Süreyya Pasha Concert and Opera House

Süreyya Pasha Concert and Opera House

Architectural Design:
CAFER BOZKURT ARCHITECTURE

Project Team:
Cafer BOZKURT, Dipl. Architect
Ilhami KURT, Architect

Consultants:
Architectural Consultant: Ersen GÜRSEL
Art Consultant: Murat KATOGLU
Structural Engineering: Yusuf ÖZKAN
Mechanical Engineering: Kani KORKMAZ
Electrical Engineering: Ismail YELALDI
Stage Design and Decoration: Metin DENIZ, Gökhan DINC
Sound and Lighting Design: Cemil KIVANC

Client: Kadiköy Municipality, Istanbul

Contractor: PAM Construction Co.

Architectural Design: 2006
Construction Process: 2006 - 2007

The Süreyya Pasha Concert and Opera House in Istanbul, situated on Bahariye Street in Kadiköy, was built for Süreyya Ilmen Pasha between 1923-26, and originally opened on 6 March 1927. The entrance was inspired by the Champs-Élysées Theatre in Paris, and the auditorium by classical German theatres. As the stage facilities were never completed, it was mainly used as a movie theatre: “A Broadway Melody” was the first sound picture to be shown here in 1930. In 1936 an open-air summer cinema was opened on the adjoining plot where a multi-storey car park stands today.

One of Kadiköy`s first theatres, the Süreyya was strikingly different from any other theatre, particularly in terms of its foyer and auditorium. Western-style frescoes and ornaments cover the interior ceilings. There is box seating on both floors in the auditorium. The house also includes a ballroom. All along the façade, rectangular plasters with Corinthian capitals separate the windows and there are bas-reliefs and masks between them. Statues of women flank the elliptical pediment in the centre of the parapet. On either side of the door opening into the auditorium from the foyer are staircases leading to the balcony and upper floor boxes. The frescoes on the ceiling of the opera hall were painted by Naci Kalmukoglu {Kalmukov, originally Russian}. The sculptures on the façade of the building as well as those around the proscenium arch were made by Ihsan Özsoy, who is considered to be one of the first Turkish sculptors.

The building, which originally belonged to the Süreyya Pasha Foundation, has now been donated to the Darüssafaka Society. The condition of this donation was that the building be devoted to cultural uses. Under the restoration project all the alterations and additions that had spoilt the original character of the building have been removed. In this way Istanbul and Kadiköy will gain a unique concert and opera house. The building`s founder Süreyya Ilmen explains in his memoirs that his original intention had been to provide a theatre for the inhabitants of Kadiköy, but that the stage facilities remained unfinished. The empty spaces on either side had been intended for dressing rooms, rehearsal rooms, workshops and storage. This document provides a guideline for the principles of the building’s use today.

The condition of the building at the start of the project was quite damaged. The retail shops on the ground floor had expanded not only inside the building but had also modified the façade, while the tailor atelier on the second floor had inserted a mezzanine floor in the double-height ballroom, severely altering the building.

Because the originally planned stage facilities were never completed, we proposed completing the backstage structure and adding side stages in our Restoration Project. Instead of disguising this addition, we chose to separate it visually from the original structure by constructing it out of a contemporary steel and glass structure.
While no additions are typically allowed in a historic building of the first degree, this proposal was successfully approved by the Historic Preservation Committee and the following decisions were applied to the project:

- Revision and completion of the backstage facilities to fulfill the needs of a contemporary opera and concert hall,
- Revision and development of the area under the s