About Us
The building is a competition project that opened in 1950 as the Central Bank building. The competition was won by the team of Orhan Bolak, Doğan Tekeli, and Ergun Unaran. Doğan Tekeli and Ergun Unaran, who participated in the competition with their projects, were university students at the time, so they entered the competition under the signature of their assistant at school, Orhan Bolak.
After winning the competition, they collaborated on the implementation projects. What makes the project special is its success in creating dignified yet youthful architecture, breaking away from the nationalist architectural quest that dominated the architecture of the period and creating airy and bright spaces with a light concrete solution, despite the contemporary, modernist stone surfaces.
The drawings in the central bank archives document how meticulously the project architects worked on every detail, producing a careful design down to the door handles. Later, Orhan Bolak trained new architects as a university instructor, Ergun Unaran signed countless projects in Izmir and served as president of the Chamber of Architects for many years, and Doğan Tekeli prepared the project for the Şato Gazinosu in Izmir, later signing countless distinguished projects as one of Turkey's most important living architects.
The original, modernist shell, whose design quality was certified by a national competition in the 1950s, was given a new function in 2011 by Derya Akdurak (Makomim) without compromising its spatial structure and preserving its originality. The design language, which was the textural and formal structure of the 1940s, a preparatory period for the 1950s, was interpreted with consideration for today's needs and comfort conditions. Based on the original drawings of the building, details that had not survived to the present day were revived and used as a source of inspiration for the new furnishings.
All of the hotel's fixed and movable furniture was specially designed, drawing on clues from the building's past and identity. In a former bank building, primarily intended to accommodate the business community, a safe and efficient sanctuary was constructed, meticulously designed and crafted with all the technical and comfort infrastructure to relax and even pamper users during their stay, amidst the stressful and intense pace of business life.
