The autobiography of Doğan Tekeli, one of the leading figures of Turkish architecture in the Republican era, Çebiş Evi’nden Hisartepe’ye [From Çebiş House to Hisartepe], has been published as part of Yapı Kredi Publications’ Literature / Life series. Doğan Tekeli was born in Isparta as the eldest child of a civil servant’s family. After spending his formative years in İzmir and Istanbul, he graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at Istanbul Technical University in 1952. He worked for sixty years at the Tekeli-Sisa architectural practice, which he founded with Sami Sisa. Having previously detailed the specifics of his professional life in the book Mimarlık: Zor Sanat  [Architecture: A Difficult Art], Tekeli has now turned his attention to his own story. Çebiş Evi’nden Hisartepe’ye is an autobiographical book. Doğan Tekeli recounts his fascinating memories in a delightful style, whilst also holding up a mirror to Turkey’s social transformations, politics and economics, and public–private sector relations from the perspective of the architectural profession.

From the back cover of the book:

“Simply writing down my professional memories was not sufficient for me when it came to my life. In truth, writing felt difficult to me because I approached it as if working on an architectural project, constantly revising what I had written. Nevertheless, as I consider myself part of the first generation of the Republican era, I wanted to share the environments in which I grew up and the conditions of the time, yet at the same time I found myself asking, ‘Why should my life story interest anyone?’ I was caught in a dilemma. I began to enjoy recalling my childhood, the two-hundred-year-old Çebiş House where I was born in Isparta, and the old Isparta. Many details were as if right before my eyes. I began to write from one end.”

— Doğan Tekeli