Bursa Merinos Culture Center and Park

Atatürk Culture Center and Merinos Park

Bursa, TURKEY

The site of this project is the old Merinos textile factory grounds, one of the landmarks of Turkey’s industrialization process during the 20th century. Originally a public building built during Turkey’s Early Republican period and opened by M.K. Atatürk on 2 February 1938, the Merinos factory was abandoned after the year 2000 and given to the Bursa Metropolitan Municipality in 2005, to be developed for cultural and creative activities. With the financial support of the Bursa Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Bursa Metropolitan Municipality has undertaken this project to give the building and its environs new functions that meet the contemporary social and cultural needs of the growing city. This urban renewal project consists of three main parts, the Merinos Park, the Merinos Culture Center, and the Atatürk Opera House and Concert Hall.

Because of strict time constraints, the construction process started along with the design process. Specifically the infrastructural and landscape works started in 2006, as soon as the project was tendered. While the Merinos Culture Center and the Merinos Park have now come to completion, construction of the new Atatürk Opera House and Concert Hall continues as we speak.

The Merinos Park consists of 270,000 m2 Total Land, with a Landscape Area of 210,000 m2 {42,000 m2 Hardscape, 168,000 m2 Softscape}.
The Merinos Park serves the needs of the surrounding area as well as the larger urban area. With its thousands of new and old trees, artificial lake, jogging and cycling paths, seating areas, children`s play areas, cafe, snack bars and other facilities, the Merinos Park is an important, centrally located recreational complex for the city of Bursa. This landscaping project started in June 2006 and will be completed June 15th, 2008.

The Merinos Culture Center consists of a Total Construction Area of 61,800 m2, which includes the new 9,600 m2 Parking Garage and a Ground Floor Area: 36,240 m2.
The former Merinos Factory building, that had lost its practical and technical functionality, constitutes the main site of this re-use project. The newly transformed Merinos Culture Center houses the following cultural facilities: A music conservatory, art galleries, art studios, library, textile and silk museums. This renewal project started in June 2006 and will be completed June 15th, 2008.

The Atatürk Opera House and Concert Hall consists of a Total Construction Area of 44,600 m2, with a Ground Floor Area of 5,750 m2.
The Atatürk Opera House and Concert Hall has been designed to integrate both formally and functionally with the new Merinos Culture Center and Park. It will include a concert hall seating 1800 people and designed for opera, ballet and symphony orchestra performances, an auditorium seating 800 for conferences and concerts, a smaller concert hall seating 300 people, a ballroom with a capacity for 1000 people, galleries, a cafeteria and other facilities. When completed it will be a new cultural focal point for Bursa.
Situated in front of the east façade of the Merinos Culture Center, the Atatürk Opera House and Concert Hall faces the pedestrian walkway that arrives from the east across the park. Volumetrically the building opens up at this point to create a public plaza underneath its broad metal roof that addresses the surrounding urban fabric and invites citizens to use the Merinos Culture Center and the new Opera House as a whole.