Reflections of the Istanbul Hilton Hotel on Mid-century Hotel Buildings in Turkey

Abstract

The 1950s indicate a period of America's influence on the world economy and culture with its post-war power. Mobility increased with developing transportation networks and emerging consumer culture, so the number and importance of hotels increased as a result of this socio-political, economic and architectural condition of the period. In the 1950s, American chain hotels emerged, and soon spread overseas, following the dominant aesthetics of the country, a version of the International Style termed as American Modernism. The spread of International Style through modern hotels was most prominent in Hilton Hotels. The first modern hotel to arrive in Turkey was the Istanbul Hilton Hotel which influenced other hotel buildings in the 1950s to follow the International Style. The Hilton Hotel was frequently accepted as a model behind the tourism discussions and the initiatives that followed were compared with it, although the spread of its architectural language created a debate in architectural circles. For this reason, the focal point of this study is the hotel buildings designed in the International Style between 1950 and 1960, which possess architectural similarities with the Hilton Hotel. The influence of the Hilton Hotel on other hotel buildings in the 1950s is investigated along with the period's tourism discussions to have a wider perspective of the Hilton Hotel's influence on tourism. The hotels selected for the study are ones that carry the aesthetical principles of the Hilton Hotel, and were built or started construction in 1950s; Buyukada Anadolu Club Hotel, Cinar Hotel, Eskisehir Porsuk Hotel, Grand Efes Hotel, and Grand Tarabya Hotel. These examples illustrate the effects of the Hilton Hotel on the development of modern tourism architecture.