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OrhanPamuk'sMuseumofInnocence:onarchitecture,narrativeandthe artofcollecting
AalyaAllmer
ArchitecturalResearchQuarterly/Volume13/Issue02/June2009,pp163172 DOI:10.1017/S135913550999025X,Publishedonline:12November2009

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history
A novel by Orhan Pamuk describes an obsessive collector and his ctional museum. The novelist also constructs a real museum which reects on the novel, narrative and collecting practices.

Orhan Pamuks Museum of Innocence: on architecture, narrative and the art of collecting
Aalya Allmer
It was the happiest moment of my life, I didnt know, begins Orhan Pamuk in his novel The Museum of Innocence, translated into English in October 2009. The Museum of Innocence is the most recent novel by Pamuk, Turkish novelist and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature (its Turkish title is Masumiyet Mzesi, 2008) [1].1 The Museum of Innocence is the story of an obsessive love, which takes place in Istanbul between the 1970s and 2000s. Although it features a large cast, The Museum of Innocence is essentially the story of Kemal, a 30 year-old businessman, who falls in love with his beautiful distant relative, Fsun. To compensate for not being with her, Kemal collects everything Fsun touches, from cigarette butts to handkerchiefs. The novel concludes when he makes a museum of these collected objects, most of which Kemal appropriates from Fsuns house between 1975 and 1983. At the outset it is important to note that the novel is the first part of a much larger project modelled on the interplay of collecting, storytelling and memory. The Museum of Innocence is the title of both a novel and a museum. In other words, The Museum of Innocence is a real museum which is actually going to open in ukurcuma, Istanbul in 2010. It is a museum curated by Pamuk, or more accurately, by the fictional character named Kemal. In this museum the visitor can see, among other items catalogued in the novel, Fsuns earrings, her yellow shoes, ashtrays and a tricycle. For the readers of the novel who might want to visit this museum, a black and white map has been printed on the last page of the book (MM, 587) [2]. Likewise, on page 574 of the novel is a printed ticket which offers free access to the museum [3]. One has to remember that Fsun is a fictional character and so are the objects described in the novel. In reality, Pamuk himself collected these objects from antique stores, flea markets and collectors during the six years he spent writing the novel. Pamuk sometimes acquired objects before describing them in the novel and sometimes he found an object by chance after he had written about it. A childs tricycle, for example, is mentioned in seven different scenes but the object intended for the museum was found and acquired later.2

1 1 The frontispiece of The Museum of Innocence

Fsuns house in ukurcuma Pamuk bought a dilapidated property in the ukurcuma district of Istanbul in 1999. A threestorey house with a bay window, built a hundred years ago, it is similar to that which he describes in the novel as Fsuns family house. In the 1970s, ukurcuma residents were mostly low-income families (as Fsuns family), in contrast to those in Pamuks own home district Nis antas (that of Kemal as well), Istanbuls most prestigious quarter. Today, ukurcuma with its twisting, narrow alleys has become one of Istanbuls historic neighbourhoods with numerous antique shops. In this sense the
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2 Spreads showing the area map of ukurcuma 3 The museum ticket 4ab Photographs of Pamuks property before and after renovation

characteristics of The Museum of Innocence, with its vintage toys, old postcards, weird objects and accessories, echo the ambient milieu. In the novel Kemal finds an excuse to visit this house for eight years, four or five days a week, or exactly 1,593 times. He visits the family as a relative, helping them financially. He watches Fsun carefully and, when no one is looking, he puts, for example, a trinket in his pocket. During these visits, we learn
Aalya Allmer Orhan Pamuk's 'Museum of Innocence'

that the Fsuns live on only the first and second floors of the house, renting the ground floor. The first floor has a living room, kitchen and a back room with a little balcony where Fsun likes to paint the birds that settle momentarily. It is not until towards the end of the novel that Kemal has the opportunity to go to the second floor. When the chance of happiness is torn away, Kemal buys the house to devise a museum with the aim of

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4a

4b

transforming time into a space (MM, 524). Kemals obsessive collecting is unlike that of a typical collector who acquires porcelain eggs or match boxes; instead of building his collection in an atmosphere of clandestineness and concealment, of secrecy and sequestration, which in every way suggests a feeling of guilt, Pamuk wants Kemal to be proud of his love.3 Pamuk, in Kemals words, argues that that the urge of displaying items in a museum is normally powered by pride (MM, 548). Kemal is proud to present to the public his happy life or his obsession with Fsun in his museum. Kemal hires architect hsan (Mimar hsan) for the conversion of the house, and moves into the top floor during construction. In the last pages of the novel, he explains in detail how the museum should be designed. For example, he specifies that only fifty people at a time can visit, the inclusion of a gallery in the middle so that all displayed items can be seen at the same time, and a caf which would allow lovers to meet. He also mentions that chewing gum should be allowed in his museum. In reality, Pamuk hired the architect hsan Bilgin to convert the house into a museum (Bilgins name is mentioned twice in the novel, also included in the index of characters at the end of the novel) [4ab]. Bilgin, a well-known architect and historian in Turkey, is also a childhood friend of Pamuk and grew up in the same street in Nis antas. Indeed, Pamuk himself studied architecture for three years at Istanbul Technical University from 1975 to 1978. At the end of his third year, he gave up studying architecture and went to journalism school, graduating but never working as a journalist.4 At the age of 23 he devoted his life to writing, and has published nine novels, an autobiography and an

edited book.5 In Istanbul, Memories and the City (his autobiography) Pamuk explains this change from architecture and painting to writing in detail.6 It is interesting to note that Pamuk hired Bilgin in 1999, long before writing the novel. From then on, Pamuk wrote and collected the items to be exhibited in the museum. Drawings of the renovation project from Bilgins office [56] show that the interior of the building was gutted and a new plan devised. The staircase has been removed and replaced with a running stair which allows a gallery in the middle. In an interview with the architect, Bilgin explained how Pamuk initially wanted to keep the original plan but was later convinced that a new organisation was necessary for visitor circulation.7 After this debate with the architect, Pamuk writes the end of the novel accordingly. This is, perhaps, the first example of an architectural project shaping the end of a novel [7]. I should also point out that there is a gap in time between the Turkish publication of the novel and the opening of the museum. The museum is scheduled to open in 2010, giving readers around two years to finish the book. Pamuks world of collecting Pamuk, in Kemals words, devises The Museum of Innocence as a catalogue of notional objects which represent Kemals love for Fsun. When Kemal decides to prepare a museum-catalogue (or novel) of the objects displayed in his museum, he asks his distant relative Orhan Pamuk to oblige, like the novelist himself in real-life. Instead of classifying the objects in a typical museum catalogue, Kemal wants the writer Orhan to embed the objects into a narrative. At the beginning of the novel, in the 1970s,
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5 Diagrams showing the renovation, before and after 6ab First floor plans, before and after renovation

6a

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Orhan was a young novelist as was the author himself in the late 1970s. In fact, Orhan was also at the engagement ceremony of Kemal and Sibel at the Hilton Hotel, and had the chance to dance with Fsun once (MM, 140). Therefore, in Kemals eyes, Orhan was a good choice to write his love story because he was also touched by Fsuns beauty (MM, 569). Against the backdrop of bourgeois Istanbul, Pamuk describes many objects or belongings of
Aalya Allmer Orhan Pamuk's 'Museum of Innocence'

Fsun. The reader creates a series of these everyday objects in his or her minds eye, such as decorative dog statues, earrings, etc. These objects are not necessarily works of art. Pamuk ends each of his descriptions: The [ ... particular object] will also be exhibited in our museum. By means of this narrative strategy, Pamuk sensitises the reader to the museums collection. The novel thus becomes an exhaustive catalogue of Fsuns more and less

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7 Perspective showing the interior gallery

practical belongings, similar to the publishing projects of the private collector Eduard Fuchs.8 Pamuk has said in interviews that he cares about the informative, encyclopaedic quality of the novel.9 He devotes one major section of his autobiography to the historian and encyclopaedist Res at Ekrem Kou (IMC, 15169).10 Kous best known work is his Istanbul Encyclopedia where he documents Istanbul in volumes from A to Z with many stories and sketches sourced from newspapers, libraries and Ottoman documents.11 Likening Kous unfinished Istanbul Encyclopedia to those curiosity chests that were so popular amongst European princes and artists between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, Pamuk says, to turn the pages of the Istanbul Encyclopedia is like looking into the window of one of those cabinets: even as you marvel at the seashells, animal bones and mineral samples, you cant help smiling at its quaintness (IMC, 165). Pamuk, in Kemals words, is openly sympathetic to collectors and their collections. The Museum of Innocence is, in fact, not just a novel but also a symbol of Pamuks passion for collecting. Pamuks model collector seems to be the German philosopher Walter Benjamin, a passionate collector himself, who thinks that collectors accomplish the renewal of existence [through] the whole range of childlike modes of acquisition, from touching things to giving them names.12 Benjamins understanding of collecting was different from that of Jean Baudrillard, who regards collecting as a tempered mode of sexual perversion.13 In an interview Pamuk explains the argument of the novel:

We are attached to objects because of the experiences, joys or feelings of security, of happiness, of friendship, whatever we may enjoy in life, because we relate these emotions to corresponding objects. My protagonist is deeply in love, I would say infatuated, with Fsun; he had enjoyed immense happiness. Now, in order to preserve this, or relive this, he gets close to her and collects objects that remind him of those moments. I strongly believe that we collect objects because they make us remember our good moments.14 Kemals commitment to his idea of founding a museum for Fsuns belongings acts in accordance with what Benjamin describes as the objects fate (Schicksal). Benjamin writes that, for a true collector the whole background of an item adds up to a magic encyclopedia whose quintessence is the fate of his object.15 Fate, in his understanding, relates everything that can be known or interpreted about the object. That is why Benjamin calls collectors the physiognomists of the world of objects.16 From the museum of the mind to the museum in ukurcuma Resonating with Benjamins thinking, Pamuk links every object throughout the novel to the complete story. In doing so, Pamuk not only makes us grasp the obsessive nature of Kemals love but also proves his own artistry. Take, for instance, the quince grater, one of the objects that transcends its functional account and acquires a new set of meanings in the novel. Pamuk writes about how Kemal walked away with the quince grater in his pocket after a day when Fsun and her mother cooked quince jam. To be
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reminded of the smell of the jam and that particular day they spent together, Kemal puts the grater in his pocket. On the way back home, the police stop him (a common situation in Istanbul in the 1980s) and cant understand why hes carrying the grater. As becomes clear, Pamuks narrative layers events from the collective past of Turkey. The relationship between history and space is a recurrent theme in Pamuks work. With the quince grater, the novel invites the reader to discover Turkeys past and culture. Later in the text, the quince grater crops up again when, years later, Fsuns mother asks Kemal about it when she wants to cook the jam again, implying she knew that things had been disappearing. To see a real grater in the actual Museum of Innocence, however, is something completely different. The reader of the novel visualises the grater in his or her mind, actually creating each object in his or her unique vivid imagination. In the actual museum, however, the grater becomes a tangible, objective reality. When the reader sees the real object in the actual museum, their dynamic and active imagination is then stilled or frozen. What happens if the readers imaginative constructs greatly differ from the objects displayed? More importantly, what happens if the museum visitor has not read the novel? Apparently, Pamuk wants the visitor to read the novel, since a ticket has been printed on page 574. Accordingly, Pamuk, in Kemals words, informs us that, by showing the ticket to the museum guard, you can get in for free. Pamuk explains the relation between the novel and the museum in an interview: The enjoyment of the novel and the enjoyment of the would-be museum are two entirely different things [] The museum is not an illustration of the novel and the novel is not an explanation of the museum. They are two representations of one single story perhaps.17 Pamuks comments address my questions about the enduring problems of representation of a narrative
Aalya Allmer Orhan Pamuk's 'Museum of Innocence'

8 Orhan Pamuk, as shown in a museum in the webpage of the novel

9 Back cover of the novel

story in terms of space. Pamuk himself certainly does not wish to be seen as the architect or curator in an attempt to adapt his narrative.18 It is a commonplace in film adaptations of novels that the film turns out to be a disappointment. Aware of the difficulties of translating a verbal narrative that unfolds in the imagination of the reader into an architectural space, Pamuk wants the objects to represent the story in their own way. If you take these everyday objects at the practical level, the visitor to the museum will be disappointed. Transcending their functional account, the object becomes part of the museum collection. Furthermore, objects are not seen as things themselves but acquire new meanings. The Museum of Innocence should not be considered as an architectural adaptation of the story. In other words, spatial experience in the museum is not going to act as a translation of his narrative (although successful examples of this can be found in the history of museology). The narrative space of the novel is the city of Istanbul, as is usual in Pamuks work.19 Pamuks novel provides a rich frame of reference to Istanbul, a city of ruins and of end-ofempire melancholy, as he called it in Istanbul: Memories and the City (IMC, 6). Besides Fsuns house, there are many literary spaces narrated in the novel, either real or imaginary: the Merhamet apartment where Kemal and Fsun met 44 times and had sex; the ballroom of the Hilton Hotel where Kemal and Sibel were engaged (described in forty-seven pages); the beach house where both Sibel and Kemal spent three months in pain; Pels caf where Kemal, Fsun and her husband hang out together in a vain attempt to shoot a film. Fsuns family house in ukurcuma is an important space but it is only one of the spaces where the narrative unfolds. And yet it is the one

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Fsun has lived; in a way she has touched it as well. In that sense, it makes perfect sense when Pamuk buys the house; he wants to keep it as it is to present the house as a museum object. What is unique is the role that the confrontation between the word and image plays in The Museum of Innocence. Pamuk explains in an interview how radio reporters of football games taught him to listen to something and imagine it at the same time when he was a child. He explains that: In the late eighteenth century, Goethe traveled to Italy, where he saw Leonardo da Vincis Last Supper. At the time, people in Germany had heard of the painting but had no visual concept of it. He returned to Germany and wrote about it. There is a Greek term for this called ekphrasis, or expressing an image in words.20 Literature traces the term ekphrasis to the legendary Shield of Achilles in the Iliad.21 In Picture Theory, William Mitchell argues that there are two different instances of ekphrasis: (1) the conversion of the visual representation into a verbal representation, either by description or ventriloquism; (2) the reconversion of the verbal representation back into the visual object in the reception of the reader []22 Seen in this way, Pamuk practises both of Mitchells instances of ekphrasis. Yet he is not satisfied; he practises a new instance of ekphrasis by displaying the objects in a museum.23 In doing so, Pamuk constructs three different ways of existing. The first is the novel which is the written text; the second is the image that the reader of the novel paints in the minds eye; and the third is the museum in ukurcuma which resembles an eighteenth-century Wunderkammer (cabinet of curiosities) more than a modern museum.

The art or craft of contriving The Museum of Innocence is a project that arises not only from Kemals commitment to Fsun and his collection of objects, but also from Pamuks commitment to his novel. Pamuk, in an interview, calls himself a museum person and it seems that there is a lot of Kemal in Pamuk when, towards the end of the book, he visits all these museums. Pamuk explains: I share his [Kemals] sentiments of going to small museums, where you can explore your passions, most preferably in a sleepy museum garden. The whole world and the present are left behind. We are in a different atmosphere, a different time; we are almost wrapped in a radically different aura of almost being outside of time [] Its so crucial for the making of this book.24 In the last hundred pages of the novel, Kemal travels to museums around the world exploring the art of exhibition. Likewise, during the course of writing this novel Pamuk visited many museums, particularly small private collections. In the webpage for the book, there is a collection of photographs showing Pamuk visiting museums like the Willet Holthuysen Museum in Amsterdam, the Ava Gardner Museum in North Carolina and the Balzac Museum in Paris [8].25 Also, on the back cover, Pamuk is seen in the Gustave Moreau Museum in Paris [9]. The dichotomy of fact and fiction is always a part of the fabric of Pamuks work. More importantly, Pamuks novel is translated into architectural discourse, creating the illusion of an obsessive love story being real. But the only thing that might be called real in this situation is Pamuks not only passionate but also innocent game in which we participate while visiting the museum.26 Through Pamuks pen, we are drawn into the story that Fsun and Kemals love exists. Fiction becomes confused with reality and what we thought was an imaginary love story slips into our lives. Pamuks novel changes reality in the sense that it both invents and discovers it.27 The novel is a genre of fiction, and Ann Jefferson and David Robey define fiction as the art or craft of contriving, through the written word, representations of human life. One can argue that architecture follows the same path.28 The art or craft of contriving, in this sense, is similar to that addressed by David Leatherbarrow in his recent article World Making. He argues that architecture shares with the other arts the task of world building [] while concrete and palpably manifest, a created world is also a fabric or framework of ideas; likewise a structure of habits, a pattern of memories and aspirations, perhaps even of symbols, set out in narrative or as a story.29 The Museum of Innocence exemplifies how invented worlds can orient and organise our lives. If we visit Istanbul and go to the Museum of Innocence on a Saturday afternoon to see the objects that Kemal collected over the years, we realise how Pamuk is tied to Kemals actions and emotions. At the end of the novel, after passionately kissing Fsuns photograph and carefully putting it in his pocket, Kemal tells the writer Orhan in the last sentence of the novel, Everyone should know, I had a very happy life (MM, 586).
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Notes 1. Orhan Pamuk, Masumiyet Mzesi (Istanbul: letis im Publishing, 2008). A German translation was published two weeks after its Turkish publication. See Orhan Pamuk, Das Museum der Unschuld, translated by Gerhard Meier (Munich: Hanser Verlag, 2008). For its English translation, see Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence, translated by Maureen Freely (New York: Knopf, 2009). The Turkish edition will be cited as MM in the text for all subsequent references. 2. Orhan Pamuk, As kndan Mze Yaratan Adamn Hikayesi (The Story of a Man who Built a Museum for his Love), 2 September 2008. <http://arsiv.ntvmsnbc.com/news/4 57412.asp> [Accessed 30 June 2009]. 3. Jean Baudrillard, The System of Objects (London: Verso, 2006), p. 88. 4. Pamuk confessed why he did not become an architect in Orhan Pamuk, Why Didnt I become an Architect?, in Other Colors: Essays and a Story, trans. by M. Freely (Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2008), pp. 30311. (In Turkish, teki Renkler: Seme Yazlar Ve Bir Hika ye, 1999). Pamuk explains, I understood at once that they would never let me make the sorts of buildings I wanted in those streets. But they would not object if I shut myself up in my own house and wrote about them (p. 308). 5. Orhan Pamuk, Cevdet Bey ve Og ullar (Cevdet Bey and His Sons) (Istanbul: Karacan, 1982); Orhan Pamuk, Sessiz Ev (The Silent House) (Istanbul: Can Yaynlan, 1983); Orhan Pamuk, Beyaz Kale (The White Castle) (Istanbul: Can Yaynlar, 1985); Orhan Pamuk, Kara Kitap (The Black Book) (Istanbul: Can Yaynlar, 1990); Orhan Pamuk, Yeni Hayat (The New Life) (Istanbul: letis im, 1994); Orhan Pamuk, Benim Adm Krmz (My Name is Red) (Istanbul: letis im, 2000); Orhan Pamuk, teki Renkler: Seme Yazlar Ve Bir Hikye (Other Colors: Essays and a Story) (Istanbul: letis im, 1999); Orhan Pamuk, Kar (Snow) (Istanbul: letis im, 2002); Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Hatralar Ve Sehir (Istanbul: Memories and the City) (Istanbul: Yap Kredi Kltr Sanat Yaynclk, 2003). 6. See Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the City, trans. by M. Freely (New York: Knopf, 2005). Originally published in Turkish as Istanbul: Hatralar ve S ehir The English edition will be cited as IMC in the text for all subsequent references. 7. hsan Bilgin, Mimarnn Ag zndan Masumiyet Mzesi (The Museum of Innocence through the Words of its Architect), 29 September 2008. <http://www.arkitera.com/h34579mimarinin-agzindan-masumiyet-

muzesi.html> [Accessed 30 June 2009]. 8. Walter Benjamin, Edward Fuchs, Collector and Historian, in Selected Writings, Volume 3 19351938 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2002), pp. 260302. 9. Orhan Pamuk, Orhan Pamuk with Carol Becker, The Brooklyn Rail (February 2008) <http://www. brooklynrail.org/2008/02/express/o rhan-pamuk-with-carol-becker> [Accessed 09 July 2009]. 10. Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the City, pp. 15169. 11. Pamuk explains: He was powerless because just like those pure collectors who rate things not according to market value but rather subjective value he was sentimentally attached to the stories he spent so many years digging out of newspapers, libraries and Ottoman documents. A happy collector (usually this is a Western gentleman) is someone who regardless of the origins of his quest is able to bring order to his assembled objects, to classify them in such a way that the relationship between different objects is clear and the logic of his system transparent. But in Kous Istanbul there was no museum comprising a single collection. See Orhan Pamuk, Res at Ekrem Kous collection of facts and curiosities: The Istanbul Encylopedia, in Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the City, pp. 15169. 12. Walter Benjamin, Unpacking My Library: A Talk about Book Collecting, in Illuminations, ed. by Hannah Arendt, trans. by Harry Zohn (London: Fontana, 1973), p. 63. 13. In his early book The System of Objects (1968), Jean Baudrillard starts with the definition of objet as anything which is the cause or subject of a passion; figuratively par excellence the loved object. Every object has two functions, says Jean Baudrillard, to be put to use and to be possessed, p. 86. 14. Orhan Pamuk, Spiegel Interview with Orhan Pamuk, Der Spiegel Online (16 October 2008) <http://www.spiegel.de/internation al/europe/0,1518,584586,00.html> [Accessed 21 January 2009]. 15. Walter Benjamin, Unpacking My Library: A Talk about Book Collecting p. 60. 16. Ibid., 6061. 17. Orhan Pamuk, Winning the Nobel Prize Made Everything Political, Deutsche Welle Interview (7 September 2008). <http://www.dw-world.de/dw/ article/0,2144,3621369,00.html> [Accessed 21 January 2009]. 18. The German architects Brigitte

and Gregor Sunder Plassmann are given the task of curating the museum. 19. On the representations of Istanbul in The Black Book, see Beyhan Bolak Hisarlgil, Constructed Space in Literature as Represented in Novels. A Case Study: The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk, unpublished master thesis, Middle East Technical University, Department of Architecture, 2000. 20. Orhan Pamuk, Football is Faster than Words, Spiegel Interview Online (6 April 2008) <http://www.spiegel. de/international/europe/0,1518,557 614,00.html> [accessed 21 January 2009]. For the definition of ekphrasis, see James Heffernan, Ekphrasis and Representation, New Literary History, 22, no. 2 (Spring 1991), 297316. See also James Heffernan, The Museum of Words: The Poetics of Ekphrasis from Homer to Ashbery (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). 21. For a survey, see Grant F. Scott, The Rhetoric of Dilation: Ekphrasis and Ideology, Word and Image, 7, no. 4 (OctoberDecember 1991), 30110. 22. For an extended account of this verbal strategy, see W. J. T. Mitchell, Ekphrasis and the Other, in Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation (University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 15181 (p. 164). 23. It is not by chance that Pamuk is teaching a course with Andreas Huyssen at Columbia University called Words and Pictures (2007), which, in Pamuks words, examines problems of visual representation in literature, particularly theories of ekphrasis. Orhan Pamuk with Carol Becker. 24. Orhan Pamuk, Im for Europe, Democracy and Freedom of Opinion, Der Spiegel Interview Online. 25. The official site of The Museum of Innocence is at <http://www.masum iyetmuzesi.com> (in Turkish) [accessed 7 July 2009]. 26. All a writer needs, for Pamuk, is paper, a pen and the optimism of a child looking at the world for the first time. Orhan Pamuk, Other Colors: Essays and a Story, front matter. It is also important to note that the word innocent or innocence are not mentioned thoughout the novel Museum of Innocence. 27. On this topic see Paul Ricoeur, The Function of Fiction in Shaping Reality, in A Ricoeur Reader: Reflection and Imagination, ed. by Mario J. Valds (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), pp. 11736. 28. Ann Jefferson and David Robey, Modern Literary Theory (London:

Aalya Allmer

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Batsford, 1996). 29. David Leatherbarrow, World Building: Skirkanich Hall, by Williams and Tsien, Architectural Theory Review, 14, no. 1 (2009), 3254. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Orhan Pamuk for writing The Museum of Innocence and changing my world. I am also indebted to Adam Sharr and the anonymous reviewers for their many constructive comments and

suggestions and, finally, hsan Bilgin for kindly providing his drawings. Illustration credits arq gratefully acknowledges: Orhan Pamuk, 1, 2, 3, 8, 9 Cemal Emden, 4 Bilgin Architectural Office, 5, 6, 7 Biography Aalya Allmer studied architecture at the Middle East Technical University and the University of

Pennsylvania, where she did her Ph.D. At present, Allmer is an Assistant Professor at Dokuz Eyll University in Turkey. Authors address Dr. Aalya Allmer Dokuz Eylul University Mimarlik Bolumu Tinaztepe Yerleskesi Buca Izmir 35160 Turkey

Orhan Pamuk's 'Museum of Innocence'

Aalya Allmer

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