the architect also adopted the Vienna Secession style for this building. He included some compositions in the interior decoration that would be precursors to the Art Deco style. With all these features, the architect’s own house in Turin represented a synthesis of his stylistic research reflecting a transition between East and West.
Mimarların Kendi Evleri: Raimondo D’Aronco Örneği
Hatice AdıgüzelRaimondo D’Aronco geç Osmanlı Dönemi ve modern İtalyan mimarisinin şekillenmesinde önemli katkıları olan bir figürdür. Mimarın gerek Osmanlı Devleti’nde gerekse İtalya’da tasarladığı yapılar pek çok araştırmanın konusu olurken özel yaşam alanları genellikle bu kapsamın dışında kalmıştır. Bu makale onun İstanbul yıllarında, Arnavutköy’de restore edip yaşadığı köşk ve Torino’da kendisi ve ailesi için tasarladığı evin mimari açıdan incelenmesine odaklanmaktadır. Söz konusu özel yaşam alanları “mimarların kendi evleri” kavramının ortaya çıkışı ve gelişimiyle ilişkilendirilerek değerlendirilmiştir. Bu kapsamda yazıda, 19. yüzyıl sonundan 20. yüzyılın ilk yarısına kadar olan süreçte, Batı’dan ve Osmanlı dünyasından örneklerle mimarların kendi evlerini şekillendiren bireysel yaklaşımlara yer verilmiştir. Çağının mimari dönüşümlerine duyarlı bir mimar olarak D’Aronco Torino’da, 1903-1906 arasında inşa edilen, Javelli-D’Aronco olarak anılan evini İngiltere’den, Orta Avrupa kaynaklı mimari eğilimlerden ve Osmanlı topraklarından aldığı ilhamlarla tasarlamıştır. 1900’lerin başından itibaren Arnavutköy’de yaşadığı köşkün de içinde olduğu, Osmanlı konut geleneği bu biçimlenmede önemli bir yer tutmuştur. Mimar İstanbul’daki tasarımlarıyla paralel olarak, Viyana Secession üslubunu bu yapıda da benimsemiştir. İç dekorasyonda ise Art Deco’nun habercisi olan bazı kompozisyonlara yer vermiştir. Bütün bu özellikleriyle mimarın Torino’daki kendi evi onun Doğu ve Batı arasında geçiş yapan üslup araştırmalarının bir sentezini sunmaktadır.
Since the emergence of architecture as a practice, architects have built houses for themselves. However, different from the services they provided to their customers, architects began
designing houses that conveyed their professional identities and that would be a kind of manifesto starting in the second half of the 18th century. Architect houses in the Ottoman Empire with this approach are seen to have started at the beginning of the 20th century. This article focuses on an architectural examination of Raimondo D’Aronco's own houses in Istanbul and Turin, as an architect who made significant contributions to late Ottoman and modern Italian architecture. This article examines D’Aronco’s private living spaces in relation to the emergence and development of the concept of “architects’ own houses”. In this context, the article also includes the individual approaches of architects who’ve designed their own houses, with examples from the Western world and the Ottoman Empire during the period from the end of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century.
D’Aronco carried out many projects in Istanbul, where he lived between 1893-1909. During this period, he kept close relations with the architectural environment of Europe anddesigned buildings in Italy alongside the projects he prepared in Istanbul. During the years he worked in Istanbul, the architect bought a mansion in Arnavutköy. He restored and renovated this mansion between 1901-1902 and then lived there. The architectural characteristics of this mansion have not survived to the present day but are known through some drawings and old photographs. According to these documents, the mansion was located on a high tract of land with a garden opening in terraces facing the sea. Its floor plan involved an interior-central sofa (hall). The Ottoman housing tradition, including this mansion, had left a strong impact on D’Aronco’s design practice. He also interpreted the forms of Central European, British, and
Ottoman housing culture in the houses he designed for customers from various social classes in Istanbul. He continued this approach with the house he built for himself and his family in
Turin between 1903-1906. The house, which is known as Casa Javelli-D'Aronco (named after the architect’s wife, Rita Javelli-D’Aronco) was designed by the architect himself. However,
because he was living in Istanbul at the time, his friends the engineer Enrico Bonelli and architect Annibale Rigotti carried out the construction. D’Aronco directed the construction of his house by sending project drawings and letters containing sketches to his friends from Istanbul. Various phases of the project can be traced from these drawings, which are currently
preserved in the Turin building projects archive (Archivio Edilizio di Torino) and the D’Aronco archive in Udine (Civici Musei di Udine, Galleria d'Arte Moderna). The letters he wrote from Istanbul to Turin along with these drawings helps one analyze and understand not only the design process of the building, but also the planning decisions of the designer. The architect drew inspiration mainly from English and Central European houses of the period for the floor plan and mass design of his house in Turin. He had also interpreted the sofa in the floor plans, with the bay windows and eaves on the facades referring to the Ottoman house tradition. In the decorations, he mainly adopted the formal language of the Vienna Secession, which can also be seen in many of his buildings in Istanbul. He also included compositions that were precursors to the Art Deco style in its interior decorations. Meanwhile, D’Aronco also used some unique individual expressions in his home, unlike the houses he’d designed for his customers. Through all these characteristics, Casa Javelli-D'Aronco resembles a summary of the final stages of D’Aronco's architectural career and a harbinger of the future, while also representing a self-portrait of the architect, one that reveals his professional and private life.
