Architectural mimicry, spaces of modernity: the Island Casino, Izmir, Turkey

Abstract

This article looks through the lense of an entertainment building in Izmir, Turkey, within the larger framework of modernity and identity in order to scrutinise ways in which cross-cultural influences are mediated. The programme of the building is conceptualised as a social structure and its aesthetics as a cultural form, which work to connect localities to the processes of modernisation and westernisation in the Turkish context of the 1950s' era. The analysis exposes how the edifice operates as a spatial structure that influences cultural norms and Western behaviour through practices of entertainment and architectural design, simultaneously serving as a medium through which people could perform and express their modernity.