The design of the City hall for the Greater Municipality of Istanbul has been carried out with prior concern for the urban references of the building site, and the architectural requirements of the competition brief.

The competition site is located on a significant point along the E 5 motorway. A large portion of the site is occupied by the Independence Memorial and Independence Park, yet neither the Memorial nor the park has attained sufficient acknowledgement or appreciation by the city dwellers. Thus, the urban design decisions to be made on site attain further significance, as regards how the new buildings and the new "public space" will contribute to the existing environment defined by the memorial and park.

The proposed project consists of a building designed on an 8 x 8 m. orthogonal structural grid. The arrangement of the interior spaces presents a clear cut, simple solution that adapts to future modifications. We find it significant to note that this rationality in responding to the building programme has not resulted from a high-rise solution, but from a linear reproduction of the smallest building unit on the lateral scale. We do not conform to the prejudiced view that opposes high- rise buildings at all costs. While we think it perfectly suitable to group them together at a certain urban zone with well- defined spatial compositions, we believe it is pointless to erect a tall building hostile to the architectural context of its immediate urban setting. We claim that soaring the skies is not necessarily the only way of creating an urban landmark; symbolism may well be found on the horizontal plane.

The building is orientated towards northwest and southeast, which are the two ideal directions for Istanbul. Considering that the junction point of Ka?ythane, Çaglayan, Vatan Avenue and Piyale Pasa Boulevard will definitely become a major urban focus; the design has paid special attention to preserving a visual relationship between the junction and the Memorial, while also introducing a symbolic wall between the "public space" and the Memorial. A pedestrian road arranged next to this wall passes beneath the elevated portion of the building and thus connects the two meeting spaces.

The landscape of the park surrounding the Independence Memorial consists of a series of linear paths radiating from the Memorial. The open space defined by the building has been conceived to continue this pattern, in a more geometric order; thereby further emphasising the central role of the Memorial. The proposed plantation, which consists of tall tress and shorter, neatly shaped plants have been chosen to integrate the natural setting with the clearly linear geometry of the building itself. The shorter plants also function as a defining boundary line between the site and the Avenue.

The City Hall has been conceived as an economic and rational building that takes full advantage of new century technologies, and all architectural solutions have been geared accordingly - i.e. solutions such as net solutions in technical services; optimisation of lateral and vertical circulation; solar control on building façades, etc…

These items define the major architectural criteria according to which the design was carried out. What is more significant, however, is the fact that such buildings attained from design competitions bear the potential to promote the architecture of Turkey into the "Architectural League" of developing countries. Our highest aim is to ensure this potential