VIRTUAL ISTANBUL HERITAGE(S)

Abstract

This paper presents a first-year interdisciplinary design studio that used Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities as a lens for engaging cultural heritage, urban identity, and contextual design. Students analyzed both an “invisible” city and a real-world analog city to uncover cultural practices, social histories, and local challenges embedded within each place. Working across architecture, interior design, and industrial design, they developed multi-scalar interventions that translated their research into spatial and material expressions of heritage. The methodology foregrounded heritage not as a static artifact, but as a dynamic cultural narrative that can inform contemporary design thinking. The resulting projects illustrate a wide range of cultural grounded approaches. A pavilion for Istanbul celebrated the city’s bi-continental identity through a train depot linking Europe and Asia. In Venice, an intervention examined tensions between tourism and local mobility, proposing elevated pathways that allow fairs to occur without obstructing residents’ movement. Two Mexico-based projects addressed distinct cultural narratives: one created a communal ofrenda honoring traditions of remembrance, while another explored ancient relationships to water by proposing a temple that celebrates natural filtration processes. A Brazilian cooling station and bus depot acknowledged the lived heritage of working-class mobility. A Jaipur study investigated the city’s cosmological planning, producing a pavilion that complements its celestial architectural logics. Finally, a Tehran project examined religious and geometric design traditions to create a pavilion for prayer grounded in the city’s spiritual and architectural heritage. The studio demonstrates how literary interpretation, cultural research, and interdisciplinary design can serve as an effective pedagogical model for cultivating heritage-aware designers capable of engaging complex urban narratives.